Author: June Hur
# of Pages: 363 (ebook)
Genre: YA, Historical Fiction, Mystery
Rating: ★★★★☆
Synopsis: 1506, Joseon. The people suffer under the cruel reign of the tyrant King Yeonsan, powerless to stop him from commandeering their land for his recreational use, banning and burning books, and kidnapping and horrifically abusing women and girls as his personal playthings. Seventeen-year-old Iseul has lived a sheltered, privileged life despite the kingdom’s turmoil. When her older sister, Suyeon, becomes the king’s latest prey, Iseul leaves the relative safety of her village, traveling through forbidden territory to reach the capital in hopes of stealing her sister back. But she soon discovers the king’s power is absolute, and to challenge his rule is to court certain death. Prince Daehyun has lived his whole life in the terrifying shadow of his despicable half-brother, the king. Forced to watch King Yeonsan flaunt his predation through executions and rampant abuse of the common folk, Daehyun aches to find a way to dethrone his half-brother once and for all. When staging a coup, failure is fatal, and he’ll need help to pull it off—but there’s no way to know who he can trust.
Review: Despite my better judgement, I HAD to give this book 4 stars instead of 3.
There were several components not working in its favor - there's POV switching (Inseul in first person, Daehyun in third person), and some keywords in Korean were not translated or explained to the reader. As is sometimes characteristic of YA books, the protagonist quickly (but unrealistically) befriends others critical to her journey. While this kept the story relatively compact and fast paced, I wasn't able to develop that deeper connection with these characters through the protagonist's experiences in this format, and it made reading the first half of the book slower than I would've liked.
My expectations were also completely off; based on the cover, I thought it would be a hot, romance-forward historical fiction, but instead I got a historical fiction forward story laced with mystery and a splash of romance. But it was actually a very pleasant surprise; the restraint and tension in the romance component actually made it more addicting and shows you don't have to be in your reader's face with the passionate and the sex to write a good love story (cough cough The Fourth Wing cough cough).
I stayed up late last night reading the latter half of the book because of the mystery aspect. Even though there were a lot of obvious hints along the way for readers to guess WHAT will unfold, what kept me turning the pages was wanting to know HOW it would unfold and how the characters were impacted by these changes. What I really respected and admired too was how Hur tried to stay as true to being historically accurate as possible, which made the atrocities committed by the king land even heavier on the reader's heart.
While not without it's flaws, this book does tell a compelling story and highlights a brutal but less well known piece of history. It's also great that Hur made this a stand alone book; no need to worry about being left on a cliff hanger and dragged along for series that wasn't meant to be a series. I would actually recommend it if the story sounds interesting to you as it's a quick and engaging read.
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