The Queen of All that Lives

The Queen of All that Lives (The Fallen World #3) by Laura Thalassa (2016)

the queen of all that lives

NA Fiction | Romance | Dystopia | (TV-MA)
Blurb:

“She’s a martyr.
A myth.
A ghost.
A legend.
She’s my soulmate and my captive, my conscience and my wrath. I love her too much to let her die; I fear her too much to wake her from her slumber.
She’s mine.
And now she’s gone.

He’s unnatural.
Undying.
Unethical.
Unstoppable.
He’s the keeper of lies and lost souls. Mine slipped through his clutches.
I am his wife, his queen, the love of his very long life.
And soon, I will be his executioner.”
–Goodreads

Book One: THE QUEEN OF ALL THAT DIES

pooled ink Review:

This trilogy has been quite the breathless ride. Although I’ve staggered each review post a few weeks apart I actually read these books in two days flat. Going into this I really didn’t have much of an idea about what to expect. All I knew was that it took place in a dystopian future with an evil king and a young woman who would fight for peace at all costs. And let me tell you, that is exactly what Serenity has done.

Technically this series is marked as a romance and that’s true. But it’s far from the typical romances out there. Yes yes it does fall under the “enemies to lovers” trope (which happens to be a favorite of mine) but the journey there was so twisted and intense and filled with unexpected truths and choices that left me reeling and breathless. Montes and Serenity are two people who shouldn’t be in a room together because to do so promises bloodshed, and yet impossibly they evolve together into an immortal, impossible team. Montes destroyed the world, Serenity saved the world, and together they rule the world one battle at a time.

When I first looked into this series I was kind of annoyed at how short and vague the book descriptions were, like they’re very mysterious and catchy but I’m the type of person who generally doesn’t just dive into things, I like to know. But after having read them I understand just how perfect and necessary they are. So much goes on that it would be far too easy to spoil the journey ahead.

Just as with the other books in this series the plot is riddled with non-stop action, betrayals, spies, and bloodshed. This may be a romance series but it is also a series set on the premise of war and world domination and it does not hesitate to keep this brutal and truthful with every decision in the story. Amidst the prisoners, the torture, the war, the innocents, the power-hungry,…amidst all this horror and destruction there is no room for goodness or love, and yet like a small, delicate weed it grows between the cracks.

To be honest from the very beginning I had no idea how Thalassa planned on concluding this series. Serenity spent most of her time hating Montes and mulling over ways to destroy him, and even after they fell in love the world was still at war with no end on the horizon. Serenity wakes up in this book 104 years after Montes forced her into the Sleeper machine to keep the cancer from killing her and yet even after all that time the world hadn’t changed, it had only gotten much much worse. So how could there possibly be an end in sight? And yet Thalassa did it. Somehow her clever brain figured out not only a conclusion for this series but she managed to dress it up for the biggest day of its life. So many questions, possibilities, and loose ends are neatly tucked up into the ending (or as neatly as possible while still remaining realistic and not fairytale-istic).

What I also liked was Thalassa’s world-building. Naturally one would think after a hundred years the world would have evolved significantly technologically and such, but when the entire globe is busy enslaving innocents and bombing cities there really isn’t much time or energy to make such mythical progress. Thalassa just somehow made this balance between natural progress and the stunted progress as a result of war come across realistic and was done quite well.

The first two books had my heart and my brain constantly flip-flopping, churning with emotions that I didn’t even know how to begin sorting out. It was practically impossible to string together a decisive opinion about anyone or anything. You truly could trust nothing and no one. But this last installment in The Fallen World trilogy is the first time everything truly begins to align. 104 years has gone by and the world has changed, Montes has changed, and as much as she tried not to, Serenity has changed.

As I’ve mentioned often enough in my other reviews for these books, this will definitely be a series you either love or hate. It’s so contentious and twisted, and it will have your heart and your mind at war. But if you’re lucky enough to be one of those who manages to click with this story then you’re going to embark on one hell of a ride.

Epic and unpredictable from start to finish, The Fallen World trilogy is wrapped up with love between monsters, blood glistening like rain, and hope never wavering upon the horizon in this fantastic conclusion, The Queen of All that Lives. Brace yourself for a book that will make you breathless with protests, victory, and uncertainty for the fates of those you long ago despised.

Cheers.

Purchase here: The Queen of All that Lives