Isa L.L McNeil
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‘A princess on the run? These are dangerous times, Isa. Getting hurt is an inevitability.’
After turning against her brother—her only ally and trusted confidant—Princess Isa flees the palace of Taban Yul. Though she has escaped his claws, many of her followers have died, and she is far from safe.
Exiled to the outskirts of Linaria, Isa must restore her people’s faith in her if she is to overthrow her brother and become queen. But her attempts to persuade others to join her cause are met with defiance and aggression, and Isa is one misstep away from losing everything.
Hunted by her family and hiding among thieves, Isa must do more than stake her claim to the throne—she must try and restore balance to a world corrupted by greed and ancient magic, before it is doomed to burn.
Isa is the fourth book in McNeil’s World of Linaria season and I love getting lost in the world she’s built up. Isa focuses on the Princess Isa, with other POVs from characters in the previous books like Palom, Amarah and Sapora.
Overall I found Isa to be one of the quickest reads of the series, and that’s because every single chapter has something that adds directly to the plot. With previous books in the series, it’s an epic fantasy, so there’s a lot of world building and character development but some chapters did read slower. I loved that this book picked up the pace and is pushing us towards the end of the series.
Isa’s story arc sees her grow in confidence as her role of Princess as she plans to take over and become Queen for her people. Whilst she does still love her brother she knows that him being king isn’t good for Ittallan, and so she feels conflicted for her personal loyalty and morals. On top of this, she fights her nature of being a predator animal and she shows mature understanding of whether she is good enough to lead others.
One of my favourite parts of Isa was reading Amarah and Isa start to form a friendship and begin to understand each other during their journey. Isa definitely struggles with how people perceive her, and Amarah doesn’t really care what people think so their differing personalities also helped improve each other. Isa became more confident, and I found Amarah to be more amiable at times and she does grow as a person too.
I also loved that we saw more of Palom’s loyalty, and the stark contrast between his morals and those of the pirates. Estoria was a great backdrop for a lot of our characters because unlike Amarah they’ve been treated as more morally good all the time. At the same time, the Ittallan characters do manage to get on with the “bad” pirates and plans are created to continue working together to get mutual benefits.
Sapora’s arc in this story introduces us to more ancient artifacts, including extremely strong Varkain who have been awakened. These varkain make interesting additional antagonists, with the threat of Aciel coming back too. What I love about the Linaria series as a whole is that you do generally get worried about characters dying, and so many scenes had that tension and sense of relief when my favs got out of danger.
We see even more magic in this book through Morgen who’s uncovered some mysteries over in Berel. His story arc throughout the past couple of books has been surprising, and I’m super excited to get Morgen’s own book dedicated I think as the last in the series.
Overall I loved Isa and I’m so excited to see what happens next for these characters. However I’m super sad that we’re now fully over halfway through the series, and I think there’s only a couple of books left.
Positives of Isa
- Strong female friendships
- Mysterious artefacts and magic
Negatives of Isa
- I have to wait for the next book… again!
I received Isa by L.L. McNeil from the author. This is an unbiased and honest review
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