Two Twisted Crowns by Rachel Gillig

“Shadows in the corridor loomed, only to scurry away. They seemed taller in the witching hour, dawn mere hours away.”

In this sequel to One Dark Window, Nightmare has finally taken over Elspeth’s mind, leaving her imprisoned in the dark. Ravyn, who is desperate to save her and break the curse on Blunder, must find the last Providence card before time runs out. With Hauth on his deathbed, Elm finds himself becoming an unwilling heir to the throne.

I loved the plot of this a little bit better than the first. I think maybe the first book was simply introducing the world… The second book is more of a quest as the future of Blunder hangs in the balance. There was no waffling about either, nothing extraneous included. RG knew where she wanted her characters to go and she sent them there.

The romantasy elements were really fun. The story is passionate without being super smutty. Ravyn’s determined to save Elspeth even if it means allying himself with the monster that lives in her head, even if it means dying for her. Elm is busy wooing his brother’s betrothed Ione. It’s a forbidden romance where he’d do anything for her, maybe even kill to protect her. There’s something wonderful about the men in romantasies, lol. They always take chivalry and devotion to a simply outrageous extreme. I love a man with a big sword… and no, I don’t mean that euphemistically.

There were also plot twists galore keeping me surprised; betrayals and revelations that kept dropping into the novel right up to the end. 

As for the ending, it was pretty perfect.

Even though I enjoyed this novel, I stand by some of the things I said in my review of the first book. This is still something I’d describe as ‘Gothic Light’. The lack of descriptions made this novel move quickly, but I think that also hurt the gothic vibes. A world enshrouded in mist simply wasn’t enough for me. I needed more detail and I needed a setting.