Dark Breaks the Dawn

Dark Breaks the Dawn

A warrior princess must defend her throne in this first book of a haunting and romantic YA duology from the critically acclaimed author of the Defy trilogy, Sara B. Larson.
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Reviews

Photo of Lila Harrison
Lila Harrison@hardcoverhaven
2 stars
Jan 10, 2022

DNF at 65% / 1.5 Stars boring and melodramatic. i'm not 100% opposed to picking it up again in the future, but it definitely wouldn't be my first choice...

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Paige Green@popthebutterfly
3 stars
Nov 5, 2021

Rating: 3.5/5 Genre: YA Fantasy Recommended Age: 15+ (death, violence, gore, sexual references) Pages: 320 Author Website Amazon Link Disclaimer: None, I got the audiobook with my own audible credits! Synopsis: On her eighteenth birthday, Princess Evelayn of Eadrolan, the Light Kingdom, can finally access the full range of her magical powers. The light looks brighter, the air is sharper, and the energy she can draw when fighting feels almost limitless. But while her mother, the queen, remains busy at the war front, in the Dark Kingdom of Dorjhalon, the corrupt king is plotting. King Bain wants control of both kingdoms, and his plan will fling Evelayn onto the throne much sooner than she expected. In order to defeat Bain and his sons, Evelayn will quickly have to come into her ability to shapeshift, and rely on the alluring Lord Tanvir. But not everyone is what they seem, and the balance between the Light and Dark comes at a steep price. Let’s start this off with this: this was one of the cheesiest YA books I’ve ever read and it had oodles and oodles of YA tropes… but it was actually surprisingly okay. The plot was pretty good and the writing was pretty well done and it did well making the language stick to the time period. However, as you can see above, I didn’t talk about a lot of the usual things I do. The book was actually a struggle to get through the first 41 chapters. The world building wasn’t there, the characters weren’t developed outside of two of the main characters, and the book was really confusing to follow at times. Things happened or the characters did things that I didn’t understand what for. I was for sure I was going to give the book a 2 star rating until the last chapter. The last chapter surprised me so much with its misdirection and its terror that I had to bump up the score significantly. I’m going to read the sequel based solely on the last chapter. Honestly, that chapter should have come sooner in the novel as the rest of it feels so awful in comparison. I feel that the book is one big prologue to an amazing novel… aka the sequel. Verdict: Plie your way to the last chapter and then to the sequel.

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Hannah DCamp@wererabbit
4 stars
Feb 6, 2024
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Sophia Ejercito@beyondapage
3.5 stars
Oct 5, 2021
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Julie Janis@juliejanisbooks
4 stars
Aug 15, 2022
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Laura@lauraciriza
3 stars
Apr 15, 2022
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Tiffanie Dang@lovelessdegrees
4 stars
Nov 18, 2021
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Tianna Kelly@tiannakellyreads
3 stars
Aug 31, 2021
Photo of Patricia Santos
Patricia Santos@patriciasjs
4 stars
Aug 31, 2021
Photo of Kate Miller
Kate Miller@hiddenbookthoughts
3 stars
Aug 26, 2021