[Book Tour] The Dawn and the Prince (Kingdom of Curses and Shadows Book 3)- Day Leitao

It’s the fourth day of this tour and is my turn! ?. You can check the other hosts in Favourite Pages Book Club.

Synopsis

Darkness has taken over her land, and Zora has to find a solution before her world and the Shadow Kingdom merge once and for all—and before Griffin is lost to her forever.

Joined by unlikely allies and facing enemies at every turn, she journeys to a dangerous island where dark secretes are kept, from where nobody gets out alive.

Griffin is in enemy territory and has to play a dangerous game and race against time if he wants to save the people he loves, even if it might mean losing them forever.

The Dawn and the Prince is the action packed, emotional finale to the series Kingdom of Curses and Shadows. Get ready for adventure, romance, creepy magic, and girls kicking ass.

Review

This book picks up the story right where The Curse and the Prince ends. In addition, at the beginning it has a summary of book 1 and 2, which I think is excellent because it happens to me a lot that when I do not read a series in succession, I do not remember anything when I start the next book ?.

Zora and Griffin found the Blood Cup and used it. What they did not know is that the Cup was in fact the key for a spell that the Solana, an ancient race to which Riadne (or false Alegra) belonged, had used to seal the Kingdom of Shadows in the Dark Valley. By using the cup, the Kingdom was no longer anchored to the Valley and shadow creatures could move freely at night throughout Gravel.

“When you’re not sure, listen to that inner voice inside you, you know which one.” Right. The crazy voice that made people make stupid decisions. But Zora didn’t say anything.

Not only that, but Griffin’s curse, by breaking the seal, changes his body with the king of the Shadow Kingdom, and leaves him trapped in Grota. Where live creatures that look like lizards, and from where the shadow creatures get to Gravel.

Zora, along with Riadne and Larzen as unexpected allies, must find a way to save their kingdom from the shadow creatures, and win Griffin back.

She had no idea what she was going to find, but didn’t let her hope fade. She was going to fight until the end, fight to undo her mistakes, save the kingdom, and get Griffin back. She had to.

Meanwhile Griffin must manage to keep his true identity hidden and thwart the plans of the creatures of Grota, who want to invade Gravel.

He shook his head. “I was raised knowing it could happen, and I’ve accepted it. For a moment I had hope, and love, and life, but it was just a moment. It’s gone now.” He smiled. “But at least I have nothing to fear.”

At least (maybe) they could have some help from the golden woman (or Sun Goddess) who appears whenever she feels like it… And that is if she really wants to help ?.

Zora took a deep breath. Hope. There was always hope. But that was the thing; hope should be like that sword; reachable, not like a star, up there somewhere. That had been her mistake. All her life, she had clung to hope; she had tried to teach her students to hope. But what was pointless hope but a lie, a false promise? It was like believing in the Sun Goddess, believing in something outside her reach.

The first thing I must say about this book is how impressed I was with the expansion of the story. Each saga, a trilogy for example, as a general rule starts with a little circle of the story, which is then expanded in the second book, and expanded a little more in the third, to give a full vision of the story.
But this book begins with a small circle, it expands a little in the second, and in the third it explooooooodes. There was sooooo much we didn’t know. Suddenly everything has an explanation, things I took for granted in previous books.

To exemplify what I say I will use the map that appears in this book.

These are the places we get to know about in books 1 and 2:

And the map in book 3…

Is this one:

And this without taking into account that there is another dimension …

I really liked the description of Grota, especially since the place and the creatures made me think about Umadhún and the Sheks from the book Idhun’s Memories. Truly more to the Szish.

Image from Memorias de Idhún Wiki (in Spanish)

The problem is that the new information was SO MUCH that it got to a point when I didn’t know what to do with it. Unbelievably at no point did it get boring, but it was impossible to think that everything could be solved in this book. In fact when I was nearing the end I was very scared that things would not really be resolved.

Was everything resolved? Yes, at least everything important. The truth is that Day did it, but I would have liked one more book. I feel like so many things were added to the story that I would have liked more time to close each topic. In addition, there were some details that I would have liked more explanation.

Now, what I can’t believe is that my favorite character ended up being Riadne. The growth of all the characters is quite good, but Riadne’s is really spectacular.

Riadne felt odd to trust strangers who didn’t even know about Solanas’ existence until a few days before. To trust them to do what generations of her people had not been able to… For once, she allowed herself to hope. If she kept at it, she would start to sound like Zora.

While I love Griffin and Zora, and their relationship is excessively cute, in this book I was completely fascinated with the relationship between Riadne and Larzen, which is still cute but also excessively funny. And it made me want to hit Riadne more than once.

“And remember you’re the sunbeam of my moonlight.” “That doesn’t make any sense.” “It’s supposed to make sense? Well, then, you’re the acid in my stomach.” “Oh.” She meant ew, but it sounded off. “I have no words, Larzen.”

Probably the most important thing in history is hope. But great relevance is also given to relationships, and even abuse. Zora’s fear (rather panic) of sex, even though I felt got a bit lost in the story despite being constantly mentioned, is a topic that I haven’t seen in any book before. I loved finding a story where relationships, particularly sexual, are treated in a different way. There are many, many stories that create the fantasy that everything works perfectly fine from the start, and I think that is precisely what was happening to Zora, who was forcing herself from the beginning just because she believed it was supposed to be like that, that she was the problem. When in reality she just wasn’t ready, and that was perfectly fine.

“All change is traumatic, Zora,” her mother said. “Even change for good.”

…And Seth was an asshole, but that’s a conversation for another day ?.

This is why I don’t give it 5 stars. Because it’s not perfect, but I would still extremely recommend it as it’s a nice, fast-paced, easy to read story. And the characters are wonderful. Besides, Day always does this amazing thing of teleporting you to these realms where you would love to be. (Well, I don’t know if I would like to be in Grota, but you know what I mean ?).

Trust that sometimes things happen for a reason.” She smiled. This idea of greater meaning for why things happened was more and more sounding like a way to dodge responsibility. Yay, let’s blame destiny! Not stupidity. Nope, not at all.

Thank you so much to Favourite Pages and Day Leitao for letting me be part of this tour. I loved this saga and I’m super happy to be on the tour for the last book.

Author

I’m originally from Brazil but I’ve been living in Canada for over 10 years now. I have some influence from Brazilian writers and Brazilian culture, but I also read popular books in English. I watched some Anime as a kid, my favorite being Yamato. I’m a longtime Star Wars fan and I’m active in the fandom podcasting at Lords of the Sith as Denise.
I’ve always loved to write stories, and I like to always include romance, action and humor in my writing. I think stories can touch us deeply. I live in Montreal, Canada, with my son.
My books include the Ya fantasy series Portals to Whyland, and the sci-fi standalones The Sphere of Infinity and Star Spark.
Check out my blog for some news, updates, and nonsensical ramblings.

You can follow her in her media:

A little more info about the book:

The Dawn and the Prince (Kingdom of Curses and Shadows #3) by Day Leitao
Publisher: Sparkly Wave
Release Date: June 18th, 2021
Age: 15+
Genres: Young Adult, Fantasy, Romance
Links: Goodreads | Amazon