Violet Made of Thorns
by Gina Chen
read by Emily Woo Zeller
Listening Library, 2022. 11 hours, 5 minutes.
Review written December 11, 2022, from a library eaudiobook
Starred Review
Violet has been a seer for the kingdom of Aveny since the day six years ago when she was ten and she used what she learned in a vision to save the young prince’s life.
Since then, she’s learned to please the king by lying about her visions and telling people what they want to hear and what the king wants them to hear. This pleases the king, but doesn’t please Prince Cyrus, and they’ve got a prickly relationship.
When the previous seer died, she prophesied a curse on Cyrus that can only be lifted with the help of his bride, but Cyrus has been slow about choosing a bride. The king wants him to hurry up about it.
And then Violet dreams that if Cyrus doesn’t die before the end of the summer, she will burn. And a way is given for her to kill him. But meanwhile, there’s a masked ball and a noble lady from the neighboring kingdom. The king wants Violet to convince Cyrus this lady is his true love.
But that lady is not what she seems. And on the night of the ball, beasts appear, and they go after Cyrus and Violet. Why does Cyrus protect Violet, endangering himself?
This book is full of plots and counterplots. Violet’s dreams are full of visions, but what do they mean and what should she do? There’s also sizzling sexual tension — in a relationship that doesn’t seem like a good choice for anybody, but seems impossible to stop.
It all barrels along with twists and turns to a bloody and surprising conclusion. We’ve got court intrigue, romantic tension, uncontrolled magic, confusing visions, fairy glamours, and the fate of nations in a novel that you won’t want to stop listening to.
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