The Kiss of Deception (The Remnant Chronicles #1), Mary E. Pearson

My sister recommended this book to me as the series has an element or two that she felt was similar to the series I'm writing. Namely, there are free willed gypsies in this book and mine. The similarities end there. This is essentially a story about a princess who does not want to marry an old prince to secure an alliance and a stronger peace between their kingdoms. She wants to marry for love and live a life of her own making. She does not want to be a pawn for her father, believing she does not have the "gift" that would allow her to lead people to safety? Honestly what the "gift" really is isn't all that clear but she thinks she doesn't have it anyway. Her intentions sound noble, right? Not really...

I did not like this book for the vast majority of it to be completely honest. When the character you are supposed to empathize with is not sympathetic, it's hard to really like her. Lia is a princess. She is in an arranged marriage where she has not met her soon to be husband. She assumes he is old and ugly because she sees the father of the man she is supposed to marry and he's old. So her logical next step is to run away just before she is taken to the alter. I have a problem with this.

My problem is that she assumes all these things and then does something very selfish. She's a princess and comes from a place of privilege and then throws a very, very costly tantrum. I don't mean in wedding expenses either. I mean she ruins an alliance that would help her kingdom and her people and the whole time she only thinks about herself.

I get it, it's romantic. To run away from a role you don't want to play so you can love someone of your choosing, to have a life of your choosing. But I never felt like she didn't have that. Your introduction to Lia is her running away and it bothered me from the onset and took a very long time for me to get over it, and even then I didn't really.

I didn't get over it because two men chase her down, an assassin and the dude she was supposed to marry. Who is not old, by the way, and apparently a master soldier, handsome, and very charming. And the assassin? Oh he's such a conflicted soul! He's got kind eyes! And you see where this is going right? Because it was painfully obvious from the onset that both of these guys would fall for Lia. And they do. And she falls for the prince! The man she ran away from in the first place without every knowing it, making one bad decision even more colossal when the evil, barbarian empire that the assassin hails from, manages to capture them both and take them back to their home base.

It was about that point where I almost stopped being annoyed by Lia. But the story was predictable and not in an entirely good way. Being predictable is fine when things end the way you want them to and you have characters you want to root for. I didn't care to root for Lia all that much, I felt bad for the prince a bit, and the complicated assassin I found mainly boring. I may be alone in this though, my sister really enjoyed the book and the love triangle they developed.

The story ends on a cliff hanger. Not the kind of cliff hanger where you generally feel like things got resolved but damn! Something amazing is coming next! This is the kind of cliff hanger where it ends just when things get started. And suddenly, I'm annoyed all over again and giving this book a 2.5 out of 5 stars. The author is good and her story flows, it's just predictable and I felt Lia was the spoiled princess she insisted she wasn't the whole time. I'll probably read the next in the series... my sister is persistent like that. Maybe The Remnant Chronicles will redeem itself, only time will tell and it's not the next book on my reading list so it will have to wait!