Review: The Sin Eater's Daughter by Melinda Salisbury

Title: The Sin Eater's Daughter
Author: Melinda Salisbury
Publish Date:

"I am the perfect weapon. I kill with a single touch.

Twylla is blessed. The Gods have chosen her to marry a prince, and rule the kingdom. But the favour of the Gods has it's price. A deadly poison infuses her skin. Those who anger the queen must die under Twylla's fatal touch.

Only Lief, an outspoken new guard, can see past Twylla's chilling role to the girls she truly is.

Yet in a court as dangerous and the queen's, some truths should not be told..."



Cover: This cover is gorgeous, so gorgeous in fact that it was what drove me to blind read this book. I had no idea what the book was even about, I just knew it was pretty and I had to have it.

StoryLine: I'm feeling a bit "meh" about this book. On the one hand I found the world building totally intriguing: Sin Eater, Daunen Embodied, a kingdom with a long standing tradition of sibling Kings and Queens, a Sleeping Prince, all elements that built up to make for an engaging story. But even though the world building was so interesting, Salisbury had to commit two of the bookish deadly sins: Insta-love and love triangle. Ooh yes, after spending the time to create a lovely and unique world, and spinning an interesting plot line, the author decided to throw in some dreaded cliches. We have the Prince-Guard love triangle, the Insta-Love with the guard, and a good old duel for the lady just to round things out. Now, I might have been more forgiving of just a love triangle, or just insta-love, but I can't do both, especially not in a book that isn't light and fluffy.

Characters: The characters just did not do it for me. I found myself sort of hating Twylla, she just comes off as childish, selfish, and weak. She chose a perceived life of luxury over her family with hardly even a second thought. When she realizes what her choice really intells she just rolls over and accepts her lot in life, never once ever trying to do anything about it. She tells herself that she does these things she knows is wrong just so her her sister can live me comfortably, but never shows any interest in actually learning of how her sister is. She constantly whines and cries about how absolutely dreadful her mother was and the burden of being raised to be the Sin Eater, but had no problem shucking her duty and leaving her little sister to deal with it all.

And she never mentions her two brothers, she loves her sister and hates her mother, but it seems like her brothers don't even exist in her mind. And when given the choice, she always chooses to do whatever her selfish desire is, and not what's needed for the good of the realm. Even after the plot twists at the end, when I was so sure she would make the selfless choice and do what is needed for the good of her realm, she still decides to be a selfish jerk.

And Lief was just as bad. I did not like him. He was just as selfish and childish, and just seemed fake and untrustworthy. I got the same vibe from him as I did from the prince in Frozen. Too eager, too insta-love-y too obvious that he wasn't who he was pretending to be and had ulterior motives. And I was right I didn't really like Prince Merek either, but he was more tolerable than Lief. I liked the King, he was kind, and also brave enough to stand up to the Queen. The Queen was the perfect stark raving mad villain for this story. And I mean that this woman was Crazy with a capital C. I really enjoyed the twists the book turned at the end because they were just so completely twisted yet I could believe it. It seemed like exactly the kind of thing that a character as psychotic her would do.

Parting Thoughts: If you can look past a childish main character and a selfish love interest, then this is a fantastic book. As it is, I really hope the main character does a bunch of growing in the next book to redeem this series.

2/5 Stars