For the Throne by. Hannah F. Whitten | Book Review

My Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

Title: For the Throne (Wilderwood, #2)

Author: Hannah F. Whitten

Format: ebook (borrowed)

Pages: 496

Publication Date: 6/9/22

Publisher: Orbit

Categories: New Adult, Romance, Fantasy, Fairy Tales, Twins

The First Daughter is for the Throne
The Second Daughter is for the Wolf…

Red and the Wolf have finally contained the threat of the Old Kings but at a steep cost. Red’s beloved sister Neve, the First Daughter is lost in the Shadowlands, an inverted kingdom where the vicious gods of legend have been trapped for centuries and the Old Kings have slowly been gaining control. But Neve has an ally–though it’s one she’d rather never have to speak to again–the rogue king Solmir. 

Solmir wants to bring an end to the Shadowlands and he believes helping Neve may be the key to its destruction. But to do that, they will both have to journey across a dangerous landscape in order to find a mysterious Heart Tree, and finally to claim the gods’ dark, twisted powers for themselves.

Content Warning: violence, self harm, rats and roaches

I finished this duology in one week, yay, so was it better than the first book? Let’s so what did and didn’t work for me:

+ The story is still told through different perspectives: Neve in the Shadowlands with Solmir trying to take care of the Kings, Red and company trying to figure out how to get Neve out of the Shadowlands and Raffe who brings in a new character to their crew, Kayu. Once again, where I was more invested in Red’s story in For the Wolf, I was now more interested in Neve’s in this volume.

+ We learn more about the Kings and what happened in the past. We get to try and decide if Solmir is trustworthy or not.

+ Neve is a strong character and she’s battling with some internal struggles. She’s trying to uncover who she really is – is she good? Or has her actions trying to save Red show that she’s bad? Is it so black and white? Will she embraced all parts of herself, good and bad? Neve held her own in the Shadowlands, she thrived alongside Solmir and killing beasts and taking their god powers. I liked Solmir – he knew he was an a-hole and didn’t try to hide it, basically Neve and Solmir got to know each other on a very real level – flaws and everything. They are morally gray characters.

+ I think the story tied up all the loose ends in the story. I liked more of the action in Neve’s story. I loved that there was a concentration on the love between the two sisters moreso in this book than the first one.

~ I feel like the different perspectives didn’t make this story flow. It started off good and then it fizzled out, then ended with a bang. The pacing was just off for me this whole duology, it moves to slow. This one had more action but only when it was Neve telling the story. She and Solmir get into some thrilling situations, some gross (killer rats and roaches anyone? ugh). I was more interested in Neve’s story but we get a new character Kayu who is helping Red and friends try and figure out who to contact or help Neve. Also the new character being a love interested for Raffe I’m torn about. I’m glad Raffe has someone new to fall for but I felt like it was rushed.

~ If book one was Beauty and the Beast, then I think the author tried to make this like Snow White. The story mentions apples and mirrors. But that’s all I got in reference to Snow White, which isn’t much.

~ We don’t get much more of Fife and Lyra except for the facet Fife is mad he’s still bound to Eammon (but he made that choice) and is is acknowledged that Fife and Lyra bring in an ACE relationship.

~ This happened to me in book one as well and again in this book where I had to pause and reread a sentence to make sure it made sense to me lol. There were times I was like oh, that’s deep and times I cringed and that was my experience with the whole series!

Tropes: monster boyfriend, morally gray characters, atmospheric setting, quest, villain redemption arc, good twin/bad twin, enemies to lovers, slow burn

Why you should read it:

• you loved For the Wolf, or didn’t love it but curious enough to read about Neve and her character arc
• it’s a romantasy (romance fantasy)
• I feel like the sister relationship has more of a spotlight here and asks some interesting questions like what will you do for family or someone you love? Let the world burn to the ground to save her or not?

Why you might not want to read it:

• Everyone in this book starts pairing up, not sure if Raffe’s pairing was needed but I thought Kayu was an interesting character. It made their relationship rushed though.
• pacing issues like first book

My Thoughts:

So I’m done with both books and I can say I did love Red and Eammon together in book one but Neve and Solmir are more my speed. They faced crazy dangers in the shadowlands – psycho kings, scary godlike creatures, and beasts like rats and roaches (UGH yuck), and they had to kill to absorb power. Neve showed her mettle though and I liked seeing how she dealt with her internal struggle about goodness and evil. The sister love came through in this one and it was interesting to see how the roles were reversed. Neve wanted to save Red in book one and now Red was trying to save Neve and honestly…they both learned they could save themselves. They had to learn that lesson the hard way though. Overall, it was a series that took time to read because there were pacing issues and the books seemed too long. I was entertained enough to finish it through though.

📚 ~ Yolanda

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Quotes From the Book:

“May the next world be kinder, Beloved,”

― Hannah F. Whitten, For the Throne

“The two of you have overturned worlds for each other, Neverah. It’s hard to get more matched than that.”

― Hannah F. Whitten, For the Throne

Saving someone else was a wall you couldn’t scale unless they threw you a rope.

― Hannah F. Whitten, For the Throne