Name: To Dance with Death
Series: The Edge of Glass #2
Author: Brittney Arena
Publisher: Del Rey (US)
Format: eARC
Thank you to Hannah at Penguin and NetGalley for the advanced copy!
Genres: Adult, Romantasy
Spice Rating: 🌶️🌶️🌶️
😭? – one or two tears
Rating: (Actual Rating: 4.75)
Synopsis: Goodreads
Once a spy for the ruthless King Illian, Vasalie sacrificed herself to kill him and prevent a prophesied war. But Illian’s brother, Anton—the king she allied with and began to love—struck a deal with Moranya, the goddess of the underworld, to bring Vasalie back. The his compassion, his memories of her, and all the events of the past six weeks.
Now stripped of the truth, Anton believes his friends betrayed him and accepts Moranya’s offer to rule the kingdom of the dead. But with the kingdom he leaves behind on the brink of civil war, and her cruel father threatening to invade, Vasalie realizes only Anton can reunite a fractured realm.
To save her world and the man she was coming to love, Vasalie must journey to the underworld and reclaim him. But the Anton she finds is the worst version of the arrogant, debauched king she once thought he was. To restore him, she’ll have to restore his memories first… even if it means sacrificing her own heart.
Review:
To Dance with Death is the sequel to Brittney Arena’s A Dance of Lies, and the conclusion to this duology. Therefore there will be spoilers in the below for A Dance of Lies, but any spoilers for the sequel will be hidden if they’re included.
I was pretty nervous for To Dance with Death given the ending of A Dance of Lies for one simple reason, if Anton no longer remembered Vasalie, were we going to spend the sequel spending 80% of it experiencing the separation trope? I hate that trope, it can completely (and most likely will) turn me off from the entire book if we’re stuck in this trope for too long. I needn’t have worried though because Brittney did not do us dirty!
Whilst the situation called for an element of separation, she managed to make it feel less like a denial to the reader. I really appreciated that, and once they were interacting with each other again, I felt rewarded. I loved the little nods back to the first book! And there were moments when something would happen and my heart would break or swell depending on the situation. I loved this story.
The ache I felt while reading To Dance with Death shows that the slow-burn situation we’re thrown into really worked. Slight spoilers in the drop down, please only read if you don’t mind spoilers about the romance.
I truly wanted nothing more than for Anton to remember Vasalie the moment he saw her again for the first time, but knowing the deal he made this wasn’t going to be the case. So we have to watch as Vasalie hurts and Anton is clueless… It was so difficult and like I said the ache I felt in my heart was intense at times because her love was just so clear throughout!
“If I must die, in his arms is where I want to be”
Vasalie remains one of the strongest FMC’s I’ve ever read because even if you ignore her own limitations from her chronic illnesses, she had the weight of multiple kingdoms on her shoulders and the weight of her heart as well. But you can’t ignore her chronic illness, it is a part of her and a part of her daily struggles – but Vasalie tackles each challenge head on and doesn’t let these pains stop her. So it is quite easy to see how I would class her as one of the strongest FMCs I’ve read.
I couldn’t give the full 5 star rating because my only complaint was that we didn’t see very much of the cast of characters that we had grown to love in book 1 but they weren’t as prevalent in the sequel and I simply missed them. But, if I wasn’t going to let that hold me back it would have been a 5 star rating. Still at a 4.75 rating this still means in my eyes this duology is a 5 star duology and I will recommend it to everyone. If you’re looking for disability rep I feel like this one tackles it very well! The romance & slow burn is excellent – so good that in the first book I wasn’t even sure there was going to be an established romance!
“I fell in love with you page by page.”
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