From their trip to Amsterdam to meet the reclusive Van Houten to their hilariously flirty repartee, readers will swoon on nearly every page. The two become connected at the hip, and what follows is a smartly crafted intellectual explosion of a romance.
He agrees to read the Van Houten and she agrees to read his-based on his favorite bloodbath-filled video game. She’s smart, snarky and 16 she goes to community college and jokingly calls Peter Van Houten, the author of her favorite book, An Imperial Affliction, her only friend besides her parents. He’s a gorgeous, confident, intelligent amputee who always loses video games because he tries to save everyone. Sparks fly when Hazel Grace Lancaster spies Augustus “Gus” Waters checking her out across the room in a group-therapy session for teens living with cancer. She’s fighting the brown fluid in her lungs caused by tumors. He’s in remission from the osteosarcoma that took one of his legs.
(dramatis personae, glossary, author’s note, acknowledgments) Lada, Radu, and Mehmed are well on their way to remake the world-but at the cost of their souls.
The multiethnic cast features strong LGBTQ representation and nuanced religious diversity. Tender-hearted Radu cares for Lada, but it’s brutal Lada who loves Radu and great, good people commit terrible acts. Human nature’s contradictory depictions are exquisite and painful. The complex politics and sprawling world make for a dense, rich read. The siege’s depiction is viscerally painful-brutality and atrocities from both sides shake Radu deeply. This puts Radu (and Radu’s wife, Nazira, a believer in Mehmed’s cause since her true wife suffered greatly at the hands of crusaders) in position to sabotage Constantinople but also to admire enough of the people for it to hurt. Meanwhile, Mehmed sends Radu away to Constantinople as a double agent right before launching a brutal siege. Lada must make her own (violent) way as she struggles to be seen, and she makes her own dark choices on both sides of tough betrayals. Radu, however, desperate to close the distance between himself and Mehmed, prioritizes romantic love. She writes Radu a letter asking for his assistance, as she lacks his interpersonal strengths and way with courtly politics. The Dracul siblings experience power’s price in this middle volume of a trilogy that imagines a female Vlad the Impaler.ĭespite Sultan Mehmed’s initial backing, Lada has made little ground in securing the Wallachian throne.
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