A Snake Among Swans is everything I was expecting and more. This is a book about love, ambition, and revenge. About the messy relationships we have when we would rather not and the people who drive the knife. Keep reading this book review of A Snake Among Swans for my full thoughts.
Summary
“Death is come to take you home, death of blood and thorn and bone…”
Tilde has always heard the whispers of the kithwood, the voices of her ancestors speaking through the mysterious forest of her homeland.
But now both the kithwood and her kingdom are in danger.
For Tilde is the only surviving heir of a conquered land. To unite the people and finally stop the bloodshed, she marries the aging warlord, King Liran. Her duty is to bind their nations and bear him a son.
But the swan king’s court is dangerous. Tilde is a threat to the claim of Liran’s older sons, who will do whatever it takes to remove her, to the princess Elise who has only ever known loyalty to her family, and to the priests who own them all.
Yet none of them know that Tilde is a snake in their midst, with allies on her side and dark, forbidden power of her own. She wants her kingdom back, and she will sacrifice everything to claim it.
For the queen to rise, the swans must fall.
Review
(Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher. This has not impacted my review which is unbiased and honest.)
A Snake Among Swans is a story about subterfuge, betrayal, and losing the battle to win the war. It’s about the ways rage and grief simmers within, festering and growing stronger with the shadows and thousand cuts, until it grows strong enough to rear its head. For anyone who loves a long con, A Snake Among Swans is the way to go. How we can focus on this one enemy, this one moment, or we can set our sights on ending an entire enemy, a force, a kingdom. This epic fantasy is immersed in politics. All the ways we debase ourselves to find another ally in humiliation. The little injustices we suffer and bleeding knees, all in order to find a friendly eye in a crows. A Snake Among Swans thrives in the games of cruelty and violence, subjugation because you can and because no one can tell us no.
It’s a story which is compelling from the beginning. All about the people we could be if we were given the space to fly. With our wings clipped, how do we fight for a future? A chance to win the war? A Snake Among Swans makes me appreciate the plot and the politics, the relationships formed at the ends of knife points and in tender, but strained, silence. In a pit of vipers, is it possible to remain kind? To remain good? A Snake Among Swans examines what revenge transforms us into. And what pieces of us, of our love, of our country, will remain standing.
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Find A Snake Among Swans on Goodreads, Storygraph, Bookshop. org, Blackwells, & Libro. fm.