Blade of Two Faces by Blake Blessing

 Blade of Two Faces

by Blake Blessing

My Rating: 🟊🟊🟊🟊🟊

Spice Rating: 🌶

Blurb:

Never send a man to do a woman's job. Mulan meets Gladiator in this explosive why-choose romantasy!

When I fled from the rotting kingdom of Mador, there was only one thought on my mind—revenge.

For too long the king, my brother, has kept me underneath his iron rule, and I’m hellbent on getting justice for the years I’ve spent as his captive. But the outside world is on the brink of a complete upheaval.

The world’s provinces are colliding in the Imperial Trials—offering men a chance to compete for their mate… and the crown.

If there’s any hope for my plans, I’ll need to put myself right in the middle of it.

My greatest threats? Four ruthless heirs, each with a hidden agenda of their own. Not that it matters.

I’ll enjoy being their ruin.

May the most cunning and ruthless candidate win—or die trying.

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

My Review:

Well. Here we are. And I need you to understand something before I say anything else. This book was a traumatic ride from beginning to end and I mean that with every ounce of love and enthusiasm I am capable of generating. The kind of traumatic that has you turning pages so fast your fingers can barely keep up, the kind that makes your heart race and your stomach drop and your jaw land somewhere on the floor while you just keep going because stopping is simply not an option.

This book was everything I love rolled into one gloriously chaotic package and I am not even a little bit sorry about how attached I got to it.

Let me walk you through what is happening in this story because it is a lot and it is wonderful. We have a woman running away from her kingdom and from a brother whose mind has gone to places that are genuinely sick and terrifying. She makes the very logical and very bold decision to disguise herself as a man, which, fair enough, except for the small complication of her lilac hair and lilac eyes, which are not exactly the most common or inconspicuous features in any kingdom. She does it anyway because she is brave and desperate and out of options, and I respect her enormously for it.

She sneaks into what she thinks is going to be a safe haven and instead stumbles directly into a kingdom that is actively holding trials for the military and the crown. And before she can even fully process what she has walked into, she is tossed into those trials herself. Just thrown in. No warning, no preparation, no mercy. And from that moment forward, everywhere she turns, someone is trying to kill her. Every single direction. Constant mortal peril. Absolute chaos. I loved it.

Now let us talk about the love interests because this is where things get genuinely complicated and I am here for every second of the complication. There are four of them. Maybe. I say maybe because calling them love interests feels generous given that for the vast majority of this book they are actively trying to end her life. This is not your typical enemies to lovers situation where there is some tension and some bickering and then a slow thaw into feelings. No. This is enemies to lovers taken to its absolute logical extreme, where the enemies part is so fully committed and so relentlessly sustained that you spend the entire book wondering if anyone is going to make it out of this alive, let alone fall in love. Up until the very last pages these men are trying to kill her. Every single one of them. And yet. And yet there is something there, something crackling underneath all of that violence and hostility that keeps you completely riveted and desperately wanting to know what happens next.

What I loved most about our female main character is that she grew her spine throughout this story in real time and you get to watch every single moment of it. She arrived running and hiding and surviving by the skin of her teeth. And somewhere along the way she stopped shrinking. She started standing up for herself. She started running her mouth, saying exactly what she thought, refusing to be silent or invisible or small, and the absolutely unhinged result of that is that it made these wild and dangerous men want her head even more. She kept talking anyway. I adore her completely.

And that ending. That ending. I am not going to spoil it for you because you deserve to experience the full emotional devastation of it yourself, but I will tell you that it is the kind of ending that has you staring at the last page in disbelief and then banging your head against the wall because you need book two immediately and it is not here yet. The audacity of ending a book like that and making us wait is genuinely criminal behavior and I will be thinking about it until the next installment is in my hands.

I need book two now. That is not a request. That is a desperate and heartfelt plea to the universe. If you love fantasy with a fierce and unapologetic female main character, with chaos and trials and morally complicated men who may or may not be trying to romance you while also trying to murder you, then Blade of Two Faces needs to be your next read. Pick it up. Prepare yourself. And maybe have something nearby to bang your head against when you get to the end. You are going to need it.