Kiersten White

Bright We Burn

Aishling

** spoiler alert **
           Considering this was based on history, I should’ve known the ending wouldn’t be too happy. But the last few chapters honestly just made me so sad. Lada was left alone, having lost all her companions and her brother leaving her along with their nurse and the child she bore with her first (human) love. 

I’m honestly just so sad in my feels rn thinking about it. But I guess that’s the sign of a great book that can make you feel like this. Honestly if history books in school were more like this, I’d have learned and remembered a lot more. 

This book has also given me a new found fondness for historical fiction. Going into this book I didn’t realize it was based on history, and I’m glad I didn’t because I probably wouldn’t have read it. I’m really glad I did thought. It was a beautiful book and even though I am heartbroken thinking of poor Lada, in the end she ruled and died in the place she called home.

(I just gotta add in I’m a hopeless romantic and that’s why I’m so sad Lada and Mehmed never ended up together and we didn’t get a final scene with them. WE DESERVED JUST ONE LAST SCENE)

Jamieson

Claim the Throne. Demand the Crown. Rule the World.



I fucking adore this series so much. Sometimes a series just comes along and blows you away, it forces you to fall in love with the characters, invest in their lives and eagerly await each new chapter with bated breath because you're so nervous and concerned for all the characters. Those series are literally the best and this series is one of those series. 

If you asked me why I love it so much I would tell you this: I love it for it's impeccable character development. I love it for pushing characters to their absolute limits and showing up people who are simultaneously loveable and loathsome. I love it for it's excellent exploration of character dynamics. I love it for it's exploration of history that felt historical enough to be informative but alternative enough to be fun. I love it for representing queer Muslim characters and exploring misogyny and the commodification of women, especially in times of war. I love, a lot of things about this series. And it sure has become one of my favourites of all time. 

But if I had to pinpoint just one thing I love the most it's the character workKiersten White is writing this epic historical retelling but shes concerned with people. Although she sets this series with the backdrop of the Ottoman Empires conquests of Europe and the fight for Wallachian Independence, most of it is about how these things effect people, and how people interact with losing their identities and their countries, losing their friends and their family, losing their agency and losing their childhood. Trust me, there's plenty of war, death, blood and bodies, but the core and the soul of this series is in it's characters. The individual characters, and their interactions with eachother, drive this book and for readers who love character driven stories like me that is ideal. 


  Who was she? She was the dragon. Her country had teeth and claws and fire, and she would use every last bit of them.



🔪 
  LADA


My relationship with Lada is complicated. I liked her a lot in the first book and disliked her a lot in the second. But in this third one I loved her, the most. Kiersten White stretches her character to it's absolute limits. She's always been an anti-heroine and in Bright We Burn she precariously leans on the edge of anti-heroine and straight up villain. That slight, slight inclination she has, where you know she could just go either way, kept this SO, so interesting. But the thing is, despite everything Lada did, I pitied her so much. This is a girl who's country has been systematically destroyed by an uncaring empire, who's own father betrayed her, who was stripped of her identity, grew up surrounded by enemies and who had to fight tooth and nail for every piece of recognition she got because no one was willing to give her anything. You have to admire her audacity, and the sheer determination that drove her actions throughout this book especially. Ultimately I felt enormous sympathy for her character despite knowing some things she did were Objectively Bad and I think that is a testament to Kiersten White's truly well constructed character construction. 

🌻 
  RADU


I adore Radu and I always have, and I always will. What I love most about him is that his character growth is so consistent but the change in his character is so stark. His character development goes along this trajectory where you can see how he's changing and it's so logical and well written, but when you take a step back and look at the big picture you're really so blown away by how he went from this naive, obsessed and kind of weak character to a strong diplomat and respected figure and turned all that pain and turmoil into kindness. I am the hugest sucker for nice characters and Radu is the Ultimate Nice Character. Radu's arc around understanding that he deserves to be treated well and that he is allowed to forgive himself for some things just really was a lot for me. I just loved it a lot. 


  MEHMED/RADU/LADA


This three way friendship/relationship triangle has been consistently fascinating to me throughout this whole series and the payoff here is insanely good. With these three there is a weird dependency but it's mixed in with so much resentment. Like, none of them can live without eachother, but all of them can't let eachother live. The building of the tension leading up to their inevitable showdown kept me hanging onto every single word. And I loved how White created that inevitability, like there was no way any of this could end except with the three of them dealing with all their shit. The ending (THAT EPILOGUE) was .. absolutely perfect. And I wouldn't have had it any other way. 

