Finally rereading this trilogy after SO long and i’m having a great time!! These books are not for everyone but they definetly are for ME. 

 
”Some say the Queen was frightened in her last moments. But I like to think that she was angry.”

I think Rielle and Eliana are strong, complex and well written narrators and i enjoyed reading from their perspectives. I’ve seen reviews saying they were too unlikeable but that’s actually what i liked about them; how flawed and human they are. 

I think a big theme of this trilogy is to explore the darkness humans have inside us but also the light because we are not so black and white to be one or the other but both. 

In Eliana’s time Rielle has been painted as this heartless monster —the blood queen — but as we read her POV we see that she has more layers to her than that. Rielle is power hungry and greedy but she is also deeply lonely and seeks acceptance and validation above anything after having been denied it for so long.

Eliana, the dread of Orline, is a raised killer with innocents’ blood on her hands. She is selfish and invincible, killing to protect her little brother and mother. Having stifled her emotions, she hides her remorse and repulse behind a facade of indifference and sarcasm. I liked the slow development of her character and how she over the course of the story finds her repressed empathy and

grows into the role of the sun queen.

I’ve always found Rielle’s and Corien’s dynamic so intriguing and i really enjoyed reading their interactions. Corien is such an intresting villian. He’s manipulating, charming and calculating. The absolute opposite of my darling Audric who is a loyal, sweet bookworm and utterly devoted to Rielle. I’ve always thought of it as Audric bringing forth Rielle’s light and Corien prying at Rielle’s darkness and manipulating it to his gain while Audric just accepts every part of Rilelle because he truly loves her that much.

When i read this book for the first time i remember wanting to know more about Simon because i found him to be a little of a mystery. I think Claire Legrand sets up his character well and i liked the contrast between the young sweet Simon we know from Rielle’s time and the sharp edged simon from Eliana’s time and it made me want to know more about him/what happend to him. I also really enjoyed his and Eliana’s back and forth and banter. 

I really liked the excerpts at the beginning of each chapter. I think they make it easier to become familliar with the world in a digestible way. I liked how we get to know the world at a slower pace and how there’s still things we don’t know yet in the first book. The magic system and the angels are really cool!! Personally I didn’t find the time difference between Rielle and Eliana to be a problem, I liked how we get to see the effects and consequences Rielle’s time had on Eliana’s. I also like how they’re still sort of tied together with

Corien being the emperor, Eliana the Sun Queen and Simon a marque from the old world.

Altough the story is predictable at some points,

(for example with Eliana being the sun Queen which I don’t know If we were supposed to know about from the beginning or failed as a plot twist?)

I still liked the other twists in the book

like Corien being the emperor, Eliana killing her mother and Ludivine being an angel.

 

I like how normalized queerness is in these books and how casually mentioned it is. Both Eliana and Rielle are bisexual. EVEN though both of their love intrests are men it doesn’t make them any less bisexual for that and their attraction for women is potrayed in the books.