Sara B. Larson

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.

Dark Breaks the Dawn

It is her eighteenth birthday, and Princess Evelayn of aEadrolan, the Light Kingdom has finally come into her full magical powers, which include shapeshifting, but she still has to be trained, and with her mother, the queen, away fighting the war with the Dark Kingdom of Dorjhalon, she must rely on two dark Draaiolons, Lord Tanvir and Kelwyn, to prepare her--and with the corrupt King Bain plotting an attack she will need her powers much sooner than anyone foresaw.

Lila Harrison

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...

Paige Green

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.

Dark Breaks the Dawn

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