Book Review: The Winner's Curse by Marie Rutkowski

The Winner's Curse by Marie Rutkoski
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

cw: mention of slavery, rape

I’ve heard of this book as I was going to college, but I’ve never picked it up until now. Honestly, I can’t remember what happened in it, so this review is going to be short. All I remember was that Kestrel is the daughter of a general that was bored one day at the markets and brought herself a slave named Arin.

She took Arin home, not knowing that he was a spy for the Herrani and the two fell in love until the rebellion, where all the royals that lived in the stolen houses of the Herrani people were taken back and they were also poisoned. Ah. Then Kestrel became the slave/prisoner of Arin and was attacked by Cheat almost every single day, doing the worst things he can think of. One night Cheat nearly rapes Kestrel, I think, and then Arin killed her.

Kestrel escapes and she goes to the empire, where she pleads with the Emperor to spare the Herrani people and give them their freedom. He does…if only Kestrel marries his son, She agrees, go back to the Herrani land, and told Arin that the emperor granted them their freedom and also that Arin is now the governor, and he has to do everything the Emperor says.

So basically that’s it…the book was okay, I found it boring in a couple places but I liked it. I’m reading book two now, so hopefully this series gets better as I keep reading…if not I might just stop at book two if it doesn’t pick up.

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