The Crown’s Game, by Evelyn Skye (Book Review)

 

“She wanted again to hold on to him, and have him hold on to her, so they could whirl together through the cosmos like galaxies that would not—and could not—be confined.”

It’s 1825, and with the surrounding counties threatening war, the Tsar needs a new Imperial Enchanter. But there is only one problem—there are two enchanters in Russia, but there can only be one for the country. So the Tsar starts The Crown's Game: a fight to the death between the two enchanters—the one left standing will become the Tsar’s powerful adviser. 

Vika Andreyeva has been training her whole life for this moment, she’s ready. That is, until she meets her opponent, Nikolai Karminov. Being an orphan, Nikolai hopes the Crown's Game is a chance for a better life. But his fellow adversary has capture Nikolai’s feelings. When Nikolai's best friend and heir to the throne also starts falling for the mysterious enchantress, a whole new game begins…

“I thinking can be a perilous sport.” 

This book…where to begin? Evelyn Skye sure up together an interesting novel! This book held my attention till the very end—it had so many interesting twists, talk about a unique storyline. At first hearing about it I immediately was taken aback and knew I wanted to read it. Russian novels are like literally my favorites, and the fact that it was a spin on the Romanov family was just so cool. 

The best way I can put this book is that it’s The Hunger Games in Russia. Yes, I know—thats a pretty good selling point, but I do have a lot of mixed feelings on it. 

First being the romance in this book. I think it was one of my least favorites out of the books I’ve read. *Sigh* I really wanted to like it, but it was just so unrealistic that I just couldn’t. I just don’t like fiery romances that don’t make any sense. The things that the characters were feeling and hoping for was just not believable in my opinion, and I found myself critiquing a lot of the time. 

That being said, I enjoy the suspense of the love triangle in this book a lot, and I found myself unsure of who I was rooting for more. That being said, I just found myself not relating to them much. I loved Pasha and pretty much the whole Romanov family, but Vika and Nikolai “moral character” I guess you could say, I found myself disliking. Like I said, the love triangle I enjoyed, but when it came to their actual characters, I didn’t love them. 

The parts that really got me were the plot and ending. The plot was *Italian hands* just very cool. I think if the things I just said before were different, this book could have been very good. That is also if the ending was different…my internal tears were flowing! I was so *unsure of the right word to use* all day after finishing this book.

“I love you. Now go. And don’t forget to be you.”

So yeah, there you have it. My mixed, ballistic, unsure feelings. As I said, there was things in this book that I did like, I just found so many things that I really didn’t, per the ballast review. I’d recommend this book as a YA novel and I’d rate it an easy 6–10. 

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