Book Review: Reckless

Title: Reckless
Author: Lauren Roberts
Genre: Fantasy, Romance, Young Adult

Some links on this blog are affiliate links. If you buy through them, I earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. I only link books I’ve actually read.

What It’s About:

Kai heads down to the kitchens to Gail, who gives him a sticky bun, and confirms with him that Kitt will not be going outside with him. She tells him that she only made one, and he tells her that he has his first mission to take care of, which she correctly guesses is Paedyn. He takes the sticky bun and goes to the willow tree, where he lights a match instead of a candle and wishes a happy birthday to “A”.

Paedyn had been in her home recovering from her wounds, and she found weapons inside the floor as well as the journal her father kept underneath a different one in her own home. She heads back up from the hidden basement to the study, where she starts to head out of the door, but realizes that it is a bit too quiet. So she returns and before she is able to leave in any other way, she hears pounding. Having no choice, she enters the chimney and finds herself listening to Kai speaking to her, admitting that he hasn’t found his own courage. When the guards tell him that they are not able to find anything, Kai has them set the house on fire and heads out of the building to his horse. He notices a flash of silver, and then when his Imperial Guards confirm that they also saw something, they see Paedyn making her way across rooftops. He and the guards go in pursuit of her, and he throws a dagger at her, cutting her thigh, in hopes of having her fall off the rooftops so that he can get to her, and bring her to his King. Unfortunately, Paedyn evades him and Kai finds the guard that she had killed to get away from them after hours of searching. Unbeknownst to her, she is above him on the rooftop and watches him tell the dead guard that if she hadn’t been running away from him, she would have buried him, so Kai picks him up and takes him to bury him for her sake, which makes her pause her plan to kill him. Once Kai is gone, she gets out of the city with her pack and makes her way to the Scorches.

Kai returns to the King, and finds it awkward between himself and Kitt. Kitt and Kai have a discussion about loyalties, and whether or not Kai will continue doing what he has always done under their father—giving the Ordinary children a chance by walking away from Ilya with their parents. Kai swears his loyalty, but it is clear that Kitt doesn’t believe him because of his previous feelings for Paedyn, and wonders if Kai will fulfill his mission—to go and find her across the scorches.

Both Paedyn and Kai make their way across the Scorches with different hallucinations. She struggles to sleep and talks to the sand and scorpions as her condition deteriorates. Kai imagines he sees her across the sands and in one instance, wakes up screaming, though the Imperial Guards say nothing about it. When Paedyn makes her way close to the city, she collapses and is picked up by another man, whom she thinks is Kai at first, so she snaps his hand off. She learns that actually the man was a guard from Dor and had thought her dead until he came up to her and was breathing. But then he recognizes her, and reveals to her that she is wanted Dead or Alive by the King of Ilya and for a pretty penny, too. She ends up killing him and then disappears into Dor, while learning to hide her hair with a scarf that also protects her face from the sands. Kai eventually makes his way to Dor along with his guards, and sees the killed guard. He knows immediately that it’s Paedyn’s work, but that she has been sloppy for some reason. He has his guards bring the body to the guards in Dor and reveals that he knows who killed the man. Kai then tells the guard about Paedyn, and asks him to tell him if he finds her. The guard laughs it off because he wants to make the money that Paedyn would bring him, until he realizes who Kai is.

Paedyn tries to survive by thieving and tries to make friends with the man at the market, but ultimately ends up stealing some bread from him, while distracting him. She then makes her way up to the roof she has been hiding on, until she overhears two men talking about betting, and she follows them to a secret location for an illegal fighting ring. There she finds fights and realizes that she could make money that way, so she speaks to the owner of the illegal fighting ring, who finally agrees to let her fight. And she spends a few days fighting. Kai, in the meantime, has been going around the city with his men looking for her, but to no avail. He feels little fingers robbing him and wonders if it is Paedyn, but then he turns around and recognizes the knife that the girl is holding—one he had given not to long ago to a family that had hidden an Ordinary girl. He calls her by her name, Abigail, and she only recognizes him once he puts his bandana down. She tells him something about betting, after he asks her about Paedyn, whom she doesn’t know. Abigail isn’t able to explain the fighting ring so he shows him, and he watches as Paedyn fights off a much larger man. Paedyn does use her advantage—she has made it appear that she’s a boy and continued to keep her identity anonymous—and defeats the much larger man. She is about to take her winnings and disappear when she hears Kai’s voice asking if he can fight her. He only gives the name “flame” to her “shadow,” and she agrees to it knowing that she is backed into a corner.

Paedyn then escapes from the fighting ring into the night, and Kai follows her until it appears that she disappeared, so he goes up onto the roof, where he finds her holding a dagger at him. They end up kissing, pretending that one is not the other, but ultimately, she tells him that if she wins, she will disappear and he will let her. And if he wins the fight, she will go without a complaint to Ilya. They go back to the fighting ring and start the fight. Kai keeps getting her trapped, telling her that she will be leaving with him no matter what, while she doesn’t want to. She pulls down his bandana telling him that a prince of Ilya is always wanted, and then he pulls her down, making it obvious to everyone who exactly she is. This makes her reliant on him to get out of the fighting ring, and she agrees to go with him. They leave, and get into another argument, where she attempts to run after revealing to him that he had killed her own father, and she had killed his. Eventually, he catches up to her, and they go with the Imperials back to the Scorches. She walks behind them because she doesn’t want to get on a horse, but then decides to put a plan into action with Kai, begging him to help her up. As a result, she grabs his dagger and drops it into her boot. Then they spend the night in the sands, with Kai sleeping next to her to make sure that she doesn’t run away. They wake up the next morning to arrows falling on their camp and killing all of the Imperial Guards, before Lenny, Leena and Finn show up. They round up Kai, and have him walk in front of them as they ride into the town of Dor, and they tell each other gossip. Lenny takes them to his mom’s house, where Paedyn and Kai first learn of the Mixes—the children born of the Ordinaries and the Elites. Kai is shocked, though Lenny’s mom tells Paedyn that using him in exchange for her life with the King will be useful.

