If I try to give you my own synopsis right out of the park, I'm well aware I will spoil something or start ranting because life isn't fair and I should never have read it without the sequel being readily available and... GAH. Breathe, Amanda, Breathe...
Anyway, here's the official synopsis:
Seventeen-year-old Twylla lives in the castle. But although she's engaged to the prince, Twylla isn't exactly a member of the court.
She's the executioner.
As the Goddess embodied, Twylla instantly kills anyone she touches. Each month, she's taken to the prison and forced to lay her hands on those accused of treason. No one will ever love a girl with murder in her veins. Even the prince, whose royal blood supposedly makes him immune to Twylla's fatal touch, avoids her company.
But then a new guard arrives, a boy whose easy smile belies his deadly swordsmanship. And unlike the others, he's able to look past Twylla's executioner robes and see the girl, not the Goddess. Yet Twylla's been promised to the prince, and knows what happens to people who cross the queen.
However, a treasonous secret is the least of Twylla’s problems. The queen has a plan to destroy her enemies, a plan that requires a stomach-churning, unthinkable sacrifice. Will Twylla do what it takes to protect her kingdom? Or will she abandon her duty in favor of a doomed love?
This synopsis fails to give credit to the fact that romance, while an important part of the book and a key factor as one of the conflicts, is not the true extent of what it has to offer. Also, this books make you out to hate Merek, the prince, as though he's cruel and refuses to communicate with Twylla. He's not.
The book starts with Twylla explaining her role as Daunen Embodied, how she drinks poison once a moon cycle at the Telling and then murders those accused of treason by touching their skin. She goes on to tell us that the first person she killed this way was her best friend, because the queen told her she had to or the gods would kill her and then the queen would kill her sister.
Then we find out the prince has been away two years, and now that he's back, he's actually quite interested in Twylla, so much so that he seeks her out multiple times. So while he avoided her company before, the time of the book doesn't really show it. You can't help but like Merek, even when you don't trust him, even when Twylla goes through phases of feelings for him, even if you don't want them to be together (And I know some people out there are going to be shipping them together).
Of course, there's also Lief, the guard from the warring nation, whose easy smiles and kind nature draw Twylla toward him, until she has trouble avoiding him. When he reveals secrets that have been kept from her from years, her heart has officially melted.
However, the most interesting character has to be the queen. She's behind every twist and revelation throughout the book, including the huge betrayals at the end that lead to many possibilities for the sequel. She is, most definitely, the insane result of Lormere's custom to force the king and queen's children to marry (Say in with me now: Incest Is Wrong). And, even though she is definitely the antagonist here, I LOVE IT. She's vicious and she kills people with dogs, and she is willing to marry not only her brother, but her cousin, and eventually her son if she must. Which, while entirely shiver-worthy, deserves a round of applause for commitment to the her love of power on the throne.
Anyway, read this book. Maybe, if you have more self-control than me, wait until there is officially a date set for the release of the second one... You'll definitely be wanting to know what the heck is going to happen BECAUSE THAT STINKING ENDING, MAN.
...
I'm okay.
...
Yeah. Read it. That's all I can say without ranting again.
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