Poison's Cage

Poison's Cage

Breeana Shields

Poison's Kiss, Book 2

Poison's Kiss Review

I received an eGalley from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. Thank you!

I really enjoyed book one in this series so I had high hopes going into this one. It wasn't a bad read at all, and it was just as quick and easy to get through as book one. However, while it did all the proper things a sequel should do, and even wrapped the series up nice and neatly, it also fell through for me a bit. Not to say this is a bad book because it's not, but it didn't make me fall in love the way book one did.

Initially I loved that it was a split story: half Marinda's story and half Iyla. As it progressed I found myself wishing that it was only Iyla's story and Marinda was playing the side character instead of another leading role. That's not to say her side of the story was bad, but it felt repetitive and often Iyla's was the actually interesting plot line. While her character has time to breathe and grow in this book I would have enjoyed watching her unfold as a person for longer than we are given.

I also found that the middle dragged quite a bit, bogged down by not much happening at any given moment. There were a lot of mind-blowing things happening and at the beginning, and in the end, but a good 50 or so page chunk in the middle stopped me cold and I had a hard time picking it up again. And, sure, 50 pages really isn't that long, but for a short book it's rather substantial.

Where the good was in this book: the continued development of the mythology of the world and the plot twists. Book one is fantasy-lite, but is still a really fun romp. While this is still not to be considered "epic" on any tier it does bring the fantasy elements up a notch and really introduces the readers to a wider mythology in the world and it does a really great job of it. Some of the details I missed or dismissed as irrelevant in book one came back in really brilliant ways, such as a limit on how many lives one gets to return in.

Like book one this also really capitalizes on the plot twists. The speed of the book is dependent on them and they're really fantastic. I was kept on my toes the entire time and got emotional because of some of the twists. They're well delivered and kept me excited for what would happen next.

TL;DR This is a pretty good sequel, and a great wrap up to the series, but it does drag in the middle and I feel it would have been better with just one narrator.

A single kiss could kill. A single secret could save the kingdom.
Iyla and Marinda have killed many men together: Iyla as the seductress, Marinda as the final, poisonous kiss. Now they understand who the real enemy is—the Snake King—and together they can take him down. Both girls have felt as though they were living a lie in the past, so moving into the King's palace and pretending to serve him isn't as difficult as it sounds. But when you're a spy, even secrets between friends are dangerous. And each girl has something—or someone—to lose. Does every secret, every lie, bring them closer to the truth or . . . to a trap?

Breeana Shields is an author of young adult fantasy. Her first two books, POISON'S KISS and POISON'S CAGE, are out now from Random House BFYR. When she’s not writing, Breeana loves reading, playing board games and spending time with her husband, her three children and two extremely spoiled dogs. She lives in the Pacific Northwest, where it drizzles, rains or pours nine months of the year, but then transforms into paradise during the other three. She’s willing to make the trade-off.

 Book cover linked to Goodreads. Book cover, author info, and description taken from Goodreads.