I think I won this copy of Angelina J. Steffort‘s Shattered Kingdom. I do not recall where from; however. Unfortunately, this is a book I found on my shelf that I had forgotten about. It’s a new year, and I’m setting a goal to be better about reading my physical books, and this is a perfect example of why.
Sworn to a goddess. One with her blade. A heart yet unbroken.
It would have been only one more year of training. One year in the dust and wind of the Calma Desert. But Gandrett Brayton’s fate storms in disguised as a beautiful stranger with a damning secret.
As he forces her into the service of the lord who tore her from her mother’s arms ten years ago to commit her to the Order of Vala, Gandrett is left with a choice: run, or work for the man she despises and earn the chance to see her family again.
Trained with all the weapons she can wield with her hands, Gandrett must learn that at the courts of the shattered kingdom of Sives, her sword won’t help her– especially when it is her own heart on the line.
This was fine, if overly long and, consequently, feels slow. I liked the characters, and the world seems interesting. However, it’s very, very focused on the I’m not like other girls heroine who embodies just about ALL the cliched YA heroine tropes. She’s not clumsy in a trip-over-her-own-feet way (though she is socially graceless, which might check the same box). But just about every other cliche is there. Which means nothing here feels very original.
I got annoyed with four main issues, though. These aren’t necessarily problems, just things that annoyed me. First, for being such a fantastic fighter, she does amazingly little fighting and loses every time. Second, she grew up in an isolated group, learning to fight. The effects of that should have been visually and linguistically apparent, not just in scars. This book takes no account of accents and the physical effects of a brutal lifestyle when it decides a warrior from a remote outpost is the ideal person to disguise as a lady. Third, I was annoyed that every boy/man she encountered fell for her hard and fast, and she didn’t notice. (Yep, it’s a YA trope, but it annoyed me.) And last, Nehelon’s obsession/love gave me the ick. It wasn’t the hundreds-of-years age gap. That’s pretty common in fantasy romance. It was the way she was underage, and he started obsessing over her from afar without her knowing or doing/participating in anything to provoke or encourage it. The reader is given no real reason for it. Like, there is no point 
when we saw him start to fall in love with her or to appreciate anything about her as a person. It felt very old-man-lusts-after-young-girl, very pervy uncle who’s just waiting for her to be legal. This is a longish series, and I think probably nothing will happen until she is older. But it still felt icky to me here.
All in all, despite my annoyances, the book kept me entertained for the time I spent with it. If I came across the rest of the series at the library, I’d likely read it. I don’t think I’d buy it, though.
Other Reviews:
Shattered Kingdom, by Angelina J. Steffort [review] — a massively UNDERRATED fantasy romance
The dragons, however, though essential to the world and story, are given surprisingly little page time. You don’t see a lot of them in the grand scheme of things, which I was sad about. But they serve their purpose well. Also, there were times I wished Radke had given the reader a bit more depth on certain things. Summer didn’t push for answers, so he doesn’t get them. Which means the reader doesn’t either.
