Week 17 Review: The Ones We Burn

From Goodreads:

Love and duty collide in this richly imagined, atmospheric young adult debut about a witch whose dark powers put her at the center of a brewing war between the only family she's ever known and the enemy who makes her question everything.

Monster. Butcher. Bloodwinn.

Ranka is tired of death. All she wants now is to be left alone, living out her days in Witchik's wild north with the coven that raised her, attempting to forget the horrors of her past. But when she is named Bloodwinn, the next treaty bride to the human kingdom of Isodal, her coven sends her south with a single directive: kill him. Easy enough, for a blood-witch whose magic compels her to kill.

Except the prince is gentle, kind, and terrified of her. He doesn't want to marry Ranka; he doesn't want to be king at all. And it's his sister—the wickedly smart, infuriatingly beautiful Princess Aramis—who seems to be the real threat.

But when witches start turning up dead, murdered by a mysterious, magical plague, Aramis makes Ranka an offer: help her develop a cure, and in return, she'll help Ranka learn to contain her deadly magic. As the coup draws nearer and the plague spreads, Ranka is forced to question everything she thought she knew about her power, her past, and who she's meant to fight for. Soon, she will have to decide between the coven that raised her and the princess who sees beyond the monster they shaped her to be.

But as the bodies pile up, a monster may be exactly what they need.

My Review:
This was a really fantastic read! I loved this world with the witches and how their magic works, as well as the politics of the land. Given that she's supposed to marry the prince, because of this treaty that they have, well, Ranka has her work cut out for her!

The terms of the treaty were just so utterly injust. That the witches were treated like that, and their land invaded for stuff, and there's no recourse for the witches to stop it was so infuriating to me! So I can understand what Ranka had the mission that she was given.

A good part of this book is about trauma, honestly. The coven that raised Ranka, well, their leader just gaslit her and manipulated her, but she was the moth figure, and after the events in her past that made Ranka who she was, Ranka has a difficult time with other relationships. And she can't see how toxic that relationship is. 

But oh, the group at the castle are so great, even if some of them, like Aramis, are prickly. I adored watching them work together as they worked on the problem of the plague and how the citizens were reacting to it. There was so much going on, and I couldn't put it down!

Absolutely loved reading this book, and I can't wait to read more by Rebecca Mix! 

Author: Rebecca Mix
Read: April 28th, 2023
Source: Library 
Reason Why: Sounded really great, and it's a DAC Book, SAC 2023 Book and a WoW Book!
Publisher: Simon Schuster Audio
Published: November 1st 2022

5/5 Hearts

5/5 Books

5/5 Stars