The Kiss of Deception, The Heart of Betrayal, and The Beauty of Darkness

Mary E. Pearson (2014, 2015, 2016)

Synopsis:

Princess Lia is First Daughter of the House of Morrighan, a kingdom steeped in tradition, duty, and the stories of a bygone world. She flees on her wedding day, shirking her duty, but is determined to marry for love and not to secure a political alliance.

Pursued by bounty hunters, she finds refuge in a distant village and settles into a new life, hopeful when two handsome strangers arrive. She doesn’t know that one is the jilted prince and the other an assassin sent to kill her. Deception abounds and Lia finds herself on the brink of unlocking perilous secrets—even as she finds herself falling in love.

Review: Limited Audience

Lia becomes embroiled in a love triangle between the Prince of Dalbrek who she was supposed to marry and an assassin from Venda who has come to kill her. The story is told from all three perspectives and it becomes a guessing game of which suitor is which.

The first book is the most innocuous, but as the storyline continues it starts to devolve. The first book sees Lia's maidservant Pauline pregnant out of wedlock. Lia, the protagonist, also lies for the sake of "protecting those around her," but it is still lying. There is also an implication that if given the chance, another side character would inflict bodily harm or rape on the main character and there is an assassination attempt on her life.

In the second and third book, Lia and her chosen suitor engage in premarital sex, contraceptive topics are mentioned and there is an increase in violence against the protagonist.

If you let your child read the first book, they will want to continue the trilogy so I did the grading on the trilogy as a whole. I would strongly caution parents against having their children read these books, but it was not graphic enough to illicit a "morally offensive" rating.

If this blog has taught me anything, it is that we need to reinsert ourselves into the publishing industry and start producing more quality literature for our children.