Imagine having read a best-selling novel when it hasn’t been published yet and then, roughly a year later you get invited to read the second one in the trilogy before release. The first one was mostly about world building and explaining with a dash of action and this second one has more action.

I’m talking about Arcana Academy by Elise Kova, a book that has been big in my country as well and has been translated to Dutch which excited me because not all dutchies like to read in English. The second book is called Prince of Swords and that has been a wild one.

I am terrified. Yet my heart skips a beat. This man might be a monster, but he is my monster.

Taken to the place she loathes with every fiber of her being wanting nothing more then to walk away from this but knowing there is no way out. Stripped of her deck, she holds no power. Ravin wants her to suffer – ordering for her to be put in the dungeons, something she never knew even existed within the prison that’s called Hallazar.

A prison-break; she knew he would come; little did she know the whole of the starcrossed club is at her side in no time. With this prisonbreak Clara Graysword becomes Oricalis’ most wanted and will be haunted to the ends of the earth; literally no place is save for her to maneuver in with the way she looks now, that has to change; so she can hide in plain sight.

To achieve her goal, she has to put her trust in the person she has hated for most of her live even though that same person bedded her until recently, there are still secrets between Clara and Kaelis which results in a nagging feeling of doubt and trust isn’t easily given. How can you trust a person that has been named monster and void-born by his own family?

Her mission isn’t simple, she has to draw the vessel card but to do so, she must find out which element she needs to ink it. With the help from the worldmakers she gets closer every day but the hunt for her gets closer by the day to, living on the edge of danger, she would be so happy when all of this is over and she can cast the world card to right the wrongs of this world.

I can’t divulge more of this story without giving away key moments, so I’ll leave it at this.

Will she make it, though? Knowing Ravin has the death card and can cast it to undo her but only if he knew her real name – but that real name it out there somewhere. Betrayal is a thing in this book and alliances. It’s for you to figure out who you think is the betrayer and who she’ll see as an ally.
So much destruction – so much death and the end being the best cliffhanger. I can’t wait for the conclusion to this trilogy.

It’s worth a solid ⭐⭐⭐⭐ stars!