Tuesday, June 22, 2021

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Capture the Crown by Jennifer Estep

 



Full Disclosure:  This book was read as an e-ARC (Advance Reader Copy) obtained via Netgalley from the publisher in advance of the book's release on July 6, 2021 in exchange for a potential review.  I give my word that this did not affect my review in any way - if I felt conflicted in any way, I would simply have declined to review the book.


Capture the Crown is the start of a new trilogy by author Jennifer Estep, set in the same world (but 16 years later) as her Crown of Stars trilogy, which began with Kill the Queen (my review is here).  I kinda loved Crown of Stars....sorta?  I really enjoyed the first book, even if there was nothing truly great to recommend it - it's protagonist was just rather fun to read as was the plot, even if it never was anything truly special.  And something about Estep's prose in the series just made it easy to devour each book incredibly quickly, even if I felt the second and third books were less interesting than the first one.  

Capture the Crown features a new protagonist, Gemma, a minor character from the first trilogy who was merely a child, who possesses the telepathy and telekinesis magic (she's a "Mind Magier") and decides to use it not to be a proper princess, but a spy for her nation.  Gemma's story is a lot of fun and features that same incredibly easy to read prose (I finished this in a day even though i did NOT mean to) as she winds up in enemy territory, falling for an enemy in a classic "enemies to lovers" tropes, and dealing with a ruthless web of royals and backstabbers to go along with her own malfunctioning power.  Again, it's nothing special, but it's an excellent start to a new trilogy and I look forward eagerly to book 2.  

Note:  This is the start of a new trilogy in this world, but references are made to the prior trilogy, especially to an event at the start of Kill the Queen.  Those are explained I think decently well to the point where readers new to this world can probably start here okay, but new readers may be a little confused as to the family references and whatnot, so I'm not sure how well this book will be for readers who didn't at least read the first book of Crown of Stars.  
--------------------------------------Plot Summary--------------------------------------------
Gemma Ripley's reputation is that of a spoiled girl, a princess with interests in gowns and jewelry, and not serving her people or learning to rule the country, Andvari, that she stands to inherit.  But secretly Gemma is a mind magier - capable of telepathy and telekinesis - and she uses her magic, as well as some subterfuge to try and act as a spy undercover to find out what wrongs are plaguing her country.  Gemma is desperate to prove that she, a survivor of the Seven Spire Massacre 16 years ago through hiding and running, is not a coward.  If only she could fully control her powers.  

But when an undercover mission in a Ripley mine reveals that Andvari's mortal enemies, the nation of Morta, is stealing large amounts of tearstone, Gemma finds herself face to face with a childhood enemy: Prince Leonidas Morricone of Moria.  Soon Gemma finds herself in Morta as Leonidas' guest, among a royal family known for its treachery and backstabbing, where one wrong move could reveal her identity and expose her to torture and death.  But if Gemma can find out what the Mortans are doing with the tearstone, she could possibly save her country from another deadly war.  

But the Mortan royal family is a pit of snakes, as Gemma knows fully well from the massacre that killed her uncle all those years ago.  And yet Gemma can't help feel more and more attracted to Leonidas, even knowing how he once betrayed her as a child, and that he is in no way someone she can trust......
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Capture the Crown, like its predecessor trilogy, features the first person narrative of Gemma, princess of Andvari, who was a twelve year old girl in the first trilogy and now is 27/28.  Gemma is haunted by memories of the opening event of that first trilogy, the Seven Spire Massacre, which killed most of the Bellonan royal family and did kill her uncle, and which she only escaped due to hiding under a table and then being taken away by allies of Evie, the prior trilogy's protagonist.  To Gemma, that was a moment of cowardice, made only worse by what happened in the escape (slowly revealed through flashbacks), where those who helped her came into mortal peril because of it, while she herself was nearly helpless due to her lack of control of her power.  

This drives Gemma to some pretty risky activities - namely moonlighting as a spy undercover inside her own country - which gets her in the danger that starts this book's plot.  And it drives Gemma to refuse to take the opportunity to get out when she has the chance, because she is so desperate to prove herself not to be a coward, to be more than either the spoiled princess the world thinks she is or the scared child she remembers in her memory.  And of course, there's her own malfunctioning power she controls with a special necklace, which limits her telepathy and telekinesis to limited levels...although it does nothing about a secondary power of having visions of the past that pop up at annoying times.  Gemma is a fun new heroine in this way, as she tries bumbling to investigate the mystery of what the Mortan royal family is upto.  

And of course she tries to avoid her attraction to Leonidas.  Minor Spoiler Warning: This is not a quick and steamy romance novel.  We do have some very classic enemies to lovers type tropes here early - healing the handsome antagonist!  only one bed!  But the plot is more of a slow burn, and will be a slow burn I suspect throughout this entire trilogy, since the Leonidas relationship with Gemma is distinctly not that of the Evie/Sullivan from the first trilogy.  That book's romance featured a pair of outsiders who were always allies (after a rocky beginning), but had to deal with their own individual past hangups to get together.  Leonidas is literally the prince from an enemy country, a country who deals with its problems with death, destruction, and torture - and he has suffered as a result.  And while he is a much better person, seemingly at least, than his mother and siblings, he still doesn't blink an eye at killing those who might pose a threat.  And Gemma can be just as lethal, but she doesn't really want to be, which takes this book in some directions that the Crown of Stars trilogy didn't quite go.  

We also have some interesting minor characters, from Leonidas' sister who seems far too nice for a Mortan, to a fellow spy Gemma runs into in Morta and befriends, to the plotting conspirators of the Mortan nobility.  Whereas Crown of Stars was very black and white in good vs evil, there's a lot of evil vs evil here, or shades of grey, even if I still wouldn't quite call this the most morally ambiguous of plot structures.  And it works, and under Estep's prose, flows at a really great pace that will allow readers to blaze through this one quite quickly.  The book reminded me a lot of Kill the Queen, which was the best of the first trilogy, and even if it still isn't anything I'd say is Must Read, it's a lot of fun and I'll definitely be back for the sequel. 

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