Book Review: The Winner’s Crime by Marie Rutkoski

If you won’t be my friend, you’ll regret being my enemy

I liked The Winner’s Crime much better than the last book in this series. Overal the serie is going upwards in quality.

Book Review: The Winner’s Crime by Marie Rutkoski

Rating:


Title & Author: The Winner’s Crime by Marie Rutkoski
Genre: Fantasy, Adventure
Release Date: March5 2015
Series: The Winner’s Trilogy
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Synopsis

The engagement of Lady Kestrel to Valoria’s crown prince means one celebration after another. But to Kestrel it means living in a cage of her own making. As the wedding approaches, she aches to tell Arin the truth about her engagement… if she could only trust him. Yet can she even trust herself? For—unknown to Arin—Kestrel is becoming a skilled practitioner of deceit: an anonymous spy passing information to Herran, and close to uncovering a shocking secret.

As Arin enlists dangerous allies in the struggle to keep his country’s freedom, he can’t fight the suspicion that Kestrel knows more than she shows. In the end, it might not be a dagger in the dark that cuts him open, but the truth. And when that happens, Kestrel and Arin learn just how much their crimes will cost them.

I gave The Winner’s Crime by Marie Rutkoski four out of five hearts because I think it is better than The Winner’s Curse because It was much more intriguing and in the same great universe as The Winner’s Curse.

I was confused however when Arin travels east to Darca. I understand that the Herrani need allies, but it came a bit out of nowhere after the events of the bite and sting game and the rumours.

After the events of The Winner’s Curse the world is better divide between the Herrani and the Valorians. I liked the characters that came from that act, like Tensen for example he is funny, too bad they kill him in the end.

Kestrel is such a great character. During the first novel she is torn between going into the army and marriage, by the end of the book she choses marriage to safe Arin and now that she is betrothed she lies and cheats her way through court. She lies herself into deeper and deeper problems and doesn’t see the trap before she falls into it. But I did like the truce between her and her betrothed.

Arin is a brute. He just rubs me the wrong way and is sometimes slow to realise things that are important to see.

I was very sad to see some of the characters that I liked in the last book where only mentioned during this one and nothing really was done with them, like Jess and Ronan for example.

Over the story was great, again. This novel was most definitely better than The Winner’s Curse and it made me curious for the next one.

Let me know what you thought of this book!
If you have any requests for which book I should talk about next, please let me know in the comments down below.

For now, let books enrich your life!

Goodreads
Author

Leave a Reply