And I Darken

By: Kiersten White
Location: FIC WHI
Genre: Fantasy and History- Sultans and Empires- Young Adults
Series: The Conquerers Saga   #1

This cover has Johnny Depp written all over it, but a chic version. I think this makes me like it..  and be intrigued!

HEADS WILL ROLL, HEARTS WILL BE BROKEN

“So the question becomes, Daughter of the Dragon, what will you sacrifice? What will you let be taken away so that you, too, can have power?”

No one expects a princess to be brutal. And Lada Dragwyla likes it that way.

Ever since she and her brother were abandoned by their father to be raised in the Ottoman sultan’s courts, Lada has known that ruthlessness is the key to survival. For the lineage that makes her and her brother special also makes them targets.

Lada hones her skills as a warrior as she nurtures plans to wreak revenge on the empire that holds her captive. Then she and Radu meet the sultan’s son, Mehmed, and everything changes. Now Mehmed unwittingly stands between Lada and Radu as they transform from siblings to rivals, and the ties of love and loyalty that bind them together are stretched to breaking point.

The first of an epic new trilogy starring the ultimate anti-princess who does not have a gentle heart. Lada knows how to wield a sword, and she'll stop at nothing to keep herself and her brother alive.

I love how Chantal from Goodreads.com  reviewed this book

Dear Kiersten White,

Thank you for restoring my faith in the YA Fantasy genre. I’ve had bad luck with it this year and I really needed someone to show me that the genre wasn’t the problem, and I wasn’t the problem, but instead I was just reading the wrong books.

Thank you for making me feel so much. For filling me up to the brim with emotion. Love, hatred, happiness, despair, frustration, glee, anxiety, passion. I felt it all while reading And I Darken and I can’t remember the last time a book did this to me. 

Thank you for writing about a setting and time period that I’ve never seen before and thus gave this book an air of originality and doing it so excellently.

Thank you for not shying away from making your book all about politics. Thank you for making those political aspects easily accessible to anyone regardless of prior knowledge or reading experience, without ever trivializing it. 

Thank you for all the fleshed-out, authentic characters, but most of all Lada. Thank you for Lada. Just that. 

Thank you for the ending, which was exactly what I wanted to happen throughout the entire second half of the book, but wasn’t sure would. 

Thank you for slowly killing me from the inside in the best possible way. You’ve probably put me in a book hangover for the rest of the year.

Thank you for giving me everything I never knew I wanted.

Sincerely,
Chantal

“I cannot afford to lose you, too"
"You cannot lose something you do not own. Take me with you”