Unfortunately before they can carry out the plan, they are ambushed and when Paedyn and Kai wake up, they find themselves in the dungeons. She learns that it’s actually the owner of the illegal fighting ring that had taken them because while she did make him a lot of money through the illegal fighting ring, this is a lot more money that will allow him to leave that business. Kai and Paedyn work things out so that when a guard comes to check on them, they are able to evade him, and go down into the sewers, which are being flooded. Unfortunately, they aren’t able to get out as the tunnels start flooding around them, so Kai and Paedyn share a passionate kiss, with him communicating all that he wished he’d had. As the water level rises, Kai keeps them both afloat, and then Paedyn finds a grate. He helps her push it open, and then pushes her out, before he sinks to the bottom. Paedyn dives back in after him despite not knowing how to swim, and then brings him back out of the grate, saving his life. They get close again, but before they kiss, Kai clamps down chains on Paedyn, betraying her, and she refuses to speak to him.

They spend the day walking, with her stealing a skirt to hide the chains, and then the two of them finding their way into an unused room at a hotel, where they bathe. Kai reveals to her that he never knew why her father was killed and he didn’t know that it was her father until she said it and he put the information together—the house that she was last seen. The next morning, they run away from the innkeeper and then avoid another couple of men from the illegal fighting ring. Kai decides to take them through the Sanctuary of Souls, and so they make their way there, sleeping in the barn that night, before they steal a horse. Kai has to fight a man off but then they take off through the sanctuary of souls and he teaches her how to ride. Their real feelings surface for each other, though they pretend—they pretend to not hate each other as a way to get through it.

As they make their way through the Sanctuary of Souls, they find arrows, and they find a weapon. But they also find a paradise—a pool or lake surrounded by water,and they spend time together in the water while it rains. They kiss for a while, letting their feelings come out, and then when they have enough, they head out back to the trail to find their horse gone, so they make a fire. Paedyn uses her father’s journal to help set some kindling on fire, and then they discover some of his own diary entries, in which he admits that the King has been paying and bribing healers to create this myth that Ordinaries have some disease when in reality they don’t. This shatters everything that Kai has been lead to believe. Then Paedyn discovers that her father had lied to her too—something that Kai has questioned because if her father was Elite and her mother an Ordinary, she should have been Mixed. She learns that her mother had died three weeks prior to her birthday with her own baby and that her father had buried hr in the back yard. Then, someone had dropped her off and her father had taken her in to raise her as a psychic when he realized her keen observations. He also shared some thoughts about how the Resistance got started. They continue heading out of the Sanctuary of Souls when they are attacked, and when Paedyn realizes that Kai is hurt with an arrow, she turns cold with fury and actually shoots every single member of the bandits that are hunting them. They are about to leave when another member shows up, and this time Kai throws the dagger at the man in order to spare Paedyn’s feelings. They find a cave, and there she tries to do her best to actually staunch his bleeding but she cannot, and Kai guesses that Adena’s death had paralyzed her with blood on her hands. There is also blood on her hair, so she asks him to cut it off, and he does that for her.

Back in Ilya, Kitt listens to Calum, who tells him to follow through on his plan, and gives him a velvet box. He visits Gloria, who makes him feel safe, and checks in with him. Kitt sees a candle and is reminded of Ava, Kai’s full blooded sister who died at 4 years of age, and who shouldn’t have been born because it weakened the queen. Kitt also goes to visit his step mother and she tells him that he looks so much like the king, apologizes to him for not getting to know him better, and then asks him to come visit her.

Kai and Paedyn make their way to the field, where he shows her the flowers—poppies, and they spend time there cavorting and being carefree. Kai admits to loving Paedyn, but Paedyn cannot say the words back but she deeply cares for him. They sleep the night, and Kai wakes up knowing that today is the day, so he tries to free her, but before he can, two Flashes arrive, and he tells her to pretend just as they show up. He threatens one of the Imperial guards to keep his hands off of Paedyn, and then they have her taken to the Palace, where he walks her into the throne room. Kai forces her to kneel on the carpet, and watches as Kitt speaks to him, asking if anything happened between them. He keeps the mask on and says nothing happened, beyond the complications that took his soldier’s life. Kitt then turns to Paedyn and asks her if she worked with the resistance and killed the King. She replies yes both times, and accepts her fate to being sentence however Kitt sees fit. Kitt comes down from the throne and tells everyone that everything will be explained in due time, before telling Paedyn that she will be his wife. Kai is shocked and heartbroken when he hears this, but he keeps his mask in place and steps back away from her, gutted that the person he loves will now be married to his brother and that he himself will have to serve them both while loving her from afar.

My Thoughts:

I did enjoy this book a bit better—I am beginning to care for Paedyn and Kai, and rooting for them to get together, so it really gutted me when I got to the end and found that Kitt has told her that she will marry him. I cannot help to think that there is more to Paedyn’s background than we are aware of right now, and there is something that Calum knows that he is not sharing, but it’s obvious that Calum has been acting as a double agent with the Resistance for the crown. I wonder what this will mean in the next book.

I’m definitely having a harder time putting down this book and series now, so I cannot help but to keep on reading.

If you are interested in reading this series, you can find the full series (along with many others!) here: Young Adult Recommendations.