The Caged Queen (Iskari Series, book 2)
By Kristen Ciccarelli
Blurb:
Once there were two sisters born with a bond so strong that it forged them together forever. Roa and Essie called it the hum. It was a magic they cherished—until the day a terrible accident took Essie’s life and trapped her soul in this world.
Dax—the heir to Firgaard’s throne—was responsible for the accident. Roa swore to hate him forever. But eight years later he returned, begging for her help. He was determined to dethrone his cruel father, under whose oppressive reign Roa’s people had suffered.
Roa made him a deal: she’d give him the army he needed if he made her queen. Only as queen could she save her people from Firgaard’s rule.
Then a chance arises to right every wrong—an opportunity for Roa to rid herself of this enemy king and rescue her beloved sister. During the Relinquishing, when the spirits of the dead are said to return, Roa discovers she can reclaim her sister for good.
All she has to do is kill the king.
The Caged Queen is a second book to The Last Namsara in the Iskari Series.When I started this book, there was an immediate difference. The perspective of the first book was Asha, the sister to Dax. This book is Roa’s perspective who is the wife of Dax. I did not expect this change at all. To begin with, I didn’t like it but I did grow into this change. Although overall I would have liked to stick with Asha more. I’m hoping the next book will be Asha.
Another difference with this book was the lack of dragons in it. I was a bit disappointed by this.
One thing I particularly loved about this book was the book itself. It had such a beautiful cover and I was glad to order the hardback from USA, so that it matches the first book of mine. I also loved the pages, when there was background story this would be on grey decorated pages and they were really pretty. My only problem with those pages was there was no page numbers. But at least the chapters were usually short.
I also appreciated in this series was the names. They were all short and easy to remember names such as Roa, Dax, Theo, Essie etc. It was a nice break from the last book I read with the easy to mix up names.
The main story of this book is that Roa’s sister Essie, had died from falling off a roof trying to help Dax. Because of this, Roa hates Dax as she thinks it was his fault. However, Essie spirit hadn’t fully crossed so she is living inside a white hawk. Roa has heard stories of a knife that can bring people back from the dead and she wants to use that on Dax. Of course though Roa is blind to the truth of everything and so things take twists and turns. I liked the overall storyline a lot, even though sometimes Roa was frustrating when she couldn’t see the truths.
I think I would like to read more from Kristen Ciccarelli, as I love her style of writing. It’s very descriptive and reminds me a lot of Cassandra Clare; my favourite author. I look forward to the final book coming out late this year. I wonder what it will be about but most importantly will it be a new perspective or Asha’s or Roa’s or even maybe both. It’ll interest me to see where it goes.
*SPOILERS*
One of the things I appreciated in the book was how it started the same way as it ended. Dax asleep in an important meeting. The book explains that he does this to give Roa the chance to wear the crown basically. So when he’s snoring in the meeting at the end of the book, it just feels good knowing what he’s really doing. These scenes reflected how Dax was misunderstood at the beginning.
One of the characters I didn’t like was Theo, he was Roa’s original fiance. He was an aggressive man and I just didn’t picture him right for Roa.
One of the storylines I knew Dax was being misunderstood was Lirabel’s pregnancy. It was meant to look like Dax got her pregnant. My theory was that either loved Lirabel so it would be understandable, or that someone else got her pregnant and he was just a good friend to her. It turned out to be my second guess, although I didn’t expect the father to be Roa’s brother.
My favourite scene in The Caged Queen was when Dax and Roa shared their first kiss in the library. This was a very passionate scene and it was good seeing Roa take down her walls for a moment and get carried away in the act.
The worst scene in the book was when Roa slept with Dax to steal his key to sneak Rebekah and her men into the castle. It’s such a horrible way to betray someone and even though she decided to not kill him in the end, I’m surprised he still loved her afterwards.
Overall, as much as I enjoyed it I didn’t enjoy it as much as the previous book. I think I prefer Asha as the main character. So for this reason I’m giving it 4 stars instead of 5 like I did for the first book. I’m hoping the final book will blow me away though. I also hope she’ll write some other series too.
Rating: 4 runes out of 5
written by Lauren
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