Honestly lets just stay on relationships for a minute because I got a few to talk about:

➢ RADU AND LADA:


  “Do you think it was him that came between us? Or were we destined to end up on opposite sides?” Lada felt an unfamiliar heaviness behind her eyes. 
“We had to survive. We just figured out different ways to do it.”


 I have always loved the relationship between these two. Lada being both protective and disdainful of Radu is interesting, and that tension that exists wherein Lada perceives Radu as abandoning his identity, and Radu perceives Lada as unable to accept change and recognise defeat is so interesting. Their sibling relationship kills me and the fact that the two of them are so intimately connected even though they hate it is FASCINATING. 

➢ MEHMED AND LADA:
These two are SO interesting and while there wasn't as much of them as And I Darken it was still enough to keep me happy. The epilogue, again, killed me. I love that Mehmed and Lada recognises eachother as equals whilst detesting the other is their equal. And the admiration for eachother behind opposite enemy lines created such an interesting dynamic. 

➢ RADU AND CYPRIAN AND NAZIRA AND FATIMA ... Kiersten White really gave the gays everything they ever wanted with THIS pair up. First off, Nazira and Fatima are sapphic queens who deserve the world. The sheer wholesomeness of their relationship is enough to five star this book alone. Radu and Cyprian are similarly adorable and I'm not gonna lie, their scenes were so soft I wanted to sob. Radu and Nazira are iconic "we're platonically in love" soulmates and second in iconic-ness only to Aled and Frances from Radio Silence who are my children. I love Radu and Nazira's friendship so much and any scene of them teasing eachother and having eachothers back just made me .. so emo. I love them so much. 


  There was something to be said for having his heart broken so many times. Broken things healed thicker and stronger than they were before. Assuming one survived long enough to heal.



god I could genuinely just talk about this series forever and ever. I love it that much. I've never really fallen in love with historical fiction before, in fact only three times, with The Infernal Devices, The Diviners, and then this. And I Darken is much more of a straight historical fiction, while it reads like fantasy sometimes (another thing I love) it's not got any magic or anything and that isn't something I genuinely go for but I LOVE it so much. Kiersten White thought about everything, the character construction is just incredibly good, the characters are brutal and hard and unbelievably cruel to eachother at times, but there is also so much hope and goodness and happiness in these pages too. 

My expectations for this were INSANELY high, because I had it hyped up to me a lot but it actually still managed to exceed my expectations. I feel like, genuinely, every singe word was in the right place here. Kiersten White had her vision and she executed it flawlessly and because of that I will always hold this series in such high regard. 

Farewell for now to Lada and Radu and Mehmed and Nazira and Fatima and Cyprian! We went through a lot together folks but I'm sure I will be back for a reread soon. I cannot believe I am so whipped for this series but really, I would die for these murder stabby children without hesitation.

Gisela Ayala 

I know the author was trying to be respectful and as much historically accurate as possible. BUT WHY WHY WHY. 

I needed more in that ending. I needed way more Lada Dacrul.

Sara

I cried lmao

This trilogy is one of my favorites. I have read the first two books twice, and I finally convinced myself to finish it (I was putting it off because I didn't want it to end).

(Mild Spoilers Ahead!)

These books mean so much to me. The character development is immaculate- Radu truly comes into his own in this book and fully accepts his role as the true protagonist of the story. I loved seeing him finally accept his identity as a Dracul and use it to his advantage to achieve the ending that he wants, not the one that Mehmed wants for him. 

Speaking of Mehmed, his character arc disgusts me in the best possible way. I started out this series loving the little boy who tries to do right by his kingdom and his friends. However, this soon changes, and as Mehmed rises to true power, he falls in the eyes of the reader. We see him as a lonely man who values his personal gain over his relationships and continuously manipulates those close to him (mainly Radu) to get what he wants. His war with Lada is deeply personal, motivated more by the image of her that he has created in his mind than the reality of their relationship. I was glad to see less of him in this book and to conclude the series with a book that truly revolves around the sibling story of Radu and Lada.

