THE TEARS OF THE ROSE is book two in The Twelve
Kingdoms
series by Jeffe Kennedy. It starts hard on the heels of
book one, The Mark of the Tala, which I loved as well.
This fantasy series follows the three daughters of High
King Uorsin, who are very different women. This book may
be read as a standalone, but readers will have a fuller
appreciation having read book one first. In book two, we
learn about Princess Amelia, the youngest daughter.
Beautiful and pampered, Amelia is considered the Avatar of
the goddess of love, Glorianna.
Kennedy does a fabulous job of making me dislike Amelia
for
the first half of the book. Amelia has been catered to
her
whole life, floating through life as a spoiled and shallow
creature valued only for her exquisite looks. Amelia had
a
fairytale life, married to her own Prince Charming, Prince
Hugh of Avonlidgh, who continued to coddle and shelter
her. However, Hugh dies on a quest to save Amelia's
sister
Andromeda from the Tala, magical half beasts held widely
to
be the dangerous downfall of the Twelve Kingdoms.
Now widowed and pregnant, Amelia must grow up and discover
her own power. Thrown into the deadly politics of the
Twelve Kingdoms, Amelia must carefully balance herself and
her unborn child between her greedy (and creepy!) father-
in-
law King Erich and her power-mad corrupt High King father.
I really disliked immature Amelia for over half the book.
Kennedy does a masterful job, however, at showing Amelia's
slow and painful personal growth, and I am so impressed
with Kennedy's skill in making me root hard for Amelia and
her new love by the end of the book!
I was an instant fan of Ash, the mysterious scarred White
Monk, who is a priest of Glorianna. He manipulates events
so he could travel with Amelia, and it made me sigh in
happiness to watch their romance unfold. He chivvies
Amelia into reaching to mature into a confident and
glorious woman, even as she petulantly fights him in this
in the beginning. The slow unraveling of his secrets
enthralled me, and I love his steadfast honor and his
strength.
Happily, I discovered Jeffe Kennedy's work several years
ago, and she's an auto-read author for me. THE TEARS OF
THE ROSE strikes gold, showcasing the entrancing fantasy
world of magic with shapeshifters and demons entwined with
the political machinations of corrupt men. There is so
much wonderfulness here to satisfy my love of romance and
fantasy. I'm eagerly awaiting book three to follow the
third sister's story, which I have no doubt will satisfy
my
continuing craving for the seductive and mystical world
that Kennedy is giving us.
Three sisters. Motherless daughters of the high king. The
eldest is the warrior-woman heir; the middle child is shy
and full of witchy intuition; and the youngest, Princess
Amelia, she is as beautiful as the sun and just as generous.
Ami met her Prince Charming and went away to his castle on
the stormy sea-cliffs—and that should have been her happily
ever after. Instead, her husband lies dead and a war rages.
Her middle sister has been taken into a demon land, turned
into a stranger. The priests and her father are revealing
secrets and telling lies. And a power is rising in Ami, too,
a power she hardly recognizes, to wield her beauty as a
weapon, and her charm as a tool to deceive. . .
Amelia has never had to be anything but good and sweet and
kind and lovely. But the chess game for the Twelve Kingdoms
has swept her up in it, and she must make a gambit of her
own. Can the prettiest princess become a pawn—or a queen?
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