As the reborn daughter of the Lord of the Sun and the Empress of Darkness, Twylla is Daunen Embodied. She is to be feared and revered, she is after all the Royal Executioner.  Her touch is poison, her touch is fatal, it is a formidable power that comes with consequences that are too great for anyone to handle.

She is also 17 years old, a young lady on the cusp of adulthood whose destiny has been cruelly set in stone, to be forever trapped in a castle as a gilded cage, waiting to be wed to one of the few immune to her touch, the Prince who is also a stranger, only exchanging one prison for another.

And then Lief comes along…

He is her new appointed guard and an outsider to her world, with no preconceived notions and assumptions of who she is as Daunen Embodied and the responsibilities it comes with. He affords her what others find impossible…He sees her, the girl, the soul who needs to be loved…touched?! Their blossoming and forbidden friendship will come with its own layer of complication. There is grave danger and an enormous risk of suffering the wrath of the Queen, as she will not let her ambitious plan be thwarted by anyone, even if it means the sacrifice of her son’s betrothed.

Let’s hope that Twylla has enough sense and wisdom to maneuvre the dark waters that is The Kingdom of Loremere and remain safe.

And while I let you ponder on that, let me just tell you about a few things amongst many that stood out for me.

“The Sin Eater’s Daughter” is not your run of the mill Fantasy YA novel.

First of all, Melinda Salisbury writes as if she is from another time. Every scene is written beautifully, she truly is a magnificent story teller. What’s more, is the exploration of painful and delicate matters that are told through the characters that many suffer in our reality. Whether it is entrapment and that constant feeling of not being in control of your life because someone else is holding your strings or whether you are on the brink of losing your mind because of those things someone is making you do against your will, that you can never forgive yourself for, all of those elements we see and live through Twylla’s eyes.

And don’t get me started on the incestuous nature of the relationships that are plaguing this book, which takes the story onto a new dark, sickly fascinating level.

As if the above was not enough, this piece is packed with ritualistic practices, some reminiscent of funeral rites seen in some cultures around the world, but it is also weaved in a mythology that only enriches this intriguing tale.

What I am trying to say here, is that you are in for a real treat. So if you are a fantasy lover, I do hope that you will pick it up, and let me know what you think.

LaChouett

At this stage I would normally thank the publisher for providing the book, however this time, I actually purchased it myself 😊.