The Winner’s Crime (The Winner’s Trilogy #2)
By Marie Rutkoski
Genre: YA Fantasy
Recommended Ages: 16+
Book two of the dazzling Winner’s Trilogy is a fight to the death as Kestrel risks betrayal of country for love.
The engagement of Lady Kestrel to Valoria’s crown prince means one celebration after another. But to Kestrel it means living in a cage of her own making. As the wedding approaches, she aches to tell Arin the truth about her engagement… if she could only trust him. Yet can she even trust herself? For—unknown to Arin—Kestrel is becoming a skilled practitioner of deceit: an anonymous spy passing information to Herran, and close to uncovering a shocking secret.
As Arin enlists dangerous allies in the struggle to keep his country’s freedom, he can’t fight the suspicion that Kestrel knows more than she shows. In the end, it might not be a dagger in the dark that cuts him open, but the truth. And when that happens, Kestrel and Arin learn just how much their crimes will cost them.
The Gist:
I thought The Winner’s Crime was a decent follow-up to book one of this trilogy. It certainly had some exciting parts and moments between Kestrel and Arin, but it still didn’t grab me the way a really exciting book does.
What I Liked:
Kestrel really came into her own in this book. She embraced her intelligence and used it to strategize and manipulate the bad people. I just love seeing a girl use her brain and prove that men aren’t the only ones who can strategize.
Now that Kestrel is in the castle surrounded by potential enemies, the stakes have been upped and that made it slightly more exciting throughout than the first book (though still not enough for me).
The tension between Kestrel and Arin was much better in this book. I remember not being really invested in their love story in book one, but I thought that was greatly improved upon in book two. We finally see how strong their feelings are for each and devastated that they can’t act on them.
I did enjoy the end. Left me wanting to see what happens in book 3.
What I Didn’t Like:
As with the first one, the pace felt slow and draggy in some parts. And I had a hard time following the plot and keeping all the pieces in order. A couple times I found myself asking what was going on. Now, disclaiming, I listened to this as an audiobook so it’s possible I just missed those parts if I was driving or trying to multi-task. But I’ve also listened to gripping books and not had that problem so I’ll let you decide. This is the main problem I had with it, but it’s a big problem for me because it meant I was only lukewarm towards most of the book.
LunasLuckyRating: 3.5/5 Lunas
