The Empress of Xytae by Effie Calvin
My Rating: ★★★★
In a kingdom strongly blessed by Reygmadra, the goddess of war, Princess Ioanna was quickly not welcome in her family. You see, she was blessed by Iolar, the god of law. Between Ioanna’s extremely strong blessing making her a truthsayer and being the heir to the throne, she’s led a very lonely life that is lacking love from her own family. Things quickly take a turn for the worse when her father dies in a duel and her younger sister decides she’s the rightful heir and decides it’s time for Ioanna to leave, dead or alive.
I’ve loved this series from the very beginning, so I was excited to start this novel since it involves a time jump. When we last saw Ioanna, she was a kid being delivered to safety as a plot to kill her was being defused. Now she’s going to be the empress of Xytae, but only if she gets enough people to back her claim to the throne as she prepares to battle her sister’s army.
This time around, we meet Ioanna as she’s meeting the runway princess of Vesolda, Vitaliya. It’s clear that Vitaliya is the love interest from the very start even though she’s hungover and unable to find her room. Once things go south and it’s clear that Netheia is planning to kill her older sister, Vitaliya becomes caught up in Xytae’s problems as Ioanna is forced to flee the kingdom. I loved watching their adventures and see them slowly fall in love while fleeing and getting to safety.
It was really interesting to see Ioanna face a very harsh reality as she learns the truth about her kingdom: it’s falling apart. Along the way, she also learns she’s stronger than she thinks now that she’s standing up on her own, and that there are many people willing to support her once they learn the truth of her blessing that she’s been ashamed of her entire life. It’s not something she accepts easily, especially since she’s torn between whether or not her mother knows what’s been going on and if it’s been hidden from her.
I also loved seeing some familiar faces from previous books as well as hearing about what’s happened to the ones we didn’t see. One of the things I like about this series is that we get to revisit older characters over never seeing or hearing from them again. Personally, I like it better when we get to hear what happened to them or what they’re up to even if we don’t see them. It’s a huge bonus, especially since they were such a focal point in the past. I’m excited to see where Effie Calvin takes us next, especially since we’ll be following Netheia.
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