Sofia's Reviews > The Kiss of Deception

When someone shoves a book in my face and tells me it's high fantasy, I expect a few things.

1. A thought-out plot
2. Worldbuilding
3. Characters with brains
4. Good writing

According to my checklist, this book is not a high fantasy. It's a.... *checks notes* hastily put-together, jumbled mess of trite tropes traditionally categorized as fantasy. So.


1. A thought-out plot

Princess Lia, terrified of being forced into an arranged marriage, runs away to live a peaceful life by the sea. Because no one will be able to track her. Not even the King's soldiers. And obviously no one in the peaceful town by the sea knows what the missing princess looks like. Nothing about this plan could go wrong. Nothing... at all...

Enter the Prince and the Assassin, who just happened to show up at the same peaceful town by the sea, *the convenience is painful* searching for Lia. The Prince isn't old or decrepit like she was afraid of - he's handsome (oh wow, who would have ever thought). Lo and behold, the Assassin isn't too bad to look at, either! Could... there be... a love triangle? Could... both men... fall in love with Lia? *suspense*

This is the plot up to 15%. And after that, here's what happens.

1. Lia does laundry
2. Lia chops onions
3. Lia bemoans her fate, because how could she possibly choose between the prince and the assassin? There are definitely no other, more important things to worry about.

I'm not joking. This is the entire plot after 15%. *sigh*


2. Worldbuilding

This is supposed to be fantasy. I think. But there's no worldbuilding; just a vague semblance of it.

What I'm given is a bunch of random terms shoved in my face. Of which I remember approximately zero. Because there's no context at all, just names. One might have thought a fantasy novel needed a world...




3. Characters with brains

The characterization in this book is sooo sloppy. It's like a copy-paste of every other 2000s YA fantasy.

We have Lia, who is exactly like every protagonist out there. She risks the peace between nations because she's worried that the prince might be ugly. And she ruins a perfectly good family heirloom while doing it. She's so predictable that I can guess every thing that comes out of her mouth, and I'm alarmingly good at it.

We have Pauline, Lia's maid, who throws away her perfectly comfortable life with a perfectly kind man to run away with some teenager who has no idea what she's doing. And then she has the nerve to say that this man "will know where she is no matter where she goes," because he "knows her like no other." Excuse me?

We have the Assassin (I lowkey forgot his name), who is also the worst killer in the entire history of killers. He's supposed to murder Lia, because she's risking the peace between kingdoms. But the moment he looks into her ~gorgeous eyes,~ he's lost to lurve. And suddenly he doesn't want to kill her, because she's like no other girl he's ever met before... *gags*

We have the Prince (haha, forgot his name too), who is just... he doesn't exist to me. He has absolutely no personality. I don't even know what to say about him because he's as shallow as a puddle. There's no character complexity here.


4. Good writing

This was just alarmingly, painfully bad. Everything is told straight to my face. There's no depth. And the dialogue is horrible and cheesy and predictable.

I also found a number of plot holes. Lia and Pauline escape too easily, especially since two kingdoms are counting on them. They basically steal a horse and gallop away into the sunset.

And then they ride their horse through a stream to "conceal their tracks." *snorts* A horse is HEAVY. There is MUD at the bottom of a stream. And WATER PLANTS. Smashing water plants and stirring up mud and probably breaking your horse's leg by making it walk over stones is not going to help you at all. But Lia gets all happy because she's being so "clever." And Pauline's like "my lady, you are truly intelligent. So majestic."



The descriptions were lazy, the pacing was so off, and their entire escape sequence was two pages long. It felt so hastily put-together, as if the editing team just fell asleep in the middle of reading this over. I don't blame them. I would be asleep, too.

DNF
0.3 stars