Review: The Traitor's Kiss

The Traitor's Kiss by Erin Beaty
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I understood before I began that this one probably wasn't going to be a favorite; contrary to many of the reviews, however, it wasn't terrible. I listened to the audiobook and, while the narrator wasn't terrible, the attempt at male voices gave me some serious chuckles.

Main Characters: 3/5
Sage, our main character, was just mediocre for me. I could tell that Beaty was really trying to create this characterization of her as an insightful, rebellious young woman. I got those elements, but for some reason, it struck a false note for me.

Secondary Characters: 2/5
The secondary characters weren't well done. I really struggled to differentiate members of the prospective brides and the group of soldiers. Our villain is also one-sided and flat, lacking any full development. And this is such a minor issue, but why did they all have such modern name when the world was very medieval? Read: Sage, Alex, Charlie, Ash...

Plot: 2/5
Meh. There were some interesting elements, but generally, I was unimpressed. The conflicts felt forced, the twists were easy to catch, and the plot has been done a million times before.

Writing Style: 3/5
I'm pretty neutral on the writing style. The novel definitely started out slow, and the pacing of the first few chapters was difficult to overlook. I also was often jolted out of the story by some anachronisms that didn't see to go with the worldbuilding. Overall however, I didn't have strong feelings about the writing style.

Ending: 2/5
Pretty unimpressive, honestly. There were some elements of strength in Sage that I really enjoyed seeing but there was a character death that felt rushed and unnecessary, and I just wasn't that impressed overall.

Total: 12/25 = 3 stars


(view spoiler)[ Summary:
SO- in a world where matchmakers arrange almost every marriage, Sage Fowler is not ready to change who she is to be married. She lives with her aunt, uncle, and cousins after the death of her parents (who were lower-class? Can't really remember what the deal was there). She is very smart and tutors her cousins as well as local orphans. Her uncle sends her to the local matchmaker, where she proves unmatchable, but the matchmaker decides to take Sage on as an apprentice, since she can tell how insightful Sage is.

Sage's main task is to help the matchmaker and a group of girls traveling to a different city, accompanied by an escort of soldiers due to some political conflict. Sage tries to gather information about the soldiers for matchmaking purposes, but ends up discovering that there's a traitor within the country who is using marriage and dowries (read: armies and money) to assist the enemy nation of Kimisar. The Captain of the army escort grows suspicious of Sage because she's snooping around, but when she starts dallying with the mysterious "Ash Carter", he begins to trust her. Ash is apparently the bastard son of the king, and he puts Sage to work helping them spy.

NOW- toward the end of the novel, we discover that the Captain (Alex Quinn) has been Ash Carter the whole time (and Sage is super upset about this). I honestly got pretty confused by all the false identities, so I won't even try to dive into them. Basically though, Sage is upset, but she eventually forgives Alex.

But back to the plot- Sage works together to help stop the traitorous Duke in his path (tell me why this novel is called the Traitor's Kiss again? Sage def doesn't make out with the Duke...). In the process, Alex believes she's been killed and goes searching for her. His little brother Charlie is killed by the Duke (for really no reason- I was pretty upset at how they treated Charlie in this novel).

Anyway, Alex kills the Duke, they stop the rebellion, the king gives Sage the position of tutor for his kids, and Sage refuses to marry Alex right away, but says they'll marry in 3 years. Yay- everything is right with the world. (hide spoiler)]

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