A couple of weeks ago, I fell in love with the writing of  Sarah M. Cradit via her book The Melody and the Master (my review). You can imagine my joy when I was selected as one of the ARC readers for the next book in the The Book of All Things Series, The Claw and the Crowned!

Attention! This book will be available as of January 3rd, 2023!

The Claw and the Crowned

The Claw and the Crowned tells the story of Imryll, a noble woman who has dreamed her entire life of being free. Fate has other plans with her, however, as she is unexpectedly chosen to become the crown prince’s first “chosen”. Together with four other women, she is expected to ensure the royal bloodline continues. Although prince Torian has been her best friend ever since childhood, this forced less-than-a-marriage arrangement doesn’t suite Imryll’s plans for the future at all. Enter Drazhan, a knight appointed to guard Imryll’s chastity…but who has a plan of his own to take revenge on the crown.

An adventurous and steamy tale

After having read The Melody and the Master, I suspected I would love this book too, and I was right. This novel is the first of the Sceptre Cycle, which is the spiciest of all Cycles in this series (see below for more info). Although it took quite a while for the smut to start, the story is filled with tension as of the start and the smut itself was wonderfully written. Loved it! Next to the enemies-to-lovers and praise-kink tropes, there’s also a small age gap between the lovers (FMC is 19, MMC is 25).

I really enjoyed getting to know the different characters, and especially their motives and secrets. Give me a court intrigue plotline any day of the week. I also really liked the switches in point-of-view. There is somewhat of a love triangle (or square) going on, but it’s clear from the start who will be the main love interest. Do you want to hear a secret? I was rooting for the other guy, although there was no doubt in my mind that he would not be endgame. It’s more than a bit unusual for me to prefer the kind, decent character over the morally grey mysterious one, though. That was a really puzzling experience, but in a sense it made the story even more interesting to me.

Imryll was definitely a main character that I liked and understood, although she also frustrated me a lot. She has a very black-and-white way of looking at the world which leads her to act in ways that made me facepalm myself a couple of times. She’s one of those characters that tends to lose herself in her quest for freedom, no matter the consequences. Nevertheless, she was very believable and certainly likable enough.

In general, this story was very much character and plot driven, although the worldbuilding accounts for some of the main motivations used to drive the plot along. This created an interesting combination of all three drivers, which is rather rare.

Last but not least, and as always with Sarah M. Cradit’s books, the illustrations throughout the story and on the cover are simply stunning.

I would recommend this novel to all fans of New Adult Fantasy and Romance in general. Four out of five gemstones!

Age Category: New Adult

Representation: PTSD

Trigger Warnings (click here, may contain spoilers)

Warnings for death of family members, genocide, emotional abuse, sexism, and manipulation.

Do you want to discover more?

If my review inspired you to pick up the book, don’t hesitate to check it out at Goodreads or at the below online stores.

Amazon.nl: eBook edition

On the author’s site, you’ll find more interesting resources about this book and the series, including a world map.

Similar to this

In this section, I am going to explore the place of The Claw and the Crowned in the wider works of Sarah M. Cradit.

This novel is part five of The Book of All Things, which is a series of interconnected, standalone fantasy romance books that is set in the Kingdom of the White Sea World. This fantasy realm was first introduced in the Kingdom of the White Sea Trilogy, which starts off with The Kingless Crown.

The books of The Book of All Things are grouped together into cycles, which each have their own heat level: The Blackwood Cycle (low heat); The Southerlands Cycle (medium low heat); The Guardians Cycle (medium heat); The Darkwood Cycle (medium high heat); and the Sceptre Cycle (high heat).

The Claw and the Crowned is the first book of The Sceptre Cycle. The second book, The Duke and the Disciple, has already been announced.

The next book set to be published is The Poison and the Paladin, the second book of The Blackwood Cycle. I, for one, can hardly wait <3 Update: My review can now be found here.