ARC Review: A Poison Dark and Drowning by Jessica Cluess

A Poison Dark and Drowning
Author: Jessica Cluess
Series: Kingdom on Fire (Book 2)
Publication: Random House Books for Young Readers (September 19, 2017)

Description: The magicians want her to lead.
The sorcerers want her to lie.
The demons want her blood.
Henrietta wants to save the one she loves.
But will his dark magic be her undoing?

In this seductive and explosive second book in the Kingdom on Fire series, Jessica Cluess delivers her signature mix of magic, passion, and teen warriors fighting for survival. Hand to fans of Victoria Aveyard, Sarah J. Maas, and Kiersten White.

Henrietta doesn’t need a prophecy to know that she’s in danger. She came to London to be named the chosen one, the first female sorcerer in centuries, the one who would defeat the Ancients. Instead, she discovered a city ruled by secrets. And the biggest secret of all: Henrietta is not the chosen one.

Still, she must play the role in order to keep herself and Rook, her best friend and childhood love, safe. But can she truly save him? The poison in Rook’s system is transforming him as he begins to master dark powers of his own. So when Henrietta finds a clue to the Ancients’ past that could turn the tide of the war, she persuades Blackwood, the mysterious Earl of Sorrow-Fell, to travel up the coast to seek out new weapons. And Magnus, the brave, reckless flirt who wants to win back her favor, is assigned to their mission. Together, they will face monsters, meet powerful new allies, and discover that some old wounds are still full of poison.

My Thoughts: This is the middle book in a trilogy. Henrietta has been confirmed as a sorcerer but is still studying magic on the side. She knows that she isn't the prophesied Chosen who will finally defeat the Ancients but it is being kept secret from most of the sorcerers. When they learn of a cache of weapons that may defeat the Ancients who are trying to conquer Britain, she goes to find them along with Blackwood, Magnus and other of her colleagues. They are forced to make a deal with Mab, the faerie queen, to travel there. There they also meet Maria who is hiding the fact that she is a powerful witch.

Things are getting dire. Rook is losing his battle to stay human and is being consumed by shadows. Henrietta learns a secret about Rh'lem who is the leader of the Ancients and she learns more about the past that involved her father, Blackwood's father, and her magician teacher Mickelmas.

Henrietta is a boy magnet and her various relationships play in the plot of this story. She loves Rook who was her childhood friend and has promised to marry him despite their very different social classes and that he is unclean because he was bitten by a familiar. But she is in danger of losing him to his injuries as he turns into an evil shadow creature. Her fellow sorcerer Magnus has fallen for her but she rebuffed him which has altered their friendship. And Blackwood has fallen in love with her and shared his family secrets.

It will be interesting to see how the story plays out in the final book of the trilogy.

Favorite Quote:

I didn't argue. He was the Imperator, after all. I would train, and I would fight. But no one could stop what I read in my spare time. And if I happened to find something useful? Well, better to beg forgiveness than ask permission.

Making trouble was becoming a regular habit, it seemed.

I received this one for review from NetGalley. You can buy your copy here.