Reviewed by Carissa
TITLE: In Despair
SERIES: Princes of the Blood #3
AUTHOR: Megan Derr
PUBLISHER: Less Than Three Press
LENGTH: 221 pages
BLURB:
Prince Telmé Guldbrandsen has been groomed since childhood to become a Prince of the Blood and Commander of the Legion. He will be the youngest person to ever take the Blooding—if he can behave long enough to prove he can be trusted with the responsibility. But behaving is difficult when he is constantly forced to endure Korin: heir to the Reach of the House and the Temple of the Sacred Three, and the snotty brat Telmé is expected to someday marry.
Then the unthinkable happens, leaving Castle Guldbrandsen—and the Legion—in pieces. Overwhelmed by fear and grief, Telmé convinces Korin to help him attempt the impossible. But rather than relief, Telmé’s triumph is met with anger and rejection…
REVIEW:
Becoming a Prince of the Blood is never easy. But when you are a 17 year old Prince of Guldbrandsen, with the world’s most annoying fiancé and a castle’s weight of expectations on your shoulders, becoming a Prince of the Blood is looking pretty damn impossible. Especially when an act of treachery kills almost everyone you love, and everyone who stood in defense of the country you are sworn to protect. Telmé has always lived with the heavy weight of expectations looming over him, but even he is having a hard time bearing his grief, and those expectations, without failing everyone he knows.
With the Princes of the Blood dead, and the country’s defense down to just a sliver of its normal strength, Telmé will have to decide if he can bear the burden of being a Prince of the Blood. Even when no one seems to believe he is capable or worth it.
I enjoyed this third book in the Princes of the Blood series, and was grateful that we finally get an answer to what happened to Korin and Telmé after the final battle in Of Last Resort. I had hoped that we wouldn’t be left in limbo about their fate, since book one ends before it was handled, and was relieved to hear that they would be getting their own book. I do so hate not knowing what happens to characters I love. However, this book is not about Telmé and Korin after the fight with the angel, but how they fell in love, saved their country, and got really good at throwing a right hook (not exactly in that order, though).
There is a bit of angst in this book, but then again, I have found where there are teenagers, there is angst. It is kinda how they roll. Add in some nefarious magic doings, and a bunch of idiots determined to follow anyone with a nice rack and an overly pleasant smile, and you have a recipe for the most a perfect bowl of angst. It is not a big bowl, but it probably enough for you to drown in. It gets a bit much at times, but for someone who generally shies away from angst on principle, it was balanced enough that I didn’t run screaming for the hills. And not just because the hills seem to be plagued with some rather baddass lizard snake things that get pissy when you abduct their young.
I kinda wish we had got a bit more time with just Korin and Telmé together. I just wish that…ok, I wish we had got to see the sexy fun times, I’ll admit it. But seeing as they are both underage in this book (for us, if not them) probably best we didn’t get it. I’m getting to the age where that just seems rather too pervy for me to be reading about. But I did really like how the relationship grew between them. They were still very much at the ‘pigtail pulling’ stage of their relationship when their story started (except their version usually ended with them covered in dirt/mud/blood and taking a few days to reacquaint themselves with the roominess of the cells in the Tower). And while they didn’t immediately go all gooey in love after tragedy struck, they really did start to try and grow up. A little. A smidge. Enough that I didn’t feel that throwing them off the tower would be more beneficial to the public at large, at least.
My only problem with the book was how obvious the bad guy was. Like really, really obvious. Like how did they not see that coming, do you just trust anyone who wanders into your castle? obvious. However, I do get that magic was in play there, and when magic is around a lot of smart people can get very dumb, very fast. I could probably even sympathize with the bad guys…if you know, they hadn’t just drop kicked a large portion of the castle into the great hereafter. I do wish that Telmé would have wised up a bit sooner, but I do understand that he was having to deal with a castle full of crazy, and country that seemed to have strapped itself with at Come Eat Us, We Be Tasty sign.
I don’t know if this is my favorite of the series, but it was very enjoyable. And I am relieved to finally have an answer to the is he/isn’t he going to die question that we were left with, in book one. I don’t know if Derr plans on writing any more books in this series, but I have found all three books very enjoyable, and have really loved this world that she has created (the body counts are rather staggering though. I honestly don’t know how there is anyone left alive here to save.) So yeah, I enjoyed this, and it was a nice end (maybe?) to the series.
RATING: 
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