Format: Hardcover, 496 pages
Release Date: June 26, 2018
Publisher: Razorbill
Source: Library
Genre: Young Adult / Fantasy / Romance
The dazzling conclusion to #1 New York Times bestselling author Richelle Mead's The Glittering Court series.
Meet Tamsin, the Glittering Court's hard-angled emerald. Her outsized aspirations make her a fierce competitor, rising to the top of the ranks. But when the ship she boards for the New World is tragically lost at sea, she is quite literally thrown off-course.
The Emerald Sea, by author Richelle Mead, is the third and final installment in the Glittering Court trilogy. The book answers the trilogy’s
biggest question: what is the secret that drives Tamsin to win at all
costs? Tamsin Wright is unstoppable. She must become the Glittering Court's diamond: the girl with the highest test scores, the most glamorous wardrobe, and the greatest opportunities to match with an elite suitor in the New World in order to guarantee a future for her family.
Training alongside other girls in the Glittering Court, Tamsin immerses herself completely in lessons about etiquette, history, and music--everything a high-society wife would need to know. Once she's married, she'll hopefully be able to afford a better life for her family, so the sacrifice will hopefully be worth it if she can be the best. When her friendship with Mira and Adelaide, her roommates at the Glittering Court, threatens her status as the top-ranked prospect, she does the only thing she knows will keep her on track: she cuts them out of her life.
If you've read the first book, or even the second one, you know that Tamsin chose to travel to Adora onboard the Gray Gull with the girls from the competing house. You also know that Tamsin's ship ends up being caught in a storm and sent so far north, that they ended shipwrecked. Tamsin uses her unrelenting grit and determination to survive the harsh winter far north of her intended destination of Cape Triumph in hopes of making it back to the Glittering Court in time to secure a proposal--and a comfortable future for her family.
Experiencing new cultures and beliefs for the first time, Tamsin realizes that her careful studies haven't prepared her for everything, including conniving, backstabbing, easily offended characters who are jealous of Tamsin's abilities and her training. With new alliances formed with roguish tradesman Jago Robinson and good-natured minister Gideon Stewart, Tamsin's heart begins to be pulled in different directions. But she can't let her brewing attraction get in the way of her ultimate goal: protecting the secret she holds closest to her heart, the one that would unravel everything she's worked for if it's uncovered.
The Emerald Sea, like its predecessors, begins at the Glittering Court, and ends in Cape Triumph. While we know what happened to Adelaide and Mira, if you read the books that is, we now learn what drives Tamsin. This is the story where a huge secret will be revealed that will either make you change your mind about Tamsin as a character, or will offer even more questions. If you can get past what happened between Tamsin, Mira and Adelaide and why the testing was so important for Tamsin's future that she needed to be on top, I believe you will change your mind about her.
I definitely did. I can't imagine holding such a secret from everyone, including her so called best friends. I can only imagine the drive and the determination that someone like Tamsin has to put herself through in order to be able to have any hope of a bright future and to save the person who owns her heart. Tamsin doesn't whine, or moan, or throw hissy fits when things don't go her way. She puts on her big girl panties and takes charge and makes sure everyone ends up where they are supposed to be. Tamsin has to deal with not only the people of Grashond who look down on her, but a pending war between the Icori, and her people.
As with the previous books, they all cross at one point in the story, or another. Tamsin's journey is definitely more appealing since she has to find her way from being stranded, to being stuck in a community called Grashond, to meeting interesting new characters like Orla Micnimara, and of course, Jago Robinson and Gideon Stewart. She knows that she is working against the clock for when her secret will arrive in Adoria, and she needs to be prepared. Prepared doesn't exactly fit what happens when Tamsin and Jago hit it off.
Jago is such a wonderful character. He comes out of nowhere and suddenly Tamsin's world is so much more exciting and much more colorful. He doesn't get angry when Tamsin shocks him. He is happy to help with her secret, and even offers to help. Whereas Gideon kind of graded on my nerves, to be perfectly honest. How many times must you say no to a person before they get the hint? This is an interesting world, don't you think? I have read possible ideas for the setting. Osfro is England. Adoria is the New World before there were colonies. Heirs of Uros, I agree are like puritans, while Balanquans are Native Indians. Anyone disagree?
I love series that have continuing characters. Sounds like a good one.
ReplyDeletesherry @ fundinmental