Release Date: October 8, 2019
Series: Shadow Players #2
Publisher: Greenwillow
Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy
Description
“Jetta is a prisoner. A prisoner of the armee, a prisoner of fate, and a prisoner of her own madness. Held captive in Hell’s Court—now the workshop of Theodora, the armee engineer and future queen of Chakrana—Jetta knows she needs to escape. But Theodora has the most tempting bait—a daily dose of a medication that treats Jetta’s madness.
But the cost is high. In exchange, Jetta must use her power over dead spirits to trap their souls into flying machines—ones armed with enough firepower to destroy every village in Chakrana. And Theodora and her armee also control Le Trépas—a terrifying necromancer who once had all of Chakrana under his thumb, and Jetta’s biological father. Jetta fears the more she uses her powers, the more she will be like Le Trépas—especially now that she has brought her brother, Akra, back from the dead.
Jetta knows Le Trépas can’t be trusted. But when Akra teams up with Leo, the handsome smuggler who abandoned her, to pull off an incredible escape, they insist on bringing the necromancer along. The rebels are eager to use Le Trépas’s and Jetta’s combined magic against the invading colonists. Soon Jetta will face the choice between saving all of Chakrana or becoming like her father, and she isn’t sure which she’ll choose.”
My Thoughts
In my review of the first book, For a Muse of Fire, I commented that Jetta was standing at the precipice, the hardships of her past at her back and the vast unknown at her front. By the end of the novel, she had stepped off that ledge, not knowing if she’d find peace and security or pain and suffering. When A Kingdom for a Stage opens, Jetta thinks she is floating, waiting for someone to give her direction, but really she’s falling toward a fate she cannot escape. She is surrounded by impenetrable darkness, with only the tiny bits of intel her conspirators and conquerors deign to give her as her guides…
To read the rest of my review, head over to Tor.com.
Thanks to Heidi Heilig for sending me a review copy.
Punk-Ass Book Jockey 