The Gilded Cage by Lynette Noni
Blurb:
Kiva trades one cage for another when she leaves behind a deadly prison for a deceptive palace in this dark and dangerous sequel to The Prison Healer, which Sarah J. Maas called "a must-read."
Kiva Meridan is a survivor.
She survived not only Zalindov prison, but also the deadly Trial by Ordeal. Now Kiva’s purpose goes beyond survival to vengeance. For the past ten years, her only goal was to reunite with her family and destroy the people responsible for ruining their lives. But now that she has escaped Zalindov, her mission has become more complicated than ever.
As Kiva settles into her new life in the capital, she discovers she wasn’t the only one who suffered while she was in Zalindov—her siblings and their beliefs have changed too. Soon it’s not just her enemies she’s keeping secrets from, but her own family as well.
Outside the city walls, tensions are brewing from the rebels, along with whispers of a growing threat from the northern kingdoms. Kiva’s allegiances are more important than ever, but she’s beginning to question where they truly lie. To survive this time, she’ll have to navigate a complicated web of lies before both sides of the battle turn against her and she loses everything.
But when her heart is torn between family and her sworn enemy, who can she trust?
Enemies to Lovers: She came to the palace to destroy the royal family, but she never planned on the one person she can’t resist being the crown prince himself.
Secrets and Lies: To survive, Kiva must play the part of a loyal subject, but she’s hiding secrets from everyone—including the siblings she fought so hard to reunite with.
Torn Allegiances: As a rebellion brews outside the palace walls, Kiva is caught between the family she is bound to by blood and the people who are capturing her heart.
High-Stakes Fantasy: In a dangerous world of royal politics, hidden magic, and growing threats, one wrong move could cost Kiva everything she has fought for
Review:
After escaping the infamous prison called Zalindov. Kiva finds herself confronting a different, albeit prettier, cage: the palace and kingdom of the prince who’d saved her in the prisons and the trials from The Prison Healer.
Determined to survive the palace just like she survived the prisons, but with an additional goal to bring down the royals housing her, she’s just as desperate to keep her identity as one of the last living Corantines a secret. Wielding healing powers that might be far more capable than she’d originally imagined, she tries her best to stifle her abilities and remain unexposed.
But worse than the complication her magic poses is the threat of her heart—and the man who might be close to capturing it. The very man, prince, and heir who she’s determined to take down on behalf of her family.
She’s not the only person fighting for what she believes, though. Outside the kingdom Kiva feels trapped in, rebels and soldiers clash in a pursuit for putting who they believe to be the rightful heirs on the throne. Alliances fracturing, Kiva must decide whose side she’s on…and if her ten year’s of motivation to survive in Zalindov is worth holding onto.
I am realizing that Lynette Noni is becoming one of my favorite authors. It took me far too long to get into The Gilded Cage, the second book in the trilogy that starts with The Prison Healer, but once I got the bug in my ear to read it, I couldn’t put it aside. I binged this book and book three in rapid succession (review for book three coming soon!) and they were both darkly beautiful and immensely enjoyable.
Noni has a way with words that few writers can claim to have mastered. The world in The Gilded Cage is expansive, far more so than in book one, but it’s so well described and so well defined that I never found myself confused by what I was reading. Everything was painted vividly and gorgeously, with attention-snatching prose and imaginative storytelling.
Not to mention, The Prison Healer series as a whole is a unique idea! The sequel adds on the foundation of book two in every way a sequel ideally would. I dare say, book two is my favorite of the lot. It was absolutely un-put-downable, and I read the book within twenty-four hours of starting it to finishing it.
A masterclass in tension, I must admit there’s something about a well-executed “fake identity” trope like what is evident in this sequel. But Noni doesn’t execute this well—she executes it phenomenally.
I was obsessed with the storyline, with the characters, with the magic system, and with all the twists and turns packed both into the worldbuilding and the plot itself. The Gilded Cage was by far the most tense, action-packed novel in the trilogy, and I’d recommend it to readers simply so they can experience the riveting effects of this specific part of the trilogy.
Amazing work by an amazing author, and I cannot wait to dive into more of her work.
