Name: The Sleeping Prince (The Sin Eater's Daughter series #2)
Author: Melinda Salisbury
Publisher: Scholastic Press
Date published: February 2016
Genre: Fiction, young adult, romance, fantasy
Pages: 373
Rating: 4/5
Ever since her brother
Lief disappeared, Errin's life has gone from bad to worse. Not only must
she care for her sick mother, she has to scrape together rent money by
selling illegal herbal cures. But none of that compares to the threat of
the vengeful Sleeping Prince whom the Queen just awoke from his
enchanted sleep.
When her village is evacuated as part of the
war against the Sleeping Prince, Errin is left desperate and homeless.
The only person she can turn to is the mysterious Silas, a young man who
buys deadly poisons from Errin, but won't reveal why he needs them.
Silas promises to help her, but when he vanishes, Errin must journey
across a kingdom on the brink of war to seek another way to save her
mother and herself. But what she finds shatters everything she believed
about her world, and with the Sleeping Prince drawing nearer, Errin must
make a heartbreaking choice that could affect the whole kingdom.
- From Goodreads.
The Sleeping Prince definitely felt like an improvement on the first book in the series, The Sin Eater's Daughter. There was more depth to the story, characters and world, although the pacing and plot structure was not so strong, and during the first part of the story I could not really tell where the story was going and it did not feel like it had any forward momentum. However the plot twists towards the end of the book were definitely thrilling and interesting.
I liked reading from Errin's perspective and found her to be a character I could root for, although I think a little more work could have been done to make her more of a distinctive character from Twylla, she just needed a little something more to make her a really memorable character of her own standing, but she was definitely likeable and I could understand her.
The new characters in this book were quite fascinating, I really liked Silas and thought the Sleeping Prince was a good villain. I have to admit none of the mentions of Lief in this book made me like him any more, but there were some other characters I was glad to see return or at least see call backs to.
I enjoyed the continued world building, the explanation of the history of the world and how the legends were built, although at times it was not easy to follow, it was still interesting to read.
I will definitely be reading the third and final book in the trilogy, The Scarecrow Queen, and I am curious to see what happens in it and how the story concludes for everyone.
