This is a pretty simple premise done with excellent execution.
Lady Everleigh Saffira Winter Blair (there's two lines of the family, "Summer" and "Winter") was orphaned at age 12 after her parents were assassinated. She was eventually brought to the royal castle of Seven Spire in her country of Bellona, where nobody particularly wants her but she's still a "working royal," albeit more literally than we use it for the British royal family because in addition to public appearances, Evie works in the kitchen and apprentices to the gemmaster and pays rent on her shitty castle room. She's forced to eat shit and like it all the time, with only a few people who even care about her. Not only is she politically powerless, she's magically powerless--in a world where virtually everyone has magic, Evie only has an enhanced sense of smell...or at least that's all she lets on to, because she's immune to magic and can disperse/wipe it out if she has to. As the queen points out, she has a knack for survival.
Evie is seventeenth in line to the throne and the Blair family has a lot of members in it. Until Crown Princess Vasilia objects most strongly to being forced to marry a prince of the neighboring Andvari kingdom and has a royal coup, poisoning/slaughtering virtually the entire royal family. Evie's nose lets her sniff out the poisoned wine, but she still has to brawl her way out of there, making off with the memory crystal she installed to record the event. On the advice of the dying queen, she makes her way to the gladiator troupe run by a former castle guard, Serilda Swanson. However, she's afraid to trust anyone at this point and doesn't admit to who she is when she asks to join the troupe. Serilda even smartassedly makes a crack about how ridiculous it would be if she claimed to be a long-lost princess, so she doesn't. She gets hired as the troupe's baker but is allowed to train as a gladiator as well, where she notices that the so-called "best friend" of the top gladiator, Paloma, is showing the same kind of jealousy and vicious tendencies that she's seen too many times at the palace. She tries to warn people, but when the jealous one makes her move, Evie manages to save Paloma...and ends up in a fight to the death. Suffice it to say that Evie learns well and uses her secret power as well. She makes friends within the troupe, which is great. Bellona has a long tradition of gladiators--the royal family started out that way--so Evie finally getting the hang of fighting and using her own skills and brains to compensate for her lack of brawn is heartening.
Of course, Vasilia is going to be the worst ever--she's framed the Andvari and the head of the guard for the assassinations and once she gets officially crowned, she's going to war, and she suspects the Black Swan troupe (rightly) for not being on her side. Serilda is desperate to find a Blair--any Blair--to challenge the queen to the death. Isn't she lucky to already have one?
Anyway, this was GREAT. This is very much the story of a lady who's grown up losing and letting herself lose because she can never win all her life. After living through a massacre, she is all "FUCK THIS SHIT, I'M GONNA BE MYSELF AND SASS PEOPLE AND STAND UP," and it works. This is a lady who's learned tons of "useless skills" like baking and dancing--there's one scene where Evie's ability to do an extremely elaborate dance becomes very relevant--and she can use them to her advantage, in addition to her hidden skills and brains. So even though say, someone like myself can't do that sort of thing IRL, it's lovely to see someone be all "fuck this, I'm gonna sass back and fight back" and have it work out for her. Yay for vicarious living!
There's a slight hint of a romance that doesn't come off yet between Lucas Sullivan, an Andvarian magier who relates to Evie on a certain power-yet-powerless (hint hint) level--but once he knows she's a potential future queen, he backs down due to his lower status. I reasonably assume this will change in the future, though, and it makes me wonder at the title of the next book, which has a preview chapter at the back.
I look forward to seeing how things go in the future here, since it's indicated that another country, Moria, has been setting this up to try to take over all the kingdoms. I really liked this. Four and a half stars.
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