Book Review: Now I Rise (The Conqueror's Saga #2) by Kiersten White

Title: Now I Rise
Author: Kiersten White
Publisher: Delacorte Press
Release Date: June 27th, 2017
Pages: 496
Format: Paperback ARC
Source: Gifted
Age Group: Young Adult
Genre: Historical Fiction

       

Lada Dracul has no allies. No throne. All she has is what she’s always had: herself. After failing to secure the Wallachian throne, Lada is out to punish anyone who dares to cross her blood-strewn path. Filled with a white-hot rage, she storms the countryside with her men, accompanied by her childhood friend Bogdan, terrorizing the land. But brute force isn’t getting Lada what she wants. And thinking of Mehmed brings little comfort to her thorny heart. There’s no time to wonder whether he still thinks about her, even loves her. She left him before he could leave her.

What Lada needs is her younger brother Radu’s subtlety and skill. But Mehmed has sent him to Constantinople—and it’s no diplomatic mission. Mehmed wants control of the city, and Radu has earned an unwanted place as a double-crossing spy behind enemy lines. Radu longs for his sister’s fierce confidence—but for the first time in his life, he rejects her unexpected plea for help. Torn between loyalties to faith, to the Ottomans, and to Mehmed, he knows he owes Lada nothing. If she dies, he could never forgive himself—but if he fails in Constantinople, will Mehmed ever forgive him?

As nations fall around them, the Dracul siblings must decide: what will they sacrifice to fulfill their destinies? Empires will topple, thrones will be won . . . and souls will be lost. 

Now I Rise is way more brutal and darker than And I Darken, the things that happened in this book left my jaw on the floor.

The choices Radu and Lada made in Now I Rise made me want to jump into this book and shake some sense into them, they had my nerves going crazy with all the choices they made, Choice that I did not like one bit.

Lada is still trying to get her throne back at whatever cost necessary and I love how fierce Lada is and that she hardly listens to anyone's council as to how she should do things. That is great but at the same time it will be her downfall in the future, I sense it and by the end of the book I didn't like what she had to do to secure herself and I don't know how this will effect her later on.

Radu, don't get me started on him, I'm so so so ready for him to wake up and become his own person instead of always following Mehmed. Seriously if Radu stepped out of Mehmed's shadow I think Radu would be just as unstoppable as Lada if not more. I know it's weird me saying that but Radu in the sequel is even more clever and braver and I just need him to leave Mehmed asap.

Now I Rise is a sequel that lives up to the vicarious world Kiersten White has created, I need the next book now.