As the series has gone on, Lada has taken a backseat to Radu for many readers (including myself). I still love her and admire her unwavering ambition, but she did not develop in the same way that Radu did in Now I Rise. However, this book made up for the previous by featuring some amazing character moments for Lada. As she says, "... nothing would ever be enough for her." Lada is plagued with the inability to accept things as they are. She refuses to acknowledge that in the eyes of the noble class, she will never be taken seriously as Prince. Instead of attempting to prove them wrong, Lada pulls a Daenerys Targaryen and decides to burn it all to the ground (there are so many comparisons I could make between the two women but I won't go into it here). She is unable to accept the help of any man, even when it would further her own goals, because she is afraid of being seen as weak and feminine. Lada's ambition and cunning is perfectly juxtaposed with her inability to keep those closest to her alive. By the end of the book, she has achieved her goal, but finds herself completely alone. She reasons that this is enough to satisfy her, but it isn't and she spends the rest of her life fighting Mehmed in order to capture his attention. Lada and Mehmed cannot let go of eachother, and this leads to their downfall. Neither truly win in the way they want to, and spend the rest of their lives in conflict because that cannot accept their fates.

This book is definitely more character driven than the other two, but it works. We finally get to see Lada, Radu, and Mehmed come face to face for the first time since the first book, and the tension is electric. I loved seeing Mehmed fade into the background in his own war camp as Lada and Radu reunite and take each other in for the first time in years. The epilogue had me sobbing. Radu stops caring about what other people want from him and is able to live out his life in the way that makes him happy. Mehmed has achieved his goal of successfully leading the most powerful empire in the world, but is not happy, and (as Radu puts it) "... the years have not been kind to him." I thought the ending was perfect, and I loved how wrapped up the trilogy while staying true to the core themes of the story.

Overall, this book was great. A fantastic ending to a fantastic series. I rated it 3.5 stars because I wish it would have been longer, but it was still one of the best endings of a series I have read.

jess

I've left this series finale of The Conqueror's Sagastewing for four years on my bookshelf, and suddenly got an urge to reread the entire series. I remember loving the series in 2017. Honestly -- I am glad I waited this long, because I feel like this was a good time to read this series, and I was utterly engrossed throughout it all. Bright We Burn is a bloody, violent, yet ... oddly heartwarming?? end to a bloody, violent series, and I thoroughly enjoyed every second of it. 

Both Radu and Lada have gone through so much during the course of the series and I loved the way their character arcs were written. In some ways, these books show how the course of childhood trauma can manifest in different ways -- this book is a closing of the circle, Radu and Lada being taken back to their childhoods in Erdine and Tirgoviste, pulled by the strings of their name and legacy. It's difficult to believe that neither of them are not yet twenty. Yet both of them are still falling back on the survival tactics of childhood that cannot support them into adulthood. Lada is a fighter, and always has been, and being back in Wallachia makes her exponentially more brutal to the point of being reckless. On the other hand, Radu feels empty and drained, and has become increasingly cynical and disillusioned with politics and empires, feigning an act so well and so often he has lost sight of who he is. Despite the wars going on, this is a wholly character-driven series and a study on complicated relationships, ambition, and war. Both of their character arcs are beautifully written, with awful and difficult choices all over the place, and the Dracul siblings have such drastic contrast between each other and a hellishly complicated sibling relationship -- but there is still love there, even if it is a love fraught with betrayal, murder, anger, and sadness. 

And believe me when I say that there is a lot of betrayal and murder. This book series does not skimp on the horrors of war, or how brutal the late medieval world is. It did not tone down what sacking a city must have been like for its inhabitants. It did not tone down the horrors of Vlad the Impaler's alleged deeds -- there is one scene which I was utterly shocked by in imagining it, so terrible a deed that I thought it must be fiction, that it was too awful and logistically difficult to be truth, and pulled up the Wikipedia page and realized that it was real. (view spoiler)[This was the impalement of over 20,000 Ottoman soldiers on the road to Tirgoviste, and it makes Lada utterly giddy. (hide spoiler)] So much of this book is based on real history, taken from Vlad's life and generally follows the timeline of events, campaigns, and battles that happened in real life -- if not the precise dating, but spend up to keep them young, but given its own alternate history twist, and I hung on every minute of the plot. 

But after all of that -- this book was oddly heartwarming, strangely comforting. I got the feeling that all the characters got what they had coming for them -- got exactly what they wanted. (view spoiler)[Which is to say -- Radu, oh, Radu, he has endeared himself to my heart, and his whole life has been trauma after trauma after trauma and Radu has stuck to his duties and loyalties. Seeing Radu find love with Cyprian and a family with Nazira and Fatima -- a lovely, beautifully queer family thriving in the 1400s, and four people who got to retire in domestic peace after a horrific childhood -- had me weeping at the end in relief that they, at least, got solace. Lada and Mehmed made their choices and it bathed them in blood, or perhaps they were simply carried away on ambition and legacy and power, but Radu chose family and peace, and had to keep actively choosing it, and I'm so, so, so, glad that he fought for himself in the end. I also think that it's interesting to note that Radu outlives Lada as well as his historical counterpart.  (hide spoiler)]

I am going to be thinking about The Conqueror's Saga for a long time after I've closed this book. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a new topic to deep dive into. 

