Yes, Portland was brought to its knees by two inches of snow. I will save the recounting of my 7.5 hour trip home until Tuesday’s Slice of Life post. Suffice it to say, I am reveling in two extra days of Winter Break, knitting the Cooped Up sweater
while listening to And I Darken by Kiersten White.
Publisher’s Summary: No one expects a princess to be brutal.
And Lada Dragwyla likes it that way. Ever since she and her gentle younger brother, Radu, were wrenched from their homeland and abandoned by their father to be raised in the Ottoman courts, Lada has known that being ruthless is the key to survival.
Lada despises the Ottomans and bides her time, planning her vengeance for the day when she can claim her birthright. Radu longs only for a place where he feels safe. And when they meet Mehmed, the defiant and lonely son of the sultan, Radu feels that he’s made a true friend—and Lada wonders if she’s finally found someone worthy of her passion.
But Mehmed is heir to the very empire that Lada has sworn to fight against—and that Radu now considers home. Together, Lada, Radu, and Mehmed form a toxic triangle that strains the bonds of love and loyalty to the breaking point.
This is a Dracula story my reading friends, with Vlad the Impaler reimagined as a young woman! Lada is the ugly daughterr of Vlad Dracul. As characters and events appear in the boo, I have enjoyed looking at what really happened in history and White has done an excellent job taking the realities f history and using them to create this enthralling, dark tale.
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