Title: Traitor Born
Author: Amy A Bartol
Publisher: 47North
Format: eARC (eBook)
**I was provided a free copy of this book by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.**
Summary:
In the Fates Republic…
Firstborns reign supreme.
Secondborns kneel in servitude.
Thirdborns face death.
And Census shadows them all.
Secondborn Roselle St. Sismode was pressed into military service to battle the rebel uprising threatening the society that enslaves her. Now, powerful factions conspire to subvert the lines of succession, positioning Roselle to replace her mother as leader of the Republic’s armed forces. But the woman who bore her would sooner see Roselle dead than let her usurp her firstborn brother’s command.
The deadly war of intrigue between her new masters and her ruthless family is but one conflict challenging Roselle. A soldier for the rebellion has drawn her into a rogue army’s plot to overthrow the Republic and shatter its brutal caste system. Targeted by assassins and torn between allies, Roselle will have her loyalty, love, and honor tested in the greatest battle of—and for—her life.
Book Review:
I accidentally stumbled upon Second Born looking through Kindle Unlimited books and looking for something I could also listen to. Found Second Born and loved it. I requested Traitor Born from the publisher and jumped for joy as I was granted a copy to review.
After picking up Traitor Born I didn’t want to stop reading. And when I got to the end I literally screamed from the cliff hanger. This only confirmed for my husband that I’m crazy.
Like the first book Second Born, this book is full of spies, intrigue, and family mayhem. You think you’re family is messed up? Try the St. Sismode family. They are either trying to kill each other, or think they are trying to be killed by their family.
Being Roselle St. Sismode is like impossible. Everyone is telling her, her brother wants her dead, but she’s not believing them. She believes she just needs to talk to her brother and he’ll see the truth, she loves her brother despite the wedge everyone including their mother has tried to place between the two of them. In Traitor Born she finally gets her chance and is able to get close to her brother, but things don’t go anything according to plan. When I read this exchange in the book I felt sorry for Roselle and her brother and what the society had done to them.
Roselle is the second born in her family. Her brother is the first born. In this society first borns rule. Second borns are given over to war, and made to fight. Roselle is lucky that her mother is psychotic, to put things mildly, and most of the families know she is their only hope for a future. The problem is everyone seems to have their idea of what that future will look like. The positive here, is they all want to protect her from her mother and brother to make sure they don’t kill Roselle which would insure their reign.
This creates tense moments, which is an understatement. It’s amazing sometimes seeing things from Roselle’s view and she catches the smallest details and is able to put things together or know there is something else there. Her options on how to get things done though are limited because she is being so highly protected in this book.
Some of her protectors are because they are in love with her. This makes an interesting dynamic when more than one are in a room together with Roselle. A love triangle doesn’t have enough points to cover the number of guys looking for Roselle’s hand. Don’t worry for those that don’t like heavy romances or fear weird sex scenes. Since those who love Roselle are first borns, they can’t legally be with her and since she would be killed if they were found out, they don’t want to risk her life. This means there are no sex scenes in the book.
I’m not going to get into what happens in the end, and why I yelled at the book. I do want to avoid spoilers. It was a nice surprise, and we found out some truths and what a message given to Roselle was referring to. But I came to the end of the last chapter without realizing it was the end, turned the page and there was a sneak peak to Rebel Born. My brain literally took like 5 seconds to realize the book was over. So Roselle is now in trouble, not to mention the Fates. And we must wait for Rebel Born to be released to find out. (I did not read the sneak peak. I’ve had bad experiences with sneak peaks either not giving enough or giving too much, so I don’t read them anymore.)
The plot of this book is full of twists, and the politics will have you wondering how Roselle is going to get out of whatever situation she has found herself in or when the other shoe is going to drop.
I will definitely be grabbing the audiobook of Traitor Born, I enjoyed listening to Second Born and would like to see how the narrator does with this book now. I will also be waiting on pins and needles for June 4, 2019 when Rebel Born is expected to be released.