Book Review
Title: The Third Daughter by Adrienne Tooley
Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy, LGBT
Rating: 3 Stars
The opening to The Third Daughter was interesting as we are introduced to the country of Velle, and years ago a prophecy was made saying that the New Maiden would return as the third daughter of a third daughter. In the present, we are introduced to Elodie, the first born of the recently deceased Queen and rightful heir to the throne as she witnesses her younger sister, Brianne, take the throne hailed as the Maiden’s reincarnation, the third daughter of a third daughter. Elodie is obviously upset by this not that she is taken the throne but because she knows Brianne is ill-equipped to lead a country and she should have been made the Queen’s right hand but that was taken by Brianne’s father and current head of the Church. Knowing that Elodie isn’t happy with the situation the Chancellor takes it upon himself to marry Elodie off to the smallest Kingdom in the land which she isn’t going to let happen and she knows the only way to claim what is hers by right is to get rid of Brianne. I really liked that the previous Queen didn’t marry and has four children by four different men, Elodie’s father being her childhood friend and this isn’t looked down upon in Velle. We are also introduced to Sabine who has a magical ability in her tears. When she cries into potions, tonic or directly onto herbs they become much more potent but this ability comes with a cost.
Throughout the book I kept getting vibes similar to The Kiss of Deception series which I was super excited about but it seemed to lack the same depth as that series otherwise this could have been a high 4 stars for me. The biggest issue I had will reading was that nothing was truly exciting because I was able to predict almost every twist and turn this novel took. By the end of the first 2 two chapters I had already seen the major plot twists coming which meant my enjoyment of the book diminished the more of it I read. That being said, Tolley crafted some amazing characters and her writing was absolutely gorgeous. It is the kind of writing style that completely sucks you in early on and refuses to let go despite the fact at times I wasn’t enjoying the book as much as I had hoped. Her characters are realistic in their actions as we can see with Elodie and her jealousy and spite gets the better of her on multiple occasions but she works hard to correct these mistakes later on which is something any of us would do in the same situation.
The largest flaw with the book was its depth as everything seems very surface level and we don’t get emotional attached to the characters but the connection just isn’t there. I think that if we had seen Elodie and her siblings growing up and the book building up to the first Queen’s death then we would have been much more attached rather than just have Elodie tell us these things. We can see this issue at its peak when Elodie speaks about Tal, who is supposed to be her best friend but we never actually get to see him throughout the book so we only have Elodie’s word to go on. This depth issues also impacted the ending because it had absolutely no foreshadowing meaning it came out of nowhere and didn’t really fit the tone of the book and made me as a reader more confused rather than satisfied.
The ending almost spoilt Elodie’s character quite a lot and while I won’t go into depth here, we have been shown throughout the book that she isn’t someone that wants power for the sake of having it, in fact, she is shown to want the opposite. She doesn’t want the Kingdom because she thinks it is hers, even though it is by birthright, she wants it because she knows she is best equipped to run it unlike Brianne who is shown to be naïve and air-headed most of the time leaving her vulnerable to the manipulations of others. It almost felt like Tooley didn’t know what she wanted to do with the book and made sections up as she went along so it didn’t feel cohesive. That being said I will definitely be giving book two a chance, since I want to see how the story finishes but in order to get a higher rating, the character development and relationships definitely need a lot of work in the sequel.
Buy it here: Goodreads Barnes & Noble IndieBound
Paperback/Hardcover: amazon.co.uk amazon.com
Kindle Edition: amazon.co.uk amazon.com
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