Twylla is blessed. The Gods have chosen her to marry a prince, and rule the kingdom. But the favour of the Gods has it's price. A deadly poison infuses her skin. Those who anger the queen must die under Twylla's fatal touch.
First, before I start to talk about the books itself and I felt about it, can we talk about this cover? It is honestly what drew me toward The Sin Eater's Daughter in the first place, the synopsis is what had me adding it to my TBR. Now that I've finally read the book, I love the cover even more. Because now it's more than just a pretty cover. It makes sense. I just love it when the cover tells you the story, but you don't realize until after you've finished the book.
Now onto the book. From the first few pages I fell in love with Melinda Salisbury's writing style. Her world building was done wonderfully well, and I never once had a problem seeing where Twylla was in any part of the castle. I never had a problem picturing the characters in my head as I was introduced to them and was easily able to remember them from chapter to chapter.
I was also a fan of how the book it started. There wasn't a chapter that was a large information dump of: this is where we are, this is how the people got here, etc. Instead we are thrust straight into another day for our main character Twylla. In fact we are thrown straight into our main character's purpose, being the executioner of Lormere. After that I enjoyed our Salisbury introduced information about the history of the world inside The Sin Eater's Daughter.
Another thing I want to give Melinda Salisbury props for, is she can create a character that you will love to hate. I don't think there was a single second where I liked the Queen. From the first time we met her and all the way until the end, I hated her. In fact one of the few decisions that Twylla made that I agreed was her opinion on the Queen at the end. I honestly spent the whole book wanted to strangle the Queen, not because she was stupid character, but because of things she did. The pure way she treated people around. I love a good bad guy in a fantasy novel.
These being said, it didn't take long for The Sin Eater's Daughter to start getting a bit predictable for me. Once all the introduction were out of the way, and I was settled into the story I started to figure it all out. Well, almost all of it. There was one thing I didn't catch. When the last bomb was dropped I was so mad about it, too. I trusted this character, was rooting for this character, and then I found it was lies. RUDE!
Then there was main character, Twylla. At first I didn't mind how naive she was. After all she's been trapped inside a castle since she was young. She honestly thought she was living her own twisted version of a fairy tale. Only, after I while I wanted to shake her because the answers to some of the questions where right there. All the truths she needed where staring at her.
However, it wasn't until the last chapters the I finally put all the pieces of Queen's plan together. Salisbury did a great job of setting the foreshadowing up for that. So much so that I almost missed it. In fact if my cat wouldn't have pulled my bookmark out during the night, forcing me to reread to find out what my last page was, I might not have honestly caught it.
My only other complaint about The Sin Eater's Daughter is kind of selfish one because I honestly thought there would be more sword fighting. I mean, Lief was suppose to be this badass swordsmen who bested all the other guards. So I figured we were going to get a few epic sword fights out of him to show off his skills. Instead I got one and a quarter. I mean seriously. Why build him to this epic thing and only have him best one person?
On that note though, I did love the fact Salisbury wrote an entire book on court politics and the ways people ruin each other. It was a lot of scheming and planning and poisons. Which once you start to figure it out, it all makes sense and comes together, but I still would have liked someone to have been stabbed. For Lief to show off just how dangerous he really was.
..Just saying...
In the end I enjoyed the book, and I'm excited that the next book isn't so much a sequel as it is a continuation. Because, I really feel that Salisbury did a wonderful job of tying up Twylla's story. It will be nice to see the world from a Tregellian point of view, while continuing the story from where The Sin Eater's Daughter left off. Maybe I'll get that epic sword fight.
So yeah, I total recommend this book! It was a quick and fun read. It was before bed book, after work. I know a lot of people complained about the angst between the main character fighting between which love interest to chose. Honestly, that didn't bother me, because it was the choice between heart and duty. Which is sort of timeless part of Young Adult Fantasy and I thought Salisbury did a good job with it. There were moments I was rooting for Merek, and times I was totally Team Lief. So if you want a fun and fast read, definitely give The Sin Eater's Daughter a grab.
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