SASSY'S REVIEW
❖ARC REVIEW NOTICE: This book was read as an Advance Reader Copy (ARC). The review was provided voluntarily and reflects my independent assessment of the book.
What really drew me to Crowned a Traitor was Klara herself. She’s an FMC who is naturally defiant, questions what is expected of her, refuses to be controlled, and wants absolutely nothing to do with the throne she is meant to inherit. That defiance and stubborn you do not get to control me streak was exactly what attracted me to her story, and rather quickly. The fact that she also happens to be Lucifer’s daughter certainly didn’t hurt. Then throw in Hell, demons, hellhounds, fae, lycaons, vampires, dark magic, family secrets, political scheming, and a double-headed axe with a hidden silver dagger, and those were basically just the extra cherries piled on top of an already delicious sundae.
And Klara can absolutely back up all that attitude. She’s sarcastic, independent, impulsive, combat trained, and perfectly willing to fight when necessary. Lilith trained her well, she knows exactly how to use the weapons she carries, and she certainly isn’t sitting around waiting for somebody else to save her. But she also isn’t one of those practically indestructible badass FMCs who can somehow handle absolutely everything thrown at her without breaking a sweat. Klara makes mistakes. She questions herself, gets hurt, gets angry, and cares about people even when caring makes her life considerably more complicated. Sometimes she has to figure out what the right thing to do is when every available option seems terrible, and I liked seeing that vulnerability underneath all her attitude and strength. It made her feel much more like an actual person than someone who could simply bulldoze her way through every problem without consequences.
The world around her gave me plenty to sink my teeth into too, because there is a lot more happening here than simply Lucifer has a daughter and she lives in Hell. We have Hell, Malum, Kalos, the River Styx, the Neutral Lands, different supernatural territories, treaties, councils, rulers, and creature hierarchies. Then there are demons, fae, witches, lycaons, vampires, ogres, ghouls, angels, and hellhounds, all existing within this larger supernatural world. What I liked is that they aren’t all thrown in just to make the creature roster longer. Their differences actually matter. Different weapons and types of magic work against different creatures, and the relationships between the various species play directly into the rules, conflicts, and politics of the world.
And those politics get messy.
There are alliances that are only useful until someone gets a better offer, rulers with their own agendas, rebellion, prejudices between supernatural species, questions of succession, and enough secrets floating around that trusting anyone feels impossible. Klara spends a good portion of the book discovering that what she thought she knew about her family, her history, and even herself may not be the whole story. Every answer seems to create three more questions, and some of those revelations fundamentally change how Klara sees the people around her.
That made her relationship with Lucifer especially interesting to me because he isn’t simply Lucifer, King of Hell here. He’s her father, and those two roles don’t always play nicely together. There is clearly love between them, but there are also expectations, secrets, anger, disappointment, and some seriously complicated questions about loyalty. Klara wants control over her own life, while Lucifer has his own ideas about what being his daughter and heir requires. I wasn’t necessarily expecting their father-daughter relationship to have as much emotional weight as it did when I picked up a book about Lucifer’s axe-wielding daughter, but it ended up being one of the relationships I found most interesting.
Her other relationships aren’t exactly simple either. Wolfgang and Klara can go from arguing with each other to protecting each other with impressive speed, and there were moments when I genuinely couldn’t decide whether she wanted to hug him or strangle him. Sometimes I’m not entirely convinced Klara knew either. Frendall, Lilith, Lottie, Lokey, and the others all have their own places in her life, and because those relationships actually matter to Klara, the conflicts and choices surrounding them carry more weight than they would have otherwise.
The romance stays secondary to everything else happening, which worked for me. There is attraction, kissing, and romantic tension, but it develops alongside the larger story instead of taking it over. The spice is very mild, putting this at a 1/5 Pepper on my scale. So if you’re looking for the kind of fantasy where everyone starts losing their clothes every three chapters, this definitely isn’t that book. There is far too much supernatural chaos happening for everyone to spend that much time naked anyway.
And there really is a lot happening. Klara rarely gets much time to sit around rethinking her choices before something else comes along and demands her attention. There are escapes, battles, imprisonment, magic, betrayals, family revelations, shifting alliances, and plenty of moments where the situation changes very quickly. My inner BookDragon appreciates a story that keeps feeding it reasons to turn the page, and there was usually something happening that made me want to know what Klara was going to discover or accidentally make worse next.
Funny enough, though, the amount happening was also the biggest thing keeping this from being a full five stars for me. There are a lot of characters, supernatural species, realms, political relationships, magical rules, and family connections packed into this book, and every once in a while I wanted everything to slow down just a little and give me time to process what had happened. Some pretty significant information comes out along the way, and occasionally the next development arrives before the previous one has really had a chance to sink in. I felt the same way about a few of the relationships because there were characters and dynamics I genuinely wanted more time with. Giving those connections and some of the bigger revelations a little more room to breathe would have made the emotional moments hit harder and probably would have pushed this closer to five stars for me.
Still, I had a really good time with Crowned a Traitor, and Klara was easily the biggest reason why. She can fight like hell when she needs to, but she can also be vulnerable, make mistakes, care too much, and find herself completely outmatched. No matter what gets thrown at her, though, there is always that underlying refusal to make herself smaller simply because someone else expects her to. That is the kind of strength in an FMC that I can appreciate.
Would I recommend Crowned a Traitor? Absolutely. If you enjoy fantasy with supernatural creatures, messy family dynamics, political intrigue, secrets and betrayals, a little romance, and an FMC with enough stubborn defiance to make refusing her destiny everyone else’s problem, this one is definitely worth picking up. It wasn’t quite a perfect five-star read for me, but it kept my hyperactive squirrel brain entertained and, more importantly, left me wanting to see where Klara’s story goes next. And really, give my inner BookDragon an axe-wielding heroine, a pair of hellhounds, and this much supernatural family drama, and apparently we’re perfectly happy following her straight into Hell.
Review By: SASSY
Owner • Creator • Queen of the Chaos
SassyReviews.com
Read, Reviewed, & BookDragon Approved… or Not.
"I have been a threat since I was created; he created the very thing he fears most. Someone to take his place. Do you want my throne? Take it, because I sure as Hell don’t."