5 stars Forewarned this would be a cliffhanger, I was still disappointed when I reached the end of the ARC and was left hanging. The occurrences leading up to the “end” were not entirely unpredictable. They were the sort of thing I knew might happen, but hoped wouldn’t. But Blair Babylon likes to torture her characters before she’ll allow an HEA. Although I didn’t like this installment of the story as much as the last one, it was the natural progression of events so I cannot criticize it. As in previous books, Dree is a regular comedian, dubbing Maxence: “His Serene Highness, Prince Maxence of Monaco, Count of Wherever, Lord of Someplace She’d Never Heard Of, Emperor of His Own Massively Inflated Ego, the Duke of Stick It Up His Noble Ass, and Royal Guy Who Evidently Didn’t Want to Get Laid if He Treated People Like That.” Again, the subject of narcissists in power was touched upon, with ample references to Pierre and Jules, Max going so far as to say someone like Jules “would seek out and sign treaties with other countries that would give him more power and money with no regard for how it affected Monaco’s citizens. Indeed, he would enjoy making them more miserable, more helpless, with less money and power, more like medieval serfs than citizens, because it would demonstrate his power over them. Strippping people of their citizenship, humiliating them, even allowing his own people to become sick and die would excite him. He literally gets high from it. It proves to him that he has the power of life and death over those people, that he can crush them, and no one can stop him. He would enjoy destroying Monaco just because he could do it. Yes, he’s evil. He’s evil to his very core.” When Dree suggests someone with an MBA or a law degree would probably run the country well, Max responds: “Corporate drones are inherently sociopathic and destroy anything they get their hands on. They think they know how to run a company, but their vice presidents and admins really do the work the whole time. Because they focus on boosting short-term profits to keep the stock price high, they don’t know how to invest in and manage a country and citizenry to prepare for the next century. They play too much golf and screw it up. And then they burn down the economy because they were too lazy to do the job right, and they’re mad about it.” In case that didn’t drive home Ms.Babylon’s point strongly enough, Dree later observes that “only a childish narcissist would crap in a golden toilet.” Maybe it’s a bit heavy-handed, but I suspect those most unwilling to recognize these observations are the ones most likely to need it. Regardless, I loved it. Xan Valentine and Georgie make an appearance in the book and I loved Dree’s impression of Xan: “His blond hair just past his shoulders seemed perpetually being blown back by the forward momentum of his ambition.” I also chuckled when she thought to herself that sex with her previous boyfriend “felt like stuffing a protein bar in her mouth because she was hungry.” There are several references to Francois the Malicious and the statue in his honor. Dressed as a Fransicsan monk, he tricked the guards into letting him into the palace, only to pull a knife and turn on them, killing several guards before allowing his army inside to take the fortress. This is Max’s ancestor, the first in the line of succession of Grimaldis. Upon closer inspection, Dree says he looks exhausted and maybe he was just desperate to end the war, willing to do anything to achieve that goal. Max counters that maybe the real message of the statue is that you can never tell whether someone is malicious or not, just by looking at them. He continues, “Or perhaps just a warning that all Grimaldi are malicious at heart.” I believe there is some serious foreshadowing going on here, in regard to both of their assumptions. Many of the Grimaldi have shown they are vicious and self-serving, but there’s another part of me that wonders if the desire to “end the war” might be a motivating factor to push Max to do something that might otherwise be viewed as malicious. After all, he has been disguised as a Jesuit priest wanna-be all this time. What if that “calling” of his has actually been an unconscious calling to take control and end the war? And maybe that is the reason for his special gift? February 24, 2021
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Elizabeth J ConnorWriter. Editor. Proofreader. Archives
September 2022
Categories |