Title: The Kiss of Deception
Author: Mary E Pearson
Publishers: Henry Holt
Page Count: 492

Goodreads Synopsis:

A princess must find her place in a reborn world.

She flees on her wedding day.

She steals ancient documents from the Chancellor's secret collection.

She is pursued by bounty hunters sent by her own father.

She is Princess Lia, seventeen, First Daughter of the House of Morrighan.

The Kingdom of Morrighan is steeped in tradition and the stories of a bygone world, but some traditions Lia can't abide. Like having to marry someone she's never met to secure a political alliance.

Fed up and ready for a new life, Lia flees to a distant village on the morning of her wedding. She settles in among the common folk, intrigued when two mysterious and handsome strangers arrive—and unaware that one is the jilted prince and the other an assassin sent to kill her. Deceptions swirl and Lia finds herself on the brink of unlocking perilous secrets—secrets that may unravel her world—even as she feels herself falling in love



This book caught my interest as soon as it came out and it took me way to long to get to such a terrific book. I was sceptical about this book when I started it as I felt that I would not enjoy the writing style but as the book went on I continued to love it more and more and more and more!

Like I said before, I did not expect to like the writing style of this book. The first few chapters mirrored some other fantasy books that I have not liked and me being myself, I presumed from this that I would not love this book but I was SO wrong. The writing style developed into something that I was delighted to read. I loved the way this book was written and Mary E Pearson managed to create such a vivid and interesting fantasy world for this book to take part in. Events throughout this book were all beautifully written and clear unlike some other fantasy novels that I've read. This may just be me, but sometimes in fantasy novels I find it hard to determine what is happening during action-packed scenes and just generally when a lot is going on but I had absolutely no issue with this in this book.

Now, I can't continue with this review any further without talking about our love interests. I started off the book with the complete wrong guess as to who the assassin was and who the prince was but as the book progressed I became so unsure of who was who and Pearson wonderfully confused me and made me sit on the edge of my seat for any clue as to who could be who. Both of the love interests as well as our main character Lia were incredibly developed characters that we so easy to fall in love with, I found them realistic and I was happy to see that Lia was portrayed as strong and I really enjoyed the choices she made and the fact that she did not follow the traits of some other fantasy female leads.

As far as plot goes, this book was nothing but interesting. Although at times at the start of this book I did find myself getting a little bit tedious as I wanted to get to meeting the prince and the assassin but the action and real plot ensued soon after and from then on the book was nothing but interesting and compelling to read.

This book was one massive plot twist but I enjoyed every second, character and word of it! Overall i gave it...