ARC Review: For the Throne by Hannah Whitten (Wilderwood #2)

What a wild and heartbreaking ride this duology was. For the Wolf was one of my favorite reads of 2021 and let me tell you: it was a STRUGGLE to wait for the release of For the Throne. Now the duology is complete and all of you can experience all the heartbreak and sacrifice and love without needing to wait. Aren’t you lucky!

While this review is spoiler-free, For the Throne is the final book in the Wilderwood duology and there may be spoilers for the first book in the synopsis. Proceed with caution.

I received a review copy from the publisher for my honest review. This does not affect neither my opinion of the book nor the content of my review. Quotations are from an uncorrected proof and are subject to change upon final publication.

About For the Throne

Book Description

Reading Stats

Publisher: Orbit •  Release Date: June 9, 2022 •  Pages: 496
Age Range: Adult • Genre: Fantasy • Format: eARC •  Source: Publisher Via Netgalley

The First Daughter is for the Throne
The Second Daughter is for the Wolf…

Red and the Wolf have finally contained the threat of the Old Kings but at a steep cost. Red’s beloved sister Neve, the First Daughter is lost in the Shadowlands, an inverted kingdom where the vicious gods of legend have been trapped for centuries and the Old Kings have slowly been gaining control. But Neve has an ally–though it’s one she’d rather never have to speak to again–the rogue king Solmir.

Solmir wants to bring an end to the Shadowlands and he believes helping Neve may be the key to its destruction. But to do that, they will both have to journey across a dangerous landscape in order to find a mysterious Heart Tree, and finally to claim the gods’ dark, twisted powers for themselves.

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My Review of For the Throne

This is a weird review for me to write and I am conflicted. I loved the book while I was reading it but felt dissatisfied when it was finished. There’s a handful of reasons for that, paramount of which might actually be my intense love of the first book setting high expectations.

“Power is pain, Shadow Queen, and monsters in the eye of the beholder.”

For the Throne is Neve’s story and picks up right where For the Wolf left off, so you may want to re-read the first book before diving back into the world. Hannah Whitten’s writing is just as atmospheric and evocative, transporting me to the nightmarish realm of the Shadowlands.

“A Terrible, twisted grove, blood on white branches, darkness dripping.”

The Shadowlands is a place of nightmares, an upside-down devoid of color where no one can truly die. The Five Kings aren’t the only danger: there are monsters great and small, as well as the Old Gods. This is a darker tale where Neve not only battles the darkness of the Shadowlands in a reluctant alliance but also with her morally gray tendencies. What defines a monster, and is she one herself?

“Heroes and villains and the spaces between, a prism that changed reflections depending on the angle you turned it.”

I wasn’t sure how I’d like a Neve-centric book because I didn’t resonate with her as much as Red, but I found myself drawn to her chapters and darkness. The pacing was a bit uneven for me and I found Red’s chapters largely uninteresting and a bit repetitive, bogging down the plot overall. Barring the trip to the Rylt and a couple of other scenes, the Red & Co. chapters didn’t do much to move the plot forward or increase the reader’s understanding of events. I love Red and Eammon and would happily read a book of them just being Domestic Together, but not like this. I’d rather the pages went to expanding on the worldbuilding (fact versus fiction and the truth of the Five Kings) than just chronicling everything on the other side.

“They all knew that love made monstrous things necessary sometimes. They all knew their own capacity to burn worlds down.”

The romance somehow both played more and less of a role in this book. I am a sucker for rivals turned allies who catch feelings and gleefully sent screaming gifs to Amanda. The limits of what we are willing to sacrifice and how that line shifts is a joy for me to read, and Hannah Whitten did this well. I just wish that more had been done to provide Solmir’s true backstory and his obviously fraught relationship with the other four kings. There are countless references to his villainy but also to his weakness, but more could have been done to bridge the gap between what we thought we knew in For the Wolf and who he turns out to be. I feel a little cheated from character growth?

“They all knew that love made monstrous things necessary sometimes. They all knew their own capacity to burn worlds down.”

At its heart, the Wilderwood Duology is a story about sisters and the lengths they will go to save each other. Their matched love instead of a romantic interest touched my heart in ways I couldn’t express. While I didn’t quite love For the Throne as much as the first book, I truly love this duology and wholeheartedly recommend it to fans of atmospheric adult fantasy where romance plays a prominent role.

The Verdict

As a whole, I wholeheartedly recommend the Wilderwood duology to lovers of atmospheric fantasy, especially those that center on sisterly love. While I didn’t enjoy For the Throne as much as the first book, the uneven pacing didn’t bother me as much while reading the book.

Recommended if you enjoyed…

Let’s Chat!

No two readers experience a book in the same way; this was mine, but what about you?

💬  Have you read For the Wolf or For the Throne yet? If so, what are your thoughts?

💬  Did I convince you to add this book to your TBR?

💬  What atmospheric fantasy books would you recommend?

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