The Prisoner's Throne: A Novel of Elfhame (Volume 2) (The Stolen Heir)

Round of applause for holly 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻“I adore you. I want to play games with you. I want to tell you all the truths I have to give. And if you really think you’re a monster, then let’s be monsters together.”This has become one of my favorite novels in the Elfhame universe. I was eating this book up 🤌🏻 the romance, the judan crumbs, the politics 😮‍💨😮‍💨😮‍💨Let’s start off with my favorite aspect of this book… JUDAN!!! Miss Holly was giving with how much we saw them. Seeing their relationship as adults gave me the closure I didn’t know I needed. Cardan is still obsessed with Jude (who wouldn’t be) and Jude is still the stabby girl we love, but you can see how much their love has grown. Beautiful 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻“That you’re terrifying?” he asked, his drawl becoming exaggeratedly languorous, almost a purr. “I adore it.” -Cardan to Jude•••As always, she nailed it with the politics and scheming, but I really enjoyed the romance being a main part of the plot as well! I was eating up Oak simping for Wren and being completely oblivious to everything she was doing wrong. He was the definition of blinded by love 😌 their love was so real and they saw each other for who they were when no one else could.“We are messes and we are messed up and I don’t want to go through this world without the one person I can’t hide from and who can’t hide from me.”I loved Oak as a character. Seeing bits of his family members in him was so well done. He’s a simp like Cardan, schemer and deceiver like Jude, and fights like Madoc. I loved having this book in his POV and seeing what he was thinking and the reasoning behind his (sometimes poor) actions. He truly does love so spectacularly for his family and wren. It made me sad how little he thinks of himself, but I’m glad his relationships were healed towards the end.“I’m not good. I’m not kind. Maybe I am not even safe. But whatever you want from me, I will give you.”I loved how twisty the plot was. I kept thinking I knew what was happening but I was proven wrong every time 😌 oak was so oblivious and I was just going through it with him. Wonderfully done holly 👏🏻

Although I have a few “mislikes” in this installment, it still warrants a strong 4 stars from me.Instead of Wren’s 1st person POV, we get Oak’s 3rd person limited POV in this book. I personally prefer to read in 3rd person limited, but I actually prefer Wren’s perspective more, surprisingly. I found Wren’s voice captivating, and I enjoyed seeing Oak through her lens. I understand why Oak was necessary for this installment for the sake of political intrigue and scheming. And probably to give more screen time to Jude and Cardan (whom I didn’t care much for tbh, even in the original trilogy, they were just alright for me- I stuck around for the story).The plot was solid and written well. But there a few handful of sentences where I found the wording odd or perhaps too on the nose, making for very disjointed pacing. Again, these “mislikes” are my personal preferences.Oak is my favorite character from the entire series thus far (for me, he stole every scene he was in FOA trilogy), and it was pleasant to see his character development. And especially to learn his reasonings for his behavior. I think people found his “using himself as bait to out conspirators against the throne” something be desired, and I agree. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but it just felt like it wasn’t a strong enough character motivation. Nonetheless, I suspended my disbeliefs and whatnot, and just enjoyed the ride because I found Oak an appealing character. It could just be the romantic in me, because I love that he realizes love is when you allow ALL parts of yourself to be seen, good, bad and shitty.I found Wren to be a more compelling heroine that Jude (again, I didn’t particularly care for her since the beginning), so I was a tad disappointed that she didn’t more air time in this book. She almost felt like a support character, rather than lead, unfortunately. I really would have liked for action scenes from her, given how devastatingly strong her magic is. But I understand the restraint in doing so because of her character; it would have been out of her character to do so.There were definitely some loose ends left untied intentionally. And I will be waiting eagerly for it.

This was a great spinoff with nice tie-ins back to the original story most of started with…Jude and Cardan. But I’ll be honest in that it made me want to go back again to them. I hope hope hope that the mention of where they’re headed next and that the heir is no longer apparent means we’ll get to see them again!

Para quem leu os outros livros, recomendo não ter expectativas , já ara quem n teve expectativas, saiba que é um livro decente e merece respeito ,. A Rainha do Nada é melhor.

Does wren slay more, of course. Am I glad Taryn is sad, of course. I’m happy Holly is still up to her tomfoolery, of course!

Meine Tochter mag es gerne.

Slow start and not as good as the first trilogy (hard to beat, imo), but I still had a blast starting 40% of the book until the end. And it was fun to get to see Jude and Cardan again.

Supergoed! Goedkoop, vroeg binnen en ziet er heel erg mooi uit!