I really wanted to love this book based on what I’d read in the synopsis. It sounded badass - a woman fighting for her rightful throne against those who would oppress women and are determined to overthrow the matriarchal ways in which their clan historically operated. 

However, maybe it’s just my lack of knowledge of how these types of clans work, or the fact that I didn’t know until 30% in that this was inspired by HOTD, but I had to slowly piece together the fact that **the main characters in this book are related**. If that’s going to be the case, it absolutely needs to be mentioned in the content warnings of the book before it starts, and it wasn’t. And I’m not talking distant relations, I’m talking third cousins (technically, half third cousins). Again, if I’d known this was HOTD inspired, I could have maybe assumed this going into it. But I was caught off guard and left wondering for the entire book if they were related, which absolutely affected the experience of reading it. I did guess early on that they were third cousins, but it’s never fully explained well enough to say one way or another. I resorted to reaching out to the author to confirm. Again, it needed to be stated explicitly in the CWs or at the beginning of the book, not assumed that the reader will understand the clan lineages based on the vague information that’s provided. This was just my experience, so I’d be interested to know if anyone else had this experience. 

It’s also very clear that this is HOTD inspired. There are changes made, but if you’ve seen the show (I haven’t read the book), I think it’ll be clear where the inspiration was drawn from. Sometimes to the point that it felt too on the nose.  

Finally, I just felt like the plot was too rushed for the romance to have happened realistically. I wish we’d had more time to develop the relationship, but it just felt like one thing happened after another so quickly and by the time the romance starts, I found it hard to believe that it would have actually happened given what was going on around them and to them. 

Overall, this was a classic romantasy, with typical character arcs (though again, I wish we’d gotten more development) and a brutal cliffhanger. I did enjoy the plot, it was fun and the characters had good banter and the enemies to lovers appeal, and I really do think if I’d known what I was getting into ahead of time I would have had better expectations for what it would be, but the lack of clarity and my issues with the inspiration and pacing made this a three star for me. All in all, a fun, quick read and I’ll be picking up the second book when it’s out to see it through.