Review The Traitors Daughter by Paula Brandon
On the Veiled Isles, ominous signs are apparent to those with the talent to read them. The polarity of magic is wavering at its source, heralding a vast upheaval poised to alter the very balance of nature. Blissfully unaware of the cataclysmic events to come, Jianna Belandor, the beautiful, privileged daughter of a powerful Faerlonnish overlord, has only one concern: the journey to meet her prospective husband. But revolution is stirring as her own conquered people rise up against their oppressors, and Jianna is kidnapped and held captive at a rebel stronghold, insurance against what are perceived as her father’s crimes.
The resistance movement opens Jianna’s eyes―and her heart. Despite her belief in her father’s innocence, she is fascinated by the bold and charming nomadic physician and rebel sympathizer, Falaste Rione—who offers Jianna her only sanctuary in a cold and calculating web of intrigue. As plague and chaos grip the land, Jianna is pushed to the limits of her courage and resourcefulness, while virulent enemies discover that alliance is their only hope to save the human race.
Most of the time UF new trilogies, all kind of start out the same. There’s the background building, the initial conflict, then the conflict deepens, and we meet the major players in the novel, who is she supposed to end up with, who is the heroine going to have more conflict with, who is she going to be betrayed by, influenced by, typically these are all introduced in the first novel, and usually you can figure out who they are going to be in this novel. You can figure out who the main players are all going to be, but what sets the books apart is the writing. Its all about the plot set up, the intro to the story thats going to determine whether or not I am going to stay interested in the book or just give up and walk away.
The Traitor’s Daughter did the series no justice and I doubt that the majority of those who have read this book will attempt to continue to read the book forward. The prologue was a jumbled mess, trying to straddle dystopian and steampunk robots with horseback and wagon wheels, but not succeeding in either.
Then the book reads as follows, Jianna has no idea who her father really is, she thinks he’s this loving wonderful man whom everyone loves then on the journey to meet her betrothed, her entire caravan of people are slaughtered and when she comes to after being beaten she finds she is married to the man in charge of the slaughter who married her out of spite and vengeance against her father, who unsurprisingly turns out to be a tyrant. Somehow, this girl manages to escape runs into a doctor who thinks he knows better and her life can’t be that bad, and when he returns her he finds her husband positively eager to rape and torture her.
Her father meanwhile has his own political problems and court intrigue to deal with, and the author is introducing an entire UF world of other stuff while simultaneously trying to build these characters and this world and genuinely not succeeding. Instead of letting us come to know the world while she lives it, the author is force-feeding you this world and these people, and all of this information about houses, political structure, other races, and its way way too much. This behemoth of a novel gets away from the author and becomes unreadable when there is so much going on I felt compelled to create my own flow chart to try to understand it.
Overall Rating: C-
