A cursed woman.
A powerful prince.
A forbidden love, and an empire hanging in the balance…
Decades ago, the High King of Sundolia waged a war that vanquished the Serpent clan and drove them out of the empire, reducing them to nothing more than legends spoken of in occasional frightened whispers.
But they did not leave peacefully.
Their parting gift included curses that now rest within the empire’s soil, beneath the shade of its jungles, treading through the waves of its seas. Growing more and more dormant as the years pass under the rule of that increasingly tyrannical high king.
Until Alaya– a young woman with a hidden Serpent mark who shouldn’t exist –accidentally wakes one of them up.
Then another.
And suddenly she finds herself exiled from her adopted village and left with no choice but to seek the truth about her lost clan and the so-called curses they left behind. About her true home. About a power, stolen from the Serpent goddess herself, that is supposedly resting in that home. It is the sort of power that could help her overthrow a king, expose the lies he’s told, and put a stop to his wars.
The crown prince of Sundolia claims he wants to put a stop to those wars with her. That he only wants to help her find that power so he can undo the horrors his father has created. All they have to do is find a way to trust each other.
But the closer they get to that power, the more complicated the truth– and the trust –becomes. The more dangerous Alaya’s waking power seems. And the more she begins to wonder.
Can you still be the hero if you were born a curse?
Genre: Young Adult Fantasy
Series: The Serpents and Kings
Author: S.M. Gaither
Publisher: Self-Publish
Amazon:
The Queen of Cursed Things
Source: Kindle Unlimited
Publisher: Self-Publish
Pages: 482
Date: 09.12.19
“The ending!”
It started out really good and poetic, which I thought was interesting. A uniqueness to the author’s way of writing. A few errors were here and there to break me out of the magic and to be honest, the book felt so fancy at one point that seeing an error was that jarring.
Alaya was pretty present, pretty free-flowing. She stuck to her goals. I like that the romance was subtle, that people were pretty realistically gritty. No heavenly morals here. A few inconsistencies came up for me in the pacing and while it’s small enough to not go into detail, it was big enough to catch my attention and change the mood.
Overall good. Amazing dark magic and curses. The prelude will probably be my favorite of all times.
Source: Kindle Unlimited
Publisher: Self-Publish
Pages: 476
Date: 12.29.19
DNF
I think I waited too long to get to this because I wasn’t as excited. The covers are gorgeous and I liked the first one. The world and the idea of it was great. It was unique. The curses and the whole setting, man!
But when I opened this book and started reading, a lot of it felt so… slow. The prologue didn’t pull me in, nothing connected to the ending that had blown me away. I was disappointed, and since I’m a mood reader, I found myself wanting it less and less. The heroine didn’t even pop up frequently at the start, making the prince feel like he was the main dude, and I didn’t start this trilogy because of him. I ended up skimming just to find out how the story went and that’s when I knew I needed to stop.
I really hate DNFing a book so I’m hoping to have the patience to try this again.
Kole.Writes 