My Rating ~ Three and a half stars

3half-gold-stars copy 2.png

RELEASED: 5 March 2019

Publisher: Freeform

Format: Hardcover

Pages: 344

Blurb

In this sequel to the instant New York Times bestseller, Camille, her sister Edel, and her guard and new love Remy must race against time to find Princess Charlotte. Sophia’s Imperial forces will stop at nothing to keep the rebels from returning Charlotte to the castle and her rightful place as queen. With the help of an underground resistance movement called The Iron Ladies-a society that rejects beauty treatments entirely-and the backing of alternative newspaper The Spider’s Web, Camille uses her powers, her connections and her cunning to outwit her greatest nemesis, Sophia, and restore peace to Orleans

Review

As this review is for book two in the series, there may be spoilers for book 1, The Belles, included below.

As is always the case with sequels, I tend to compare them to the previous book the whole way through, especially when I really enjoyed the first one. Although The Everlasting Rose was still a good book, it just didn’t enchant me in the same way The Belles did.

The Everlasting Rose starts right where The Belles left off, with not much in the way of a recap, which always leaves me struggling a bit to remember who’s who and what happened last time. I did eventually get there though and the story proceeds with Camille, and some of her Belle sisters, on the run from the palace and cruel princess Sophia. While attempting to find princess Charlotte, and allow her to claim the throne, they discover they may have a group of allies with the same goal. There was a lot more action in this book, but it kind of felt slightly rushed to me. The first book felt so opulent and like the story unfolded slowly, whereas The Everlasting Rose seemed to move at such a fast pace, and reveal so many plot points to tie up loose ends, that I felt like the original vibe of the series had changed.

I still really enjoyed being back in the world of the Belles though and finding out about where the Belles come from. It was by no means a bad book and I felt like all the plot points were pretty much summed up, although I wish there was going to be a third book because I’d still love to find out what happens next!