Evie’s will-they-won’t-they love interest from the previous book is Lucas Sullivan, the bastard son of the King of Andvari. One thing I loved was the fact that this book had a much stronger romantic arc than the first one. So one of her first official acts as queen is to travel to the neighboring Kingdom of Andvari in order to secure a treaty uniting their nations against Morta. Morta would love to invade Bellona and take over the continent, something Evie is determined to stop. Her subjects are traumatized and suspicious of her, her nobles are fractious, and on top of that agents from the Kingdom of Morta keep trying to assassinate her. Evie has Bellona’s best interests at heart, but her people have survived a bloody coup by her cousin, and are now facing a queen they hardly know. Our heroine, Everleigh Saffira Winter Blair, is now Queen of Bellona, having killed her traitorous cousin to gain the throne.

This book opens immediately after the events of Kill the Queen. You do need to read Kill the Queen to understand the events of its sequel, so plan on picking up that book first. It’s a blend of fantasy-adventure, romance and mystery, and I devoured it in a single day.

I really enjoyed Kill the Queen, so I was delighted to find that I loved the sequel Protect the Prince even more. It featured female gladiators, political machinations, and an underdog heroine.

In Kill the Queen Jennifer Estep introduced readers to a fantasy world that was immersive and blissfully lacking in info-dump.

Protect the prince jennifer estep