The Rogue Crown

3.5 stars

I received this book for free, this does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

The Western Court Queen is dead.

Third in the Five Crowns of Okrith series, The Rogue Crown, follows Briata Catullus as she travels to the Western Court after being called for help by her friend and casual lover Delta. Delta is the Captain of the Queen's Guard and has been injured after a fatal attack on the Queen. Delta wants Bri to help find out who orchestrated the attack and protect the heir, Princess Abalina. I know third in a fantasy series can seem like an intimating place to start and I was nervous but the author smoothly incorporated details of the world and character relationships that didn't use info dumping but worked to catch me up and place me in the world. New readers could start here but as I enjoyed this one so much, I'm definitely going back to the beginning and reading how this all started.

The Eagle will seize the crown from its sovereign.

After reading and gaining a foothold in this story, one of the aspects I found myself getting excited about is how this series seems to be laid out overall. The five crowns series title calls out the five courts that make up Okrith. The High Mountain Court (book 1 – Remy and Hale), Northern Court (2 – Rua and Renwick), Western Court (3 – Bri and Lina), Southern Court (possible 4 with possible Talhan and Neelo), and Eastern Court (possible 5 with possible Carys and ?). I've been dying for an adult fantasy romance series that is laid out like this, each individual book focuses on a main couple but the books link together through a continuous story thread. From what I can gather from starting in book 3, a Northern King fell leaving all five courts in disarray and each court is trying to stabilize while one of our main villains, Augustus Norwood is trying to get any and all crowns he can. It's a fantasy world of witches (their different colored magic signifies what kind of witch they are, healer, gardener, seer, etc.), fae, and humans set in a Medieval-ish time. And since this is fantasy, we've got to have our prophecies. When Bri was born with her twin brother Talhan, it was prophesied that the “Eagle will seize the crown”. This freaked out the Western Queen, Bri's birthplace, and the Queen banished Bri's family, making Bri's mother extremely bitter and for the rest of Bri's life trying to shape her into someone who would eventually destroy the Western Queen and return her family to glory in the West.

They were hunting masked assassins and a deranged prince with violet witch magic.

The first half of this definitely leaned more into the fantasy and setting up the micro singular book issue of Bri trying to fret out who the witch hunters in the lion masks were that attacked and killed the Western Queen with some kind of violet poison and guarding Lina. The macro issue being the overall series thread of Norwood's villainy hovering around and if he's connected to the Queen's death. There's credible red-herrings with secondary characters, possible jilted wife, the head brown witch healer, council members, fiancé, guards, and Norwood for Bri to investigate. Of course, we also get the romance sparking up as Bri has to guard Lina and it starts off as a slow burn. I thought the investigation sputtered around some as there was a good amount of other minor story threads going around, Lina being a sort of Robin Hood (did we really need this?), and I wish the investigation plot could have been focused on with more concrete action. When the search for answers takes them to a library in the Southern Court, I really felt the sputtering as the pace slowed some but in this second half the romance heats up and we get open door (in the stables! in the library!) payoff to that slow burn.

“I wish you didn't make it so hard to hate you.” “I wish you'd stop hating me,” Bri countered, her eyes dropping to Lina's parted, breathless lips.

The later second half brings in Bri's brother and friends that were in the previous books and we get a gang is all together again that I'm sure series readers will enjoy; it made this newbie want to immediately read Remy and Hale's book. Bri and Lina have their late act angst breakup and then we get some battle scenes that I was waiting for in an otherwise more quiet story. Not having read the previous books, I'm not sure if they were more battle/action heavy and this book's tone would be a welcome calm reprieve in the series overall, or if they're all more toned quietly. For a fantasy story, I was expecting more battle action and while there were some action skirmishes, I can see some finding this too quiet for a book that has a battleaxe on the cover. I'll be curious when I go back to read the previous books how this fits into the series.

“Isn't it obvious? You've seen that purple smoke.” His eyebrows lifted as he flashed an unsettling grin. “The violet witches are back.”

I thought the ending reveal of this story's villain was a bit too fast, I like to savor moments that have been the story's main lead-up, but fit into the overall series thread. It connected the hovering Norwood while also bringing in some answers about the violet witches that have been thought long dead. There was also a great lead-in to, what I think is going to be book 4, concerning Bri's brother Talhan and the heir to the Southern Court.

“Why are the best things the ones we're too afraid to get right?”

There was repeated usage of “smirked” and “snickered” in the beginning that was almost starting to drive me crazy but, thankfully, died off deeper in the book, so hang on if that bothers you. The first half leaned more fantasy and the second half delivered on the promise of the slow burn between Bri and Lina. I wish there could have been more balance between the two elements of fantasy and romance throughout, instead of the halved feeling but I greatly enjoyed their story and the overall series world-building. It's not urban fantasy but I can see the cross-over love from Ilona Andrews' fans to this sword and sorcery fantasy series. Each book delivering a romance while the series follows a continuing world-building and story thread, sign me up.

“I don't care what the Fates whisper; all I hear is your name.”