Zera’s motives are relatable because they’re things most people have experienced: the desire to be “normal” and fit in, the desire to help family, and the desire to prevent bad things from happening around you and to those you care about. The greater goal of her deception, which is orchestrated by the witch coven and Lady Y’shennria, a noblewoman, is to prevent another war between witches and humans.

Zera is trying to get back her heart and the hearts of the witch’s other two Heartless, both children. Lady Y’shennria’s entire family died in a war years ago, so there isn’t anyone who would be able to contradict the story.Īdditionally, it’s decided that Zera lived on a farm before she was “discovered,” which means she has an excuse if she makes a mistake like using the wrong fork or not knowing about royal history.

Zera is posing as Lady Y’shennria’s brother’s bastard daughter. In “The Orphan Queen,” the cover story the characters used were pretty shaky and it was pretty surprising that it held up as long as it did Zera’s deception is much better executed and the motives behind it are easier to identify with. This book takes parts of those books and improves on them. The book plot has elements of both “The Orphan Queen” and “The Selection” a girl infiltrating the royal palace like in the former, and girls competing for a prince like the latter. It’s also fully developed but not fully explained, which made me want to continue reading the book and anticipate the next book in the series. The world in the book feels fully developed and real, unlike the worlds in some of the other fantasy books I’ve read. Sara Wolf creates a fantasy world on par with that of the original Star Wars, with intricate politics and belief systems, in-world references dropped and left unexplained, and none of those complicated maps fantasy books usually have that really aren’t helpful to anyone besides the author. Literally.The best way I can describe this book is a combination of two other young adult novels I love, Kiera Cass’s “The Selection” and Jodi Meadows’ “The Orphan Queen,” with the best from both and the worst from neither. So begins a game of cat and mouse between a girl with nothing to lose and a boy who has it all. She’s inelegant, smart-mouthed, & out for his blood.

No one can challenge him – until the arrival of Lady Zera. Until Nightsinger asks Zera for a Prince’s heart in exchange for her own.Ĭrown Prince Lucien d’Malvane hates the royal court as much as it loves him – every tutor too afraid to correct him and every girl jockeying for a place at his side. With her heart in a jar under Nightsinger’s control, she serves the witch unquestioningly. Bound to the witch Nightsinger ever since she saved her from the bandits who murdered her family, Zera longs for freedom. Zera is a Heartless – the immortal, unageing soldier of a witch.

Bring me their hearts book