Review: Vows of Empire by Emily Skrutskie

Vows of Empire

Emily Skrutskie

(The Bloodright Trilogy #3)
Publication Date: June 14, 2022

Hardcover, 288 pages, Del Rey Books

Genres: YA, Sci-Fi, LGBT+

Goodreads

Two young princes on opposite sides of a war must decide between loyalty and love in this galaxy-shaking finale of the Bloodright Trilogy.

 

Gal and Ettian have never been farther apart. Once, they were roommates and best friends, each suffocating under a secret of galactic consequence. When Gal’s came to light—that he was heir to the Umber Empire and all of its brutal conquest—the two were forced to flee their military academy, fall in with a brewing rebellion to reclaim the Archon Empire from Umber’s grasp, and face their long-held feelings for each other.

 

Then the rebellion discovered Gal’s identity and to save his life, Ettian had no choice but to unveil his own secret: that he was the long-lost heir to the Archon throne. With Gal as a political prisoner, Ettian began the fight to restore his own empire—and to open Gal’s eyes to the possibility of a galaxy reclaimed from Umber’s greed. But just when Gal was starting to come around, a team of Umber operatives rescued him from Archon’s clutches and dragged him home to take up his crown.

 

Now, separated for the first time and in full command of the might of their respective forces, the star-crossed rulers find themselves truly at odds. And with the war reaching a tipping point, the time has finally come for Gal and Ettian to confront what they owe their empires, their friends, and each other if they’re ever to forge a universe where the two of them can be together.

My Review

The final book in The Bloodright Trilogy is here, and Gal and Ettian are back and trying to stop all the chaos the world has left them with. Gal is trapped with his empress mother and her evil rule, while Ettian is trying to play the game of thrones when he only took up the leader mantle to save his friend's life. It's all a giant mess, and somehow they have to fix a whole galaxy in only 288 pages.

So Vows of Empire jumps a little in time from where the events of the second book, Oaths of Legacy, left off. But it's not a large time jump. The book starts out with Gal and Ettian on separate sides of an ongoing war and it follows them throughout their political decisions to find their way back to each other. However, here's the thing, the plot at the end was obviously fake. It was told to us beforehand that certain events weren't real, so I'm a little confused as to why the author decided to lean into that storyline like we didn't know what was going on. It was frustrating. Now, for those of you who haven't read this book, you'll have no clue what I'm talking about. Basically, all you need to know is that Gal and Ettian come up with a plan to "win the war" and, as the reader, you know the broad strokes of what that plan is as it plays out. Yet the author acts like we, as the reader, have no idea what's happening. It's an odd writing choice.

And while the first half of this book was a solid four stars, I just didn't enjoy the rest, which is sad, considering this was one of my most anticipated books of 2022. Unfortunately, everything was just too obvious and that obviousness made it seem like the adults were completely incompetent. Plus, I found the overabundance of battle strategy explanations tedious. I wanted more interactions between the main characters instead. I'm primarily a character reader. Without good characters, I can't enjoy a book, even if the plot is amazing, and especially if it's so heavy on the politics that the character dynamics are kind of left to the wayside. Now, if you like a ton of political sci-fi elements, this will definitely be the series for you; though, I will say that the first book didn't start out that way at all. It was more of a fun action/adventure romp.

Sadly, towards the end of the book, I also didn't enjoy the characters as much. This includes Gal, Ettian, and Wen. All of them made weird decisions. I'm not sure if it was the situation they were in or if they themselves changed between books two and three, but I simply didn't like them in this final story. Maybe it's because they couldn't get into hijinks together as a fun trio since they were all apart for a large portion of the book... Or maybe its because I hated the plan they came up with in general and no one really stepped up like I had hoped for. What I think I'm getting at is I wanted more time with the three main characters together to solve a problem, and things didn't go down that way.

Now, despite my complaints, I will say the last two chapters of the book were good. They ended how I predicted they would based on the big plan Ettian and Gal set up. But the predictability didn't hurt the story, as it finally got back to Ettian and Gal, not just endless battle tactic discussions and political maneuvering. While sometimes I do like political-esque books, for this series, I had grown attached to the main characters, so it was super disappointing not to have time with them together as a unit like books one and two.

All in all, Vows of Empire was a book with an eh end. A lot of questions about the state of the galaxy are still up in the air, and the book doesn't have a very climactic finale. But there's a kind of happily-ever-after, which makes it an okay ending in my mind.

*Note: I received a NetGalley ARC of this book to review from the publisher. This in no way affected my opinion/review.