Reviewed by Jess
TITLE: A Treason of Truths
SERIES: Whispers Universe #2
AUTHOR: Ada Harper
PUBLISHER: Carina Press
LENGTH: 209 pages
RELEASE DATE: October 1, 2018
BLURB:
She turned her back on her people and shifted her allegiance to the very Empire she was sent to betray
Now head spymaster, Lyre’s loyalty lies with Sabine, the Empress she has loved since childhood. But when Sabine visits the secretive Cloud Vault, the floating citadel home that Lyre betrayed, Lyre’s elaborate web of lies starts to untangle. Her very presence threatens Sabine’s future, and Lyre will do whatever it takes to protect her lover…even if that means sacrificing herself.
Empress Sabine Corvus has lived a life of service, pushing aside her own desires for the greater good. With the Empire teetering on the brink of war with the traitorous Syndicate, she cannot afford to show weakness. Although Lyre’s spymaster skills are her greatest weapon, their bond is Sabine’s Achilles’ heel. Regardless of the price, she will not give Lyre up.
REVIEW:
It’s rare when an author can craft a complex and unique science fiction world that makes you think you know exactly what’s going on before turning it all upside down. Harper’s gritty political landscape of the royal Empire, the industrial Syndicate, and the mysterious floating Vault mixes and tangles until you don’t realize who is on which team until guns are drawn and loyalties are tested. It’s a fantastic story, and at the very heart is a romance between a queen who never wanted a crown and her ever-faithful spymaster who is always two steps ahead of everyone else.
This is a cerebral piece of science fiction. It’s slow, smart, sharp, and makes you get inside the characters’ minds instead of just follow them into battle. Lyre, the breakout character from the first novel in the “Whispers” universe, is the hardest type of character to manage because she’s smarter than all of us. She’s always weighing and balancing, looking and listening, plotting and scheming. I tend to hear The Hunger Games’ President Snow whenever she’s scuttling through a vent or slipping into the shadows—“moves and counter-moves.” Lyre is all about the bigger picture. She has to be—she has an Empress to save.
Unlike the vast war zone of the first book, this book takes place almost completely on The Vault, a flotilla city based purely on organics and technology. It’s a glowing garden of biotech and organisms gone wrong—moths that track your every move, vines that eat metal scrap, wolves made of leaves and thorns. When Empress Sabine is called by the scientists of The Vault for a peace summit with leaders from the dissident government, the Syndicate, Lyre is forced to confront her worst enemy of all—her past. Things quickly develop into a dark whodunnit, a locked-room mystery on a giant floating mass full of things that want to eat all of our favorite characters alive.
The first book in this series, A Conspiracy of Whispers, is an action-packed M/F romance between Sabine’s brother, Galen, and his mate, Olivia. It’s also an excellent read, and I highly recommend you read it before this one to become familiar with the universe. While that book is known in romance circles for being an example of M/F fiction within an alpha/beta/omega (or, in Harper’s words, altus/genta/caricae) universe, this book deals with bonding in a different way.
Both Sabine and Lyre are gentas, unable to reproduce naturally, so their mating bond is built on a different kind of instinct, a more unique push of biology. When they are in a room together, they are side by side. Their eyes are never off each other in situations of peril. Sabine and Lyre, her Liar, her spymaster, were never meant to be far apart. It feels like both fate and choice—they chose their fealty to one another, but their love is written in the stars. And their story is one that will leave you breathless. They are both incredibly complex, well-crafted characters who deserve the slow and methodical story arc of this book.
As with many spy thrillers, this one hits a few slow points, trickles into a few sub-plots that make you want to turn the pages until the tension ratchets up again. But on the whole, Harper is a cautious, smart writer—she knows how to twist a word, but they never feel wasted. I think the plot is tighter in this book than the first, and the characters have more distinct personalities. I hope this series will be a breakout hit for Ada Harper, and I can’t wait to see what comes next.
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