Genre: Fantasy Age Range: YA Star Rating: 4 stars Series: yes - final book in trilogy
*SPOILER ALERT: contains SPOILERS for ACE OF SHADES and KING OF FOOLS*
Synopsis:
Return to the City of Sin, where the final game is about to begin…and winning will demand the ultimate sacrifice.
Only days after a corrupt election and brutal street war, one last bloodthirsty game has begun. The players? The twenty-two most powerful, notorious people in New Reynes.
After realizing they have no choice but to play, Enne Scordata and Levi Glaisyer are desperate to forge new alliances and bargain for their safety. But while Levi offers false smiles and an even falser peace to the city’s politicians, Enne must face a world where her true Mizer identity has been revealed…and any misstep could turn deadly.
Meanwhile, a far more dangerous opponent has appeared on the board, one plucked right from the most gruesome legends of New Reynes. As the game takes its final, vicious turn, Levi and Enne must decide once and for all whether to be partners or enemies.
Because in a game for survival, there are only losers… And monsters.
Synopsis taken from Goodreads. Add to your shelves here.
Review:
QUEEN OF VOLTS is an ambitious series finale that kept me avidly reading through to find out how Enne and Levi would survive given the impressively high body count of major players across the previous two books (and this one does not let up on killing people).
This book has a scope beyond the other two, even though it’s a similar size to KING OF FOOLS. Part of this is due to the sheer number of characters – including 5 POVs – which allows the book to follow many more plot threads, wrapping you in the intricacies of the schemes and manipulations.
Also, YES to Lola and Sophia finally getting POVs. It took me a while to warm to Harvey, but he had a fun character arc that hooked me eventually. Plus, lots of minor characters from the other books suddenly got a lot more page time (Poppy and Delaney being the best of those)
I really liked how big the story was, because it meant seeing more of the world and the characters. With so many secrets to reveal, having that many POVs let it come out in jigsaw puzzle pieces the reader could put together.
It’s also really twisty. In the previous books, the shape of the showdowns (while shocking) were predictable. You knew what the major components would be, even if not the cost – i.e. the Shadow Game in the first book. This book however, with so many moving pieces, had the opportunity to change direction in the last moment, using pieces of information laid down in other POVs to make it feel satisfying when the change occurred.
I also, strangely, found the last few chapters really funny. Once the action was done, the lack of tension seemed to give the story space to be very wry, and I found myself giggling a lot – which was not what I was expecting given how little I’d laughed in the rest of the books. Still, it was a nice tension-less way to end it, reminding me of the hysteria often felt once all the tension is gone.
Read my reviews of other books by Amanda Foody:
The Shadow Game (this series):
- ACE OF SHADES (#1)
- KING OF FOOLS (#2)
With Christine Lynn Herman:
All of Us Villains:
- ALL OF US VILLAINS (#1)
Sifa Elizabeth Reads 