“He knew the law of such things: people in brightly lit places cannot see into the dark.”
This was well written, original fantasy and the plot immediately hooked me. The story was intelligent, thoughtful, and suspenseful; I found the fantasy setting to be both believable and well-developed for the novel’s length and the history of the Herrani and Valorian races intrigued me.
I really liked the conspiracies and betrayals between characters—Rutkoski handled them well so that while everyone was double-crossing one another and I knew none of the characters could be trusted, especially the two main ones, I grew fond of them.
At first I thought Kestrel was just a haughty rich brat, but as I grew to know her, I admired that she was clever and chose duty over her own feelings. I wouldn’t call her, or Arin, very likable. They’re both proud and slightly mean, but I thought they were brilliant and nasty protagonists.
Probably the most surprising thing was the romance. I thought it would be insta love, but nope. The author agonizingly put Kestrel and Arin through trial after trial before they finally began to grudgingly accept their feelings for each other. I was rooting for the two hopeless lovebirds from the start, and the romance wasn’t even as big a part of the story as the politics were.
“Arin loved those hours of waiting. The silent, brilliant tension, like scribbles of heat lightning. His city far below and behind him, his hand on a cannon’s curve, ears open to the acoustics of the pass. He stared into it, and even though he smelled the reek of fear from men and women around him, he was caught in a kind of wonder. He felt so vibrant. As if his life was a fresh, translucent, thin-skinned fruit. It could be sliced apart and he wouldn’t care. Nothing felt like this.”
For a while toward the end the plot slowed quite a bit. I understand the author was using that time for character development, but the scenes got a little repetitive after a while.
Rutkoski had a lovely writing style that I had no problems with, and her beautiful, flowing sentences complimented the story’s setting.
“Once there was a seamstress who could weave fabric from feeling. She sewed gowns of delight: sheer, sparkling, sleek. She cut cloth out of ambition and ardor, idyll and industry.”
The Winner’s Curse ended abruptly, right after a shocking reveal that left my mind racing with questions. I can’t wait for the sequel!
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