The Heart of Betrayal by Mary E. Pearson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Mary E. Pearson is so efficient with these novels; they are by no means short and yet she gets literary and narrative work done at every turn, developing characters, describing landscapes, and painting an incredibly vibrant, violent, and volatile world. In this second chapter, tough heroine Lia is captive in Venda, scraping at every turn for survival, even as multiple forces tug and push around her.
I am always spare of my reviews in sequels and trilogies so not to spoil surprising details; I will say this is a fully satisfying bridge novel in a three-parter. In book 1, Lia — the “First Daughter” of her kingdom, fled with her BFF and attendant Pauline to a picturesque harbor town where she met two men, Kaden and Rafe. Turns out they were both looking for her too. One was her would-be and now-abandoned husband, the other an assassin assigned to take her out for the good of a third, more barbarous land.
In this novel, Lia finds herself in said barbarous land, captive, grasping for a foothold, power, and survival, all while balancing the interests of three dynamic and potentially dangerous men, and struggling to understand a deeper undercurrent of magical foresight and knowledge rooted in an almost-banished mythology of their world. We learn new things, the characters develop, there are shocking surprises and satisfying moments, and I am super excited to read book 3!
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