A glamorous media darling, a surprise heiress, and the magical competition of a lifetime.
At sixteen, Honora “Nora” Holtzfall is the daughter of the most powerful heiress in all of Walstad. Her family controls all the money–and all the magic–in the entire country. But despite being the center of attention, Nora has always felt like an outsider. When her mother is found dead in an alley, the family throne and fortune are suddenly up for grabs, and Nora will be pitted against her cousins in the Veritaz, the ultimate magical competition for power that determines the one family heir.
But there’s a surprise contestant this time: Lotte, the illegitimate daughter of Nora’s aunt. When Lotte’s absent mother retrieves her from the rural convent she’d abandoned her to, Lotte goes from being an orphan to surrounded by family. Unfortunately, most of them want her dead.
And soon, Nora discovers that her mother’s death wasn’t random–it was murder. And the only person she can trust to uncover the truth of what happened is a rakish young reporter who despises everything Nora and her family stand for.
With everyone against her, Lotte’s last hope is hunting for the identity of her father. But the dangerous competition–and her feelings for Theo, one of the Holtzfalls’ sworn protectors–turns her world upside down.
Incredible tests, impossible choices and deadly odds await both girls. But there can only be one winner.
About the Author
Alwyn Hamilton was born in Toronto and spent her childhood bouncing between Europe and Canada until her parents settled in France. She grew up in a small town there, which might have compelled her to burst randomly into the opening song from Beauty and the Beast were it not for her total tone-deafness.
She instead attempted to read and write her way to new places and developed a weakness for fantasy and cross-dressing heroines. She left France for Cambridge University to study History of Art at King’s College, and then to London where she became indentured to an auction house. She has a bad habit of acquiring more hardcovers than is smart for someone who moves house quite so often.
Alwyn’s New York Times-bestselling debut, the YA fantasy REBEL OF THE SANDS, was published by Viking Children’s Books in the US and Faber Children’s Books in the UK, and in 14 other territories. The trilogy continues in TRAITOR TO THE THRONE and HERO AT THE FALL. Alwyn was named the 2016 Goodreads Choice Award winner for Best Debut Author.
My thoughts: With fairytale elements, this is both a murder mystery and a fantasy in which four cousins must compete to be named their grandmother’s heir, after the mother of one of them, Nora, is killed.
Nora joins forces with a journalist, August, to try to solve the mystery of her mother’s murder – that’s being called a mugging gone wrong, but doesn’t make sense.
Her aunt has produced an illegitimate daughter, Lotte, which complicates the succession trials, and Lotte, who is smarter than some of them realise, wants to find out more about her family and forms an alliance with Nora, discovering that at least one of her relatives isn’t a terrible person.
Meanwhile a resistance to her family’s wealth and power is getting stronger and starting riots in the streets, prompting reprisals from the authorities.
The Holtzfall family founded the town, and with their magic protected people from the creatures of the forest. But generations later, they’re now incredibly wealthy and corrupt. They hold too much power and the growing pressure against them is close to explosive as the inheritance trials the cousins are in demolish parts of the town and add fuel to the fire.
I loved Lotte and Nora, and rightly detested fhe rest of their awful family. Their grandmother is a monster and the rest are spoilt, entitled and selfish. But considering that each generation has been raised to see their siblings (and cousins) as competition, as well as being over-privileged in a place where no one ever questions their family’s dominance (at least not openly), it’s not surprising.
The story was clever, filled with references to the original Grimm versions of the stories we know so well. It’s a chunky book and I was surprised it was the first in a series, as opposed to a standalone at this size. I’m definitely intrigued to see where it goes next, considering the events of the closing pages.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
ramblingmads 