--

this book was somehow both utterly devastating and oddly heartwarming and horrifically gory and brutal but strangely peaceful at the same time. full review to come when it's not 3am and i'm not utterly aching for these characters and after i've deep dived into the history books of the era, probably

and yes i bought this book 4 years ago intending to read it right away and then finished the last half of this trilogy in approximately a 6 hour binge reading session i finished this book in three hours and i have SO MANY EMOTIONS HOLY FUCK, SOBBING IN MY ROOM AT 3AM OVER VLAD THE FUCKING IMPALER

Alexa Jade

this fell so flat for me and i’m sad about it because I was pleasantly surprised to love book 2 more than book 1. 

this was amazing all the way until about halfway through. radu and lada had such great storylines going on and they were well fleshed out and built my excitement to see how the story would end just for the story to almost reach the climax then end. it feels like my copy of the book is missing 100 pages or something. 

i’m hoping if I revisit this series and take my time with it i’ll be less disappointed by the ending.

In this thrilling finale, Lada realises that it is only by destroying everything that came before - including her relationships - that she can truly build the country she wants. A lonely Mehmed knows that if Lada continues in her defiance, only death will prosper, and with Radu’s return to the capital, the two must now stand together against the woman they both love, in a war against the girl prince. Who will live? Who will die? And who will rule triumphant?

Sheila

This trilogy was just so good! I knew it had to end, but I didn't want it to. Lada was unflinching, so uncompromising and wonderful. Radu grew on me over time, and Radu + Cyprian together were magical. The epilogue hurt me because it's not how I would've ended things precisely, but I'll forgive Kiersten White for that. 

Lada just wanted the world to burn down around her, and I wanted to give her the torch to do it.

Tatiana Alvarez 

** spoiler alert **
           This was such a lovely conclusion to a fantastic trilogy.

Radu is my absolute favorite character and watching him grow up from a crying bow to a silver tongue diplomat, is probably my most favorite character arc ever. Radu is constantly feeling in the shadows of his sister Ladu and his unrequited lover, Mehmed. Yet, it was truly Radu running the show. without him, neither Ladu or Mehmed would have gotten as far as they did.

However, there were still times in this book where I wanted to strangle Radu. For the first half of the book, he was still obsessed with doing as Mehmed asked, despite knowing his Sultan was taking advantages of Radu's affections of him. Radu wanted his friend happy and would do everything to see it, even risk his own life and relationships.

However, the moment that Radu FINALLY let his love for Mehmed go, I cheered. I just wanted him happy and he could finally find his own happiness now.

As for Lada, she continued to get more ruthless. However White does a great job of making the readers not hate her. I found myself growing angry at Lada's cruel methods and constant need to shed blood, but hearing how people talk to her and continue to look down upon her because she is a woman, made it hard for me to stay angry with her.

The loss of her men hit me hard, as did the same for Lada. Bogden was definitely one I had been expected to die, but to see how he died, when he died, and who killed him made my heart stop for a moment.

It was also rather unexpected for Lada, the queen of never wanting to be seen as a woman, decided to carry out her pregnancy of Mehmed's bastard daughter. I wasn't upset with this though, because I love that she let Nazira raise her.

My only complaint is for the death's of Lada and Bodgen. Both of them deserved better. Especially Lada.

Ambreen Hasan

A fantastic ending to one of my favorite series. I never knew that I could feel for almost every character in this book no matter how large or minor the character was. The only time I felt like that was when I read Six of Crows. I cared about the destiny of everyone.

Even until the very end I worried something major would happen that would leave me in ruins(I'm being slightly dramatic). With so much blood, death, and destruction, where could things possibly go? But I loved the way White ended things and I think others will be pleasantly surprised as well.

Alaia

how do i recover from reading the best dark YA trilogy i’ve ever read in my entire life.

Neele Jan

Emily C Peterson

Nikki Sojkowski

An all around solid historical fiction trilogy.

Gemma

Idk why I never put it together that this was a gender-bent retelling of Vlad the Impaler but I enjoyed this series. Lada is for sure the most cruel main character I've ever read but considering Dracula was literally named after Vlad, her bloodlust makes sense. Rating is 3.5 but GR doesn't do half stars :')

Bright We Burn

Reviews