I have been waiting, somewhat patiently, for this book. I had the fortuitous chance to read book one, The Shattered King, earlier this year before the release and leapt at the chance to read this book when it was available. On the one hand, I want to write a well-balanced review, talking about all of the character development, the plot twists and payoffs that made this book utterly brilliant. On the other, I want to scream into my hands and kick my feet and laugh maniacally like some crazed fan to extol the virtues of this book.
Guess which side is winning? Allow me to pause for a moment while I gather myself.
And now we are back. Honestly, I want to go on and on about how BRILLIANT this book is and have that somehow be enough because my emotions are still running high but at the same time, I know it's not enough to give this book flowery words of praise without delving into the contents of the story so without further ado, the review!
The Half-Hearted Queen picks up where The Shattered King left off, with Nym taken captive by King Nicosia. Nym is forced to be a political prisoner, guarding her secrets about how she healed Prince Renn while also also trying to work out the connections between the two kingdoms. Desperate to get back home, Nym has to survive the days as the prisoner to a king who will stop at nothing to figure out the inner workings of Nym's healing craft and how he can gain the talent for himself. Meanwhile, Prince Renn has to work to understand his place as the new King of Cansere, leading his people as they try to fight back the Sestan forces that have taken their homeland while an ancient prophecy starts to reveal itself. As the war continues on and Cansere realizes how ill-prepared they are for war, Prince Renn has to consider all the options he has available to save his people, including an alliance with a neighboring kingdom that could threaten his burgeoning relationship with Nym.
The story is strong. The threads from the first are carried through to this book, with reveals paying off with high emotions for me as a reader. As a book about an ongoing war, Holmberg has to work with some delicate subject matter, specifically the actions of a despicable man hellbent on getting what he wants, no matter what the costs, and how this intersects with the treatment of Nym as a prisoner. It made my stomach turn and yet, for the sake of depicting war, it was necessary to see how Nym suffered away from home and away from Renn. The scenes helped to paint Nicosia as the villain and helped to show just how strong and determined Nym had become, a woman who had grown into a force that apparently put this villain on edge enough that he was almost desperate to understand what set her apart from other healers.
I wanted to enter this world and destroy Nicosia myself. There was a moment in reading about what Nym suffered that I had to put this book down and breathe because I wanted it to be over, I wanted Nym back home where she belonged, I wanted her back with Renn and I wanted her to annihilate Nicosia. This is the payoff from the first book. Holmberg has created a character that readers adore and seeing Nym suffer forces us as readers to feel for her, to be on the edge of our seats as we witness her pain. When Nym finally manages to get out of Sesta, readers are as relieved as Nym is and we are able to breathe easier. It shows the talent Holmberg has that readers will feel so deeply for the lead of this book.
Another point about the plot and the emotions is the fact that this book got to me in ways I did not expect. Yes, I felt something akin to rage towards the villain, and yes, I was also annoyed with some new characters that I was ready to boot out the door. But it was the quiet moments of reunion that got me the most. I care for the characters I read about and when I rate a book high, it usually has to do with just how much I felt about the people in the story. I cared about these characters, even the ones that did not spend so much time on the page but as I had read about them enough with what Nym said about them, I came to love the people that Nym loved too. So when a particular reunion took place on the page and there was mention of a sob being choked back, I was right there with that character, rapidly blinking back tears and trying to swallow around the lump in my throat because I was that invested in this plot payoff. That emotion took me off guard and yet it made me smile, because a truly great book will make you run the gamut of emotions that the characters are going through.
But then Holmberg got me a second time, with yet another reunion between characters, and I had to put the book down because gosh darnit, my chest felt tight and my eyes were so watery I couldn't focus on the words in front of me. As a reader, I can only hope that I feel that deeply for the events of the book that I am reading, so the fact that this book got me to tear up TWICE, well, that catapults this book into all-star favorite status. You hear that sound? That's the slow clap and standing ovation I'm giving this book. And there were still moments to come that made this book continue to keep me on my toes, smiling and laughing at the romance and holding my breath at the battles, and waiting for the moment that the villain finally gets what is coming to them.
It was all a sight to behold.
The characters are still solid, even the new additions. Renn is still the strong lead that is necessary to keep Nym hoping for more than what she ever that would be possible for her future. Their interactions were swoon-worthy and their back-and-forths proved that their match was the one to root for. I loved how Renn was shown to have gained all of this strength and yet the character that was shaped by a lifelong illness was proven to be a humble man, wishing to keep the spotlight off of himself and yet accepting that in order to win the war, all the hopes of his people were set on him and what he could do. I loved his resolve and his determination to keep Nym, the person who loved him for who he was before he was healed and the woman who had sacrificed so much of herself to fix him. The book showed just how much Renn had absorbed in his life being in the background of his family and how he was able to use his knowledge to strategize how to win the war and work out an alliance that would hopefully keep his people safe now and in the future.
This time around, readers are given more time with Princess Eden and she proved to be a quiet force that kept Nym focused when she was captured. Eden was shaped by the life that she had led and I appreciated how Holmberg showed that Eden could see what had come before and after the events at the start of the book and how she had been sheltered as a member of the nobility compared to what Nym had gone through in her life. If Holmberg decides to continue writing in this world, I would read a duology focused on Princess Eden and what she has to overcome after the events of this book. I was happy when more of Nym's family made an appearance in the story even though I wanted all of them sequestered somewhere away from the battles. I wanted horrible things to happen to some less than likable certain characters, which shows that Holmberg can make readers hate characters just as much as she can make us love the people in this story.
In my review of the first book, my only complaint was that I wasn't really sure about how much time was passing between the different events of the story. This time around, Holmberg has the specifics that made this exactly what I needed to understand the heavy emotions of the book. The passage of time has a weight to it that makes every moment precious so to know that it has been three months in captivity, or two months since this happened, or this long on the road, it all helps to convey the effort it takes for these characters to get to the resolution of the book. I wanted to be able to keep track of time and the specifics were there to help me understand the loss and the relief as Nym moved through this book. It was everything I could have asked for right when I needed to know it, to help me feel just how difficult things had become for Nym while she was in Sesta, to understand the high emotion of Nym receiving certain surprises in the story, to illustrate exactly what the characters were pushing through as they tried to win the war. I loved every moment that Holmberg gave us in this story and I can't think of anything that needed more because I got everything I'd hoped to see and then some with this story.
Rating on my Scale: 10 Stars!!! This book gave me everything I needed to love it. This duology will live on a shelf of my favorite reads and I will be reading these again and again for years to come. I will be reading everything that Holmberg writes from this day forward AND I will be working my way through every past release as well, all the while working on getting physical copies of every book so that they can all live together on a shelf dedicated to the works of Charlie N. Holmberg. If you read the first book, this book is the perfect ending to the story. If you haven't read The Shattered King yet, what are you waiting for? Run and get a copy now and be prepared to fall in love with the story of Nym and Renn.
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