Heart of Thorns by Bree Barton
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
**3.5-stars**
Mia Rose lives in the River Kingdom, where her Father is the Captain of a guard that hunts Gwyrach, evil women who possess magic.
The Kingdom is hoping to banish all magic from within its borders and Mia Rose, a lover of science, wants nothing more than to assist with that pursuit. A Gwyrach killed her Mother after all; she wants revenge.
Unfortunately, that’s not really a common profession for women in her kingdom. In fact, there is only one woman currently serving in the guard.
Additionally, Mia’s Father has different plans for her. Needing an alliance with the royal family, he pledges his daughter’s hand to the Prince.
Although the last thing Mia wants is to marry Prince Quin, she is willing to make the sacrifice in order to save her younger sister. She knows her Dad is going to get the alliance he wants one way or another; either with her hand or Angelyne’s.
Going forward with the wedding, Mia has secretly plotted an escape, for her and her sister.
As the ceremony gets underway, a shocking turn of events ultimately exposes the fact that Mia possesses the very powers she has vowed to destroy.
How is that possible? The powers of the Gwyrach are passed on from mothers to daughters. What does this mean about Mia’s own Mother?
Mia is forced to team up with Quin in her search for answers and as with many Princes and unwillingly brides before them, sparks begin to fly.
Heart of Thorns is a nice, solid story. I’ve had it on my shelves for a while and I’m glad I finally got around to picking it up.
In my opinion, it falls on the younger-side of YA; more of Tween category, or for Readers just delving into YA Fantasy, but that’s absolutely fine. Those Readers deserve good stories too!
The narrative contains a lot of the usual YA Fantasy tropes, but it also had a strong feminist undertone that was well done and that I appreciated.
I enjoyed the characters, Quin, most of all, and never felt bored or lost. It read quickly and although, at times, predictable, there was one giant reveal at the end that left my jaw on the floor!
This had an exciting conclusion and I am looking forward to continuing on with the series.
Marking this one in the books as another successful BACKLIST BUMP!!!
