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Jan 30, 2017TEENREVIEWCREW rated this title 4 out of 5 stars
If anyone really likes historical fiction, here is your prize! The story centers off of three characters in the time of the Ottoman Empire. Lada, a fierce princess of Wallachia, is raised a warrior more dominantly than a girl. Her younger brother Radu inherited the good looks, but clearly not the fire inside of Lada. Enter the Sultan's youngest son, cast off to the side of his family because of his mother's status. When the Sultan holds the siblings in captivity, they form a bond with Mehmed. But with him representing a life unlike what they ever imagined, they must choose what they are willing to sacrifice, and whom. Excellent read, but the bloodshed and gore was a bit much at parts. 4/5 stars - @Siri of the Teen Review Board of the Hamilton Public Library And I Darken combines fantasy, action and emotions into a tight-packed bundle of pure amazement. As a reader I was hooked from the first page and just couldn’t stop flipping the pages after that. Every small paragraph in this book was interesting and well thought out, never left the reader in boredom or repeated customs that have become mandatory in most teen books nowadays. Vlad Dracula has gone to every height and measure to secure himself the throne as prince of Wallachia, but what he never expected was a daughter to get in the way of his legacy of sons. Unable to give his younger children attention, and his wife Valissia in a constant state of sickness, a nurse upbrings Ladislav and Radu alongside her own son Bogdan. Lada and Radu are separated by a mere year but the two could not be more different in their hearts; Lada with her strong fists and Radu the punching bag for the troublesome boyar sons. On a day in which Lada meets her father for the first time, as a young girl, she begins to worship him and treats her country Wallachia as her mother; always feigning to come in the eyes of her father as she grows and show him who she has become. But when Vlad exchanges Radu and Lada to the sultan of the Ottoman empire for the security of his throne, Lada comes to realize he is not the dragon she once believed he was; and he is weak. With a knife nicks away from falling down upon their necks, Radu and Lada begin their journey in the Ottoman empire and meet the fiery son Mehmed; and that is what joins and breaks them apart. I absolutely loved Lada, Radu, Mehmed, Halima, Mara, Huma, Nicolae and all the different threads the author has ties together in this story that touched base on religion, love, and war to encase the reader in a world in which the enemy cannot be seen easily. I loved Lada especially at the end when she defied every stereotype that I have encountered in books and neglected love for her own country, for her own self. Rating 5/5 - @jewelreader of the Teen Review Board of the Hamilton Public Library