When I first heard about this book I was very excited. A dystopian starring descendants of the current English royalty? Awesome. Royalty in danger, hiding amongst the common people to save their family and retake the throne? It’s like the what I love about fantasy in a dystopian setting. Yes please.
A series of natural disasters has decimated the earth. Cut off from the rest of the world, England is a dark place. The sun rarely shines, food is scarce, and groups of criminals roam the woods, searching for prey. The people are growing restless.
When a ruthless revolutionary sets out to overthrow the crown, he makes the royal family his first target. Blood is shed in Buckingham Palace, and only sixteen-year-old Princess Eliza manages to escape.
Determined to kill the man who destroyed her family, Eliza joins the enemy forces in disguise. She has nothing left to live for but revenge, until she meets someone who helps her remember how to hope—and to love—once more. Now she must risk everything to ensure that she not become… The Last Princess.
Unfortunately I was mostly disappointed. Sigh.
The book had the potential to be all that I was hoping it to be. The prose was decent, the characters intriguing, the world building and the setting were all awesome but it was just lacking something. Everything felt so incredibly rushed.
Before we knew it people were dead and Eliza was out on the streets. Then she barely had any time to take in being on the streets before she was in the army that wanted to kill her. And after two days in the army she was in love with someone. To me, it felt like I was reading an outline of a story that could have been great if there had been more to it.
I still mostly enjoyed it. It’s fast read that never really stops moving the plot forward and if there’s a sequel, I’ll probably read it but I don’t know. I was just wishing for more. Especially at the end when Eliza becomes this great leader and such. I needed more of that. I wanted to see her realize that she had truly embraced her royal lineage and would make a great Queen if things went sour.
A lot of the individual moments in this book were good but over all I wanted more from the plot and the character development.