The Poison Princess: The Arcana Chronicles [Hardcover]

I love Kresley Cole's clever story lines and persuasive writing style, until I read The Poison Princess. On the face of it, this book appears another home run with Tarot card characters, a secretive Alpha Male, a girl with her own secrets and a blend of romance, the occult and good old fashioned action. Well, how did it all go so wrong. I found the end of days storyline depressing, the characters unbelievable, the chemistry between characters erratic and the book in general long and drawn out. The actual Poison Princess is nothing more than a confused young girl, The Arcana, including Death and the the fool, are at first dreams then voices in her head. Once Kresley could do no wrong but this is a miss-fire. IaD (immortals after dark) is the gold standard in supernatural adventure romances. This is not IaD.

Firstly I have to say that I absolutely loved the story and the concept which I don't think I have heard of before. For Kresley's first dabble in the world of YA I think she has written a brilliant first book which I am sure will become as successful a series as the Immortals After Dark (Adult content). I can't wait to read the rest of The Arcana Chronicles which I believe continues with the estimated release date of October 2013 for the second book and I have already pre-ordered! Being a long time reader and fan of Kresley's Immortals After Dark series and having read (and liked) The Sutherland Brothers and MacCarrick Brother's series' which are all very firmly adult content books I was really curious to see what her take on YA would be and I thoroughly enjoyed reading it and have been absolutely gripped to the book for the last day reading it every chance I was given. I would definitely recommend this book to either long time readers of Kresley's or anyone thinking of reading a new take on an apocalyptic, dystopian future - absolutely unputdownable!

The concept of the book and I am assuming the series will center on all of them at some point is that the 22 Major Arcanum cards (The Fool, The Magician, The High Priestess, The Empress, The Emperor, The Hierophant, The Lovers, The Chariot, Justice, The Hermit, Wheel of Fortune, Strength, The Hanged Man, Death, Temperance, The Devil, The Tower, The Star, The Moon, The Sun, Judgement, The World) in Tarot are real people. The remaining 56 cards in Tarot are the Minor Arcanum cards which can better be compared to our 'normal' everyday playing cards and I don't think they could really be developed into real people or I could be totally wrong and Kresley manages to do this!

The book is written in first person narrative which I personally love as I think it helps you identify with the character more as they are able to have their thoughts and feelings better described. The main character is Evangeline 'Evie' Greene who is a sixteen year old girl who appears to have it all (she is a cheerleader, beautiful, has lots of friends, lives on a large estate in Sterling, Louisiana and has a boyfriend who just so happens to be on the football team) but Evie has a dark secret in that she suffers with terrifying hallucinations. The book opens with her being lured into Arthur's house, who it is immediately clear within the first few pages is an absolute psychopath who tricks girls in to the house so he can capture and torture them. The first few pages are AF which is After Flash which is an apocalyptic flash that has managed to kill off most of the human population, vegetation and animals. Then follows Evie's story of the events leading up to the flash and the event's after with her discovering that her hallucinations were actually visions of what was to come and that she actually isn't mad. Evie's card from Tarot is The Empress i.e. she actually is The Empress. The Empress has control over plant life i.e. she can make it grow and follow her wishes which may come in handy considering there is no plant life left and the world has gone mad either fighting over what little resources are left, eating other humans or enslaving other survivors.
Evie's Grandmother tried to tell Evie all about her being The Empress when Evie was little but Evie's mother believed her mother mad and subsequently banned Evie from seeing or speaking to her Grandmother so Evie, following the flash and the discovery of her new powers is desperate to speak to her Grandmother and have some insight into everything and decides the best way to do this is journey to see her (hoping she is still alive). Evie is accompanied or rather protected on this journey by the delectable Cajun Jackson Deveaux who pre-flash she couldn't stand but now finds herself attracted to upon getting to know him better. Without ruining the story they do meet a few other 'cards' along the way and finally the enormity of what awaits is revealed. I have to say that Matthew with his cryptic answers annoyed me slightly but I hated to love Selena and did actually laugh when Finn was 'introduced' and his sugartits comment. Throw in to the book Bagmen (people who have been mutated into Zombie like creatures who crave water whether that is real water or from other alive humans' blood), militia intent on capturing any girls/women they meet along the way to use them for lets say male purposes and other survivors who would just as soon kill you and take any supplies of yours for their own and it's a truly brilliant intense drama building story.

With The Poison Princess, Kresley Cole has made a successful debut into the young adult genre. The book is a good, intense read that is well-written and engaging, but is not completely without flaws.

Firstly, the book is written in a first person narrative, something which has become pretty normal in the YA genre these days. Kresley Cole is one of my favorite authors, but even she can't make me like first person narration one bit. I'll state it quite bluntly - I HATE first person narration (with a passion), so for me this is a (very personal) problem with this book.

Secondly, the characterization in this book was somewhat weak. While there were interesting parts in the book, most of the characters felt underdeveloped and somewhat stereotypical. Part this is probably due to this book being more of a prologue to get readers into the plot, setting and characters before the actual story starts than anything else.

Thirdly, Evie was not a particularly great character. My problem with first person narration is mainly down to the fact that the story is told through one person's perspective. While that can lead to some fascinating, personal and introspective storytelling, it generally requires an exceptionally interesting, well-developed character to pull off. Sadly, Evie is every single girl-who-seems-to-have-it-all-yet-is-unique-and-special-and-magical-stereotype out there in YA. She's a popular cheerleader, but is nice, clever and has prophetic visions, but wants to get rid of them to be normal. Evie acts like you would expect a regular stubborn, bitchy teenager throughout most of book, which honestly left me quite unimpressed not to mention puzzled. I expected more from a survivor of the apocalypse. That being said, the end of the book does promise some good things to come I the next books, and hopefully Evie will be a more likable, memorable and tolerable experience next time around.

Fourthly, if there was EVER a time for Kresley Cole to use her talent for fun, witty banter it was in this book. This is probably one of her most serious books to date. No witty banter, no pop culture references and no fun. None. I didn't laugh once, not even unintentionally (a first for a Cole book for me). I am not saying this is a massive problem, throwing humor into a story of the apocalypse might be tricky, but I missed the lighter moments and I honestly expected Kresley Cole's YA series to be more fun and flirtatious.

That being said, I did very much enjoy this book. It is a quick read and definitely left me intrigued about the future of this series. The plot and the world building was great and very atmospheric, though I wished there had been more to this story than simply introducing and establishing stuff. It is definitely worth a read, but some might want to wait till the paperback version come out before investing in this.