The Betrothed by Kiera Cass: A Review

Dresses, kings, parties, and castles…Kiera Cass definitely has a specialty.

I am a fan of hers, as she wrote one of my favorite YA series “The Selection.” It is similar to this book in the way that it deals with a common girl’s experience with royalty. However, it is a bit different still in many ways.

In “The Betrothed” we are introduced Hollis Brite, who is a young lady from a nobel family. She has caught the attention of King Jameson, and early on in the book declares his affections for her and his intentions to make her his bride. This story is more of a fairy-tale courtly romance, full of the common royal dramas such as jealousy, parties and guests, and forbidden love. This novel appealed to my inner teenage self who loved stories like the Selection series and the Princess Diaries series, and was very excited for another castle romance. In the Kingdom of Coroa, the regal women were strong influences in their society– something Hollis longs to become as well. Therefore, her budding relationship with the most powerful man in the Kingdom could not be a perfect. It’s also her chance to prove herself to her parents and for them all to live lavishly. However, when a family of Isolten (neighboring kingdom) refugees come to the castle, their oldest son become a good friend and confidant of hers. Her court responsibilities increase and the king only become more enamored by her. Soon, what she thought she wanted her whole life is not all that it seems.

I will say that I liked this novel, but I can’t say that I liked it more than her others.

Hollis Brite, in my opinion, was a good character. She wasn’t something extraordinary, which made her relatable, but it also didn’t make her very interesting. She was a lady of the court, so while she was still a teen girl who liked to have her fun, she was able to uphold a presence of regality with her ability to entertain, conversationalism, and dress. While she seemed like she was quite aloof at first, she was able to sway the ideas of the king to allow the refugees to stay in Coroa. That was probably the part in the book when she appealed the most to me. She was a likable heroine character, although I thought she was a bit foolish at some points.

King Jameson is what I imagine a king would be. I don’t think he has bad intent, and he truly loves Hollis and would give her anything she desired. He is a bit too controlling though, an attribute derived from his late father no doubt. Silas, the eldest son of the Isolten refugee family, did not appeal to me as I hoped he would. He was kind, humorous, and understanding of Hollis difficulties as a soon to be queen. I could not quite understand the relationship between the two of them and how it became what it did. It happened a bit too fast for my liking. What I liked about him most was his skill of crafting fine armory, which became an advantage. There were other characters as well, who I found more interesting than the primary characters. I found that I really liked Silas’ younger sister, Silas’ mother, and the Queen of Isolte to be among my favorite characters. The character that I liked the least is probably Delia Grace. I just didn’t like her attitude.

I thought that the flairs of kingdoms themselves were very fascinating. There were a number of kingdoms, but I don’t remember what they all were. Coroa and Isolte were the most mentioned. They each had selected colors: Coroa was red and Isolte was blue. I appreciated that each kingdom had a strength, and wore different sorts of attire. For example, Isolte focused more on sciences. Some of rulers the kingdoms were more mild in their dealings, and others were more aggressive. I feel that Cass, as well in her other books, shines in her establishment of the realms that her novels are set in.

Overall, I would say that I liked this novel. I would not classify among my favorites, but I did enjoy it. At the end of the novel, I was left quite surprised by the shocking events that I did not anticipate whatsoever. So, I am excited for the next book. I hear it is to be a duology, so it will only have two books. I do recommend this book to Tudor fans, and fairy-tale romance story lovers.

Thanks for reading this review! If you would like to recommend any books to me, let me know in the comments! Also, follow me on goodreads here to see what I’m currently reading! Stay safe!