Review: Dark Breaks the Dawn by Sara B. Larson

Series: Untitled Duology #1
Publication Date: May 30th 2017
Publisher: Scholastic Press
Genre: YA, Fantasy
Amazon ~ Goodreads ~ TBD

Synopsis: On her eighteenth birthday, Princess Evelayn of Eadrolan, the Light Kingdom, can finally access the full range of her magical powers. The light looks brighter, the air is sharper, and the energy she can draw when fighting feels almost limitless.

But while her mother, the queen, remains busy at the war front, in the Dark Kingdom of Dorjhalon, the corrupt king is plotting. King Bain wants control of both kingdoms, and his plan will fling Evelayn onto the throne much sooner than she expected.

In order to defeat Bain and his sons, Evelayn will quickly have to come into her ability to shapeshift, and rely on the alluring Lord Tanvir. But not everyone is what they seem, and the balance between the Light and Dark comes at a steep price. 

My Rating

3.5/5

My Review

I had very high expectations for this book, mostly because I've read Sara's other series. While I loved the book, there was nothing about it that really stood out to me and made the book amazing. I was going to rate it three stars but I've decided to go with 3.5 because I really enjoyed the ending of this book.

King Bain wants to take over Eadrolan, in order to do so he must first kill the Queen, and her daughter Evelayn. When King Bain succeeds in killing the Queen, but fails to kill Evelayn, it is up to her to become the new queen and face the villain who has killed both of her parents. Killing King Bain wont be so easy, especially since Evelayn is only 18 years old and has only just come in to her full power, while she is the only one who can deal the winning blow to kill the king, she must find a way to stop him for long enough for her to gather her powers.

I really liked Evelayn, she was a really well written character and I found myself falling in love with her right from the beginning. We get to see the childish side to her in the beginning, and then how she deals with her mother's death and her process of becoming queen. Her character development is fantastic, she has really impressed me in this book.
The other character that I absolutely loved was Evelayn's best friend Sarin (I hope thats how you spell her name). She was absolutely adorable, and just the most loyal and kindest best friend ever. I would love to have a best friend like Sarin any day!

I wasn't a huge fan of the romance. First of all, its insta love. The characters fall in love right after meeting one another, this is just so over done that I wasn't impressed with the romance right from the start. While I ended up liking the romance a bit, I still couldn't get myself to fully ship them though, there were moments where I was like "Ugh, why are these characters making me cringe so badly, maybe lets just skip over some of the boring romance sections."

I found to storyline to be a bit boring in the beginning, it definitely takes a bit to actually get into the story. Once I was about half way though the book actually ended up picking up a bit more. And like I mentioned before, the ending was a pleasant surprise, although I will warn you that its a bit of a cliffhanger. 
The book itself is very predictable, basically everything you think will happen in the book eventually does. There were a few minor things that surprised me, but not enough to shock me.. if that makes sense. 

Overall, I still enjoyed this book and I do plan on continuing the series. The main character is great, but the insta-romance isn't the best. I'd recommend this one if you don't mind a slow beginning, insta love and predictable plot.

Happy Reading,
Aneta