Format: Hardcover, 282 pages
Release Date: November 24, 2015
Publisher: Harlequin Teen
Source: Library
Genre: Young Adult, Dystopian
PAWN...CAPTIVE...QUEEN?
Kitty Doe is a Blackcoat rebel and a former captive with a deadly connection to the most powerful and dangerous man in the country, Prime Minister Daxton Hart. Forced to masquerade as Daxton's niece, Lila Hart, Kitty has helped the Blackcoats take back the prison known as Elsewhere. But Daxton has no intention of ceding his position of privilege—or letting Kitty expose his own masquerade. Not in these United States, where each person's rank means the difference between luxury and poverty, freedom and fear...and ultimately, between life and death.
To defeat the corrupt government, Kitty must expose Daxton's secret. Securing evidence will put others in jeopardy, including the boy she's loved forever and an ally she barely trusts. For months, Kitty's survival has hinged on playing a part. Now she must discover who she truly wants to be, and whether the new world she and the rebels are striving to create has a place in it for her after all.
Kitty Doe is a Blackcoat rebel and a former captive with a deadly connection to the most powerful and dangerous man in the country, Prime Minister Daxton Hart. Forced to masquerade as Daxton's niece, Lila Hart, Kitty has helped the Blackcoats take back the prison known as Elsewhere. But Daxton has no intention of ceding his position of privilege—or letting Kitty expose his own masquerade. Not in these United States, where each person's rank means the difference between luxury and poverty, freedom and fear...and ultimately, between life and death.
To defeat the corrupt government, Kitty must expose Daxton's secret. Securing evidence will put others in jeopardy, including the boy she's loved forever and an ally she barely trusts. For months, Kitty's survival has hinged on playing a part. Now she must discover who she truly wants to be, and whether the new world she and the rebels are striving to create has a place in it for her after all.
"Sometimes
you have to sacrifice your Queen to capture the King."
Queen
is the third and final installment in The Blackcoat Rebellion by author Aimee
Carter. The narrator/protagonist continues to be 17-year old Kitty Doe-Hart. I
added the last part because, let's be real, using the Doe name alone makes absolutely no sense now. Especially after the revelations about who Kitty's real father
and mother were in the previous installment. So, Kitty and her allies in
the Blackcoat Rebellion have successfully taken over the prison known as
Elsewhere, but it is only a matter of time before Daxton Hart strikes back.
The world that Carter has created, is a place where a test designates how you are going to spend the rest of your life. You can become a VI, the highest rank for a non-royal, or you could end up a III like Kitty did. This has been the standard for the past 70 years, or ever since the Harts and the Ministers of the Union came to power. Elsewhere is a place where children like Kitty are sent or are born, and are hunted down
like animals by those in the Elite class. (Marked with VI, or VII on their
necks).
Kitty and Knox continue to be reluctant allies, but allies for
only one reason; the overthrow of the man known as Daxton Hart as the Prime
Minister of the country. There is still the question as to what Kitty is supposed to do now that she's helped the Rebellion. She's in a place where some of the residents don't trust her, and others don't know what to do with her except to let her speak to the masses. There is also Lila Hart, the founder of the rebellion. Is she still on the Rebellions side as was revealed in the first novel, or is she being used by Daxton
Hart for his own psychotic machinations?
In Pawn, Kitty Doe was taken and surgically
transformed (Masked) to look like Lila (the Prime Minister's niece). Lila
was supposedly dead, so Kitty took over her life. In Captive she was sent to Elsewhere
and held prisoner before helping her "fiance" Lennox Knox over throw the prison and set up camp. One of my regrets about this story, is that we don't really get to see all that much, if anything at all, about Hannah Mercer. Except the ending scene, Hannah all but disappears from the series which is disappointing.
The other disappointment is the triangle of doom between Kitty, Benji, and Lennox aka Knox Creed. Kitty and Benji are connected because of their past but not the future. How can they be when Benji has his whole world ahead of him since he did extremely well on his testing and was labeled a VI? I understand Kitty hanging onto their friendship while keeping an arms length from Knox. But, I do see other readers points in that Kitty hasn't exactly kicked Knox in the gonads and told him to leave off. There are feelings between the couple, even when they claim otherwise.
I think the most interesting aspect of this story, is the final half of the book when both Kitty, Lila, and Greyson are forced into making life alternating choices thanks to their situations. While I had no actual feelings for Lila, or her mother Celia, their story line is one of regret, sorrow, and missed opportunities. Kitty's final choices in this book and her relationship with Greyson, make sense if you put your self into her shoes, and not just scoff or ridicule her for not doing things you might have done. Kitty isn't a coward by any means. She does what needs to be done in the end, and that is good enough for me.
OOoh nice! I still need to read this one but it feels like ages since I read Captive. I think I've read both books as ARCs, so getting to this final one so late and not as an ARC really threw me! LOL! Usually things come back to me enough once I start. Hoping that remains true for this one! Nice review!
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