REVIEW | "The Kiss of Deception" by Mary E. Pearson

Title: The Kiss of Deception
Author: Mary E. Pearson
Publisher: Square Fish (8/1/2015)
Genre: fantasy
ISBN: 978-1250063151
Page Number: 512 pages






Blurb
She flees on her wedding day. She steals ancient documents from the Chancellor's secret collection. She is pursued by bounty hunters sent by her own father. She is Princess Lia, seventeen, First Daughter of the House of Morrighan.
The Kingdom of Morrighan is steeped in tradition and the stories of a bygone world, but some traditions Lia can't abide. Like having to marry someone she's never met to secure a political alliance.
Fed up and ready for a new life, Lia escapes to a distant village on the morning of her wedding. She settles in among the common folk, intrigued when two mysterious and handsome strangers arrive - and unaware that one is the jilted prince and the other an assassin sent to kill her. Deceptions swirl and Lia finds herself in the brink of unlocking perilous secrets - secrets that may unravel her world - even as she feels herself falling in love.

Execution
The book picked up very slowly for me. Throughout the first half I was constantly debating whether I should dnf it and quite honestly, the only thing that kept me from doing this was that I had done it to so many other books recently and I simply didn't want to dnf another one.
And I'm so glad I didn't.
While almost nothing happened in the first ~250 pages, the second half of the book was filled with action, adventure and I finally began to establish an emotional connection to the characters.
I was told the book ended in a mind-blowing cliffhanger which I don't quite agree on but I still really want to know how the story is going to continue in the next books.

Characters
The story is told from the perspective of three people: Lia, the assassin sent to kill her and the prince she was supposed to marry. In the beginning, you don't know which one of the two mysterious, handsome men is the assassin and which one is the prince. Though I do agree it adds a kind of mysterious note to the story, I think it could have been done way better.
The biggest problem I had with the first half of the book was that the two men seemed characterless to me. They kind of blurred together to this one person which I know the author wanted you to keep guessing who was who so she didn't really give them outstanding character traits but that also made it incredibly hard to root for one of them.
In the second half though, as I knew who I was dealing with, I grew quite close to them and well, what can I say... I'm Team Rafe.
Lia on the other hand was a very interesting character. She was very strong-minded from the beginning on but throughout the book, she grew so much as a character and I'm really keen on seeing her further character development in the next books.

Emotions
Like I said, it was hard for me to find an emotional connection to the characters in the beginning, but now I'm all in. Both the characters and the story itself are well crafted so it isn't hard to be emotional involved (at least not in the second half).

Overall
Altogether, I can absolutely recommend the book to any fantasy lovers who don't mind the focus of the story being heavily on the romance (though I feel like that will change in the next books... maybe?). In the end, I gave the book a 3/5 stars and I can't wait for the next one!