With the heat of a kiss, the walls between Alizeh, the long-lost heir to an ancient Jinn kingdom, and Kamran, the crown prince of the Ardunian empire, have crumbled. And so have both of their lives.
Kamran's grandfather, the king of Ardunia, lays dead, the terrible secret of his deal with the devil exposed to the world. Cyrus, the mysterious copper-haired royal, has stolen Alizeh away to Tulan, the neighboring kingdom where he rules. Cyrus has made his own deal with the devil-one that would require Alizeh to betray her feelings for Kamran if she's to reclaim the Jinn throne.
Alizeh wants nothing to do with Cyrus, or his deal with Iblees. But with no means of escaping Tulan, and with the tantalizing promise of fulfilling her destiny as the heir to the Jinn, she's forced to wonder whether she can set aside her emotions-and finally become the queen her people need.
Kamran, meanwhile, is picking up the pieces of his broken kingdom. Facing betrayal at every turn, all he knows for certain is that he must go to Tulan to avenge his grandfather. He can only hope that Alizeh will be waiting for him there-and that she's not yet become queen of Tulan.
This Woven Kingdom came out almost exactly a year ago, and in that review I said that I didn't hate it and didn't love it, but I did want to see where it was going. Well...here's where it's going.
The usual problem with recaps is not quite as bad here, as the penultimate scene is replayed from a different point of view and then the last one is partly replayed before moving on past the cliffhanger. Still. there's no attempt to remind us of anything that's been going on or who people are or anything else. I found a lot of the chapters ended very abrutply, as well; Tahereh was trying to create mini cliffhangers, in my opinion, but it didn't work very well for me.
(I also think we're moving towards redemning Cyrus, and I'm not sure how that will work in the end. I have a theory, but I won't write it here.)
The cliffhanger on this one is rather less literal than the last, but still very much a cliffhanger, so be aware of that.
The descriptions are still fantastic and we get to see some new locales this time around, which are really well thought out and described. I did notice something odd in the narration - Tahereh was using an old form of grammar that made me think of Enid Blyton, where things would be described like this (sentence made up as an example): She had never dared to think such a thing, for it couldn't be real. That for in the middle felt very old fashioned to me!
I didn't exactly enjoy or not enjoy this, and I will read the last volume if I can to find out what happens. It's certainly a very beautiful story.
These Infinite Threads publishes on the 2nd of February, 2023 in the UK and on the 7th of February, 2023 in the US, using the same cover as far as I can tell. I received a free copy and am giving an honest review.
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