Title: Steel Princess (Royal Elite #2)
Author: Rina Kent
Genre: Dark Bully High School Romance
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Title: Steel Princess (Royal Elite Book #2)
Author: Rina Kent
Genre: Dark Bully High School Romance
Release Date: December 12, 2019
I hate everything and everyone now.
Rina broke me again, and I want nothing more now than my cat, Xanax, and a panic room.
Deviant King is a mind screw of grand proportion full of little hints and easter eggs enough to make one bedlamite. The story is chockablock of broken characters who are far beyond repair; every damn one of them has more baggage than the Louis Vuitton outlet store. All the females are needy for love and affection but trade any hope for good things so they can live off the interest of the lies they tell themselves about the great future the could have if only they spring there trap. —Note to Elsa, Kim, Silvers, and Blair: You ARE your cage.
The only character that isn’t an A-hole of monstrous proportions is Uncle Jaxon. But don’t worry because in Steel Princess Rina breaks him too.
Both books have Elsa and Aiden considering the concepts of intuition and inevitability as their opening chapter. We return to philosophy, and Sartre: Elsa and Aiden both struggles with the ultimate existential crisis: are they the player or the game? In Steel Princess, there are references throughout Aiden’s POVs of his worldview; he’s the player; manipulation won’t work on him anymore. He mastered himself in the darkness of his childhood, nursing himself upon the suffering and pain forced upon him to create a self-possessed demon without weakness — a villain entirely in control of his victim.
But regardless of all Aiden’s encouragement, he hasn’t been able to get Elsa to stop being the game and to embrace her power. Elsa spent all of Deviant King saying bullies shouldn’t be understood. Rina has created her character with enough subconscious awareness to know that her amnesia, her scar, and her submissiveness are the seal on her Pandora’s box, and the key to it is to look into the abyss.
So in book two, our Steel Princess is born upon the sacrificial stone of Deviant King’s poolside cliffhanger; the revelation has finally come to Elsa that she needs to remover herself from the Kings’ gameboard. But it hasn’t occurred to her that all her research on strategy and attack is absurd in the light that she refuses to recognize what she controls. She is focused on the smallest most inconsequential parts of the larger picture and settles for crumbs when she owns the bakery.
This book is a rabbit hole of epiphany and discovery; admissions, confessions, and betrayals unloaded automatic assault weapon style and land like bombs. But the more you learn, the more you realize that you know nothing at all. For all of Rina Kent’s unbundling of backstory explaining what ingredients went into creating present-day Elsa and Aiden, we can’t begin to guess how two monsters will build their twisted kingdom. The last few pages only murky the waters further.
I hate it. I hate how badly I want more. I want a nap.
These books require multiple readings to start seeing Rina’s smart little hidden-in-plain-sight hints for Aiden, Elsa, the other horsemen, and side characters. I see new things with every read and have noticed she unmercifully diverts you from specifically stated facts through inflammatory dialogue between characters. It would help if you read the book once watching and hearing, once hearing all the conversation, and a few times with the sound off. I can assure you you will see things that will open your eyes. But I don’t recommend the obsessive investigation unless you want to join me in the misery that has me up at night penning theories in my journal and texting my therapist for psychiatric profiling answers.
My wrap is that Rina mean-girl styled effed with my mind. I love her. I don’t particularly appreciate how she makes me feel. I can’t wait for her to mistreat me with the last book. And she better not let up with her story-crafting when she moves further into the other Royal Elite Series.
I love the intricacies of her plot and the devastating brutality of the nature of her characters. Rina Kent is comfortable making her characters uncomfortable. I’m cool with that. She is so skilled at character development that I want her to challenge and break the horsemen and make all her heroines rage. And the people she writes are better with the more decay with which she defiles them.
More.
Give me more.
Corrupt me too.
Summary:
The highly anticipated second installment of Royal Elite Series, Steel Princess, is coming on December 12th!
What to expect from Steel Princess:
✔ Dark
✔ Twisted
✔ Enemies to Lovers
𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐢𝐬𝐧’𝐭 𝐬𝐮𝐩𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐝𝐞𝐭𝐡𝐫𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠.
𝑬𝒍𝒔𝒂
He said he’ll destroy me, and he did.
I might have lost the battle, but the war is far from over.
They say it starts with one move to dethrone the king.
No one mentioned he’ll yank me with him on the way down.
𝑨𝒊𝒅𝒆𝒏
If Steel’s little princess wants a war, then war it is.
There’s only one rule: my rules or none at all.
By all means, show me what you got, sweetheart.
𝑇ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑏𝑜𝑜𝑘 𝑖𝑠 𝑝𝑎𝑟𝑡 𝑜𝑓 𝑎 𝑡𝑟𝑖𝑙𝑜𝑔𝑦 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑖𝑠 𝑁𝑂𝑇 𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑛𝑑𝑎𝑙𝑜𝑛𝑒.
𝑅𝑜𝑦𝑎𝑙 𝐸𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑒 𝑆𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑒𝑠:
#1 𝐷𝑒𝑣𝑖𝑎𝑛𝑡 𝐾𝑖𝑛𝑔
#2 𝑆𝑡𝑒𝑒𝑙 𝑃𝑟𝑖𝑛𝑐𝑒𝑠𝑠
#3 𝑇𝑤𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝐾𝑖𝑛𝑔𝑑𝑜𝑚
𝑆𝑡𝑎𝑛𝑑𝑎𝑙𝑜𝑛𝑒 𝑆𝑝𝑖𝑛-𝑜𝑓𝑓:
𝐶𝑟𝑢𝑒𝑙 𝐾𝑖𝑛𝑔 (𝑝𝑎𝑟𝑡 𝑜𝑓 𝑁𝑜𝑏𝑙𝑒 𝑆𝑎𝑣𝑎𝑔𝑒𝑠 𝐵𝑜𝑥𝑠𝑒𝑡)
About Rina Kent:
Rina Kent in an English author who’s constantly parading between France and North Africa due to her studies and her husband’s demanding job.
When she’s not packing suitcases or hopping from one plane to the other, she’s busy whipping her characters to shape.
Since a young age, Rina has been obsessed with storytelling and flawed, edgy characters. Her heroes are often killers and anti-heroes and her books are always sprinkled with darkness, angst, violence, and lots of heat.
Connect with Rina Kent:
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