Title: The Winner's Kiss (The Winner's Trilogy #3)
Author: Marie RutkoskiPublished: 24 March 2016 by Bloomsbury Publishing
Source: Bloomsbury Sydney
Reviewed: Sapphired Dragon
Rating: *** 3/4
My Review:
I was so looking forward to reading this book. After reading books 1 and 2 I was looking forward to being blown away by the final book. Whilst I did enjoy it, I wasn't blown away as much as I wanted or expected to be.
To start with, the week I was reading it, I had a busy RL going on so I was only able to read it fits and starts rather in the one sitting I really wanted to read this in. And I think to a certain degree this made a difference to my enjoyment level of the book as I had to keep re-entering the book, and reminding myself what had gone one rather than being able to submerse my self in the book from beginning to end. I think made it harder to completely connect with the feels of the book and the story itself.
I loved the beginning with Kestrel being stuck in the North and Arin in the south and desperately waiting to see if Arin would get the message she had sent through the messenger whilst on her way to the mines and wondering if she would be rescued before she completely broke or worse. I loved the suspense n this portion of the book as we waited on tenterhooks to see what was going to happen.
As the book progressed however, a lot of that suspense dissipated and the middle part of the book became somewhat of a chess match, and whilst my interest remained in seeing how it would turn out, the grip on the edge of my seat lessened and I became more passive and less invested in the end result. The ending brought the suspense level back up and I mostly loved and was satisfied with how the book ended.
There some threads through this book that I absolutely loved and I especially love that this book acknowledge the growth/changes in Arin and Kestrel since the beginning of the series so it was a realistic redefining of their relationship during this book given the depth of the emotions we saw previously. I love these two as a couple and this didn't change in this book.
I think what I missed in this final book was a lot of the intrigue of the first two books and that feeling that the worst could and just might happen at any moment. There was suspense and intrigue in parts and there were some particularly clever twists but on the whole this book seemed a lot more straightforward then the first two books as it powered on to the end.
As I emerge on the other side of this series, I am immensely glad I first picked up The Winner's Curse and got to know this world and characters. Over all I loved this series and am mostly pleased with where this series ended.
If you have read the first two books, I definitely recommend this final book and still recommend this series as a whole.
I give this final book a rating of 3 3/4 stars!
Sapphired Dragon xx .
About The Book:
The Winner's Kiss (The Winner's Trilogy #3) by Marie Rutkoski
Some kisses come at a price.
War has begun. Arin is in the thick of it with untrustworthy new allies and the empire as his enemy. Though he has convinced himself that he no longer loves Kestrel, Arin hasn’t forgotten her, or how she became exactly the kind of person he has always despised. She cared more for the empire than she did for the lives of innocent people—and certainly more than she did for him.
At least, that’s what he thinks.
In the frozen north, Kestrel is a prisoner in a brutal work camp. As she searches desperately for a way to escape, she wishes Arin could know what she sacrificed for him. She wishes she could make the empire pay for what they’ve done to her.
But no one gets what they want just by wishing.
As the war intensifies, both Kestrel and Arin discover that the world is changing. The East is pitted against the West, and they are caught in between. With so much to lose, can anybody really win?Publication Date: 24 March, 2016
