Glow the fourth installment of the Plated Prisoner series can now be added to my spreadsheet as yet another completed read. If you’ve been on this blog for a hot minute, you know that my relationship with Raven Kennedy (and this series) is a long and storied one.
We went from the first book, Gild, that very nearly was a DNF. We then went to Glint, which I absolutely adored. Which was then followed by Gleam that was good, but not quite what I was hoping for. And now…
Well.
I try to write reviews as impartial as possible, because preferences are preferences. What I find enjoyable might be on someone’s “absolutely not” list. I’ve found that the best way for me to approach reviewing is to focus explicitly on the writing. In some circumstances when my “personal” review is far different than my technical review, I’ll clarify.
Can you guess what kind of review this is going to be, friends?
I’ve been trying to write the blurb for this book, and to be quite transparent, I can’t do it in a way that’s not a novelette in its own right. In a first (for this blog), I’m going to copy and paste Kennedy’s book synopsis.
“I was nothing but a road to Midas. A means to get to where he wanted to go, and I paved that path in gold.”
My life has been made up of gilded lies. But death has been shaped from rot.
Like a phoenix caught fire, I will need to rise from the ashes and learn to wield my own power. Because my wings may have been clipped, but I am not in a cage, and I’m finally free to fly from the frozen kingdoms I’ve been kept in.
Yet the world doesn’t want to let me.
That’s the thing when you turn against a king—everyone else turns against you.
Good thing I have a different king in my corner.
But even with the dark threat of Slade Ravinger, the other monarchs are coming for me.
So I will fight for him and he will kill for me, and if we need to become the villains, then so be it.
Because so long as I live in this world, I won’t be used again.
Please note: This is an adult fantasy series with dark elements that may be triggering, including past emotional and physical trauma, violence, adult language, and explicit romance. Read at your own discretion.
This book is, in my opinion, far more expansive than its predecessors. We fall into several different character perspectives, watching as the world changes from all corners of it. Ultimately, it culminates in Auren being hunted for what happened to King Midas (no spoilers in this review, but if you know, you know).
This book felt very much like a transition book. It felt like an overwritten side-quest from the third book to the fifth book. It also did a lot of “back-tracking” work in establishing a deeper character backstory for Rip. I wish that we would have gotten these glimpses from his past in the earlier books. I feel like developing him this late in the series pigeon-holed Kennedy into a position where either he went undeveloped for the rest of forever, or she had to data-dump. Which, unfortunately, she did the latter in Glow.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I am a huge lover of the fantasy genre (and have no problem keeping up with multiple character POV), I cannot say that I felt that the many other perspectives were needed in Glow. In fact, there were quite a few characters who I did not care about. I did a little experiment to see if I could skip whole chapters without losing meaningful context for things, and by golly. I could. If I was editing that book, I would have strongly advocated on behalf of those scenes being purged. In the end, it made a book I may have found otherwise enjoyable feel rather tedious.
I have commented in the past that Kennedy’s writing style is too verbose for the subject matter, but this book, I feel, doubled (tripled, quadrupled?) down on that particular tendency.
I don’t feel like this book did much that needed doing. I would have almost rather read everything as a collection of short stories as a transitionary piece between the third and fifth book. That all being said, Glow was left on a cliff-hanger, so we all know I’ll be returning to read the fifth book.
I have rated this book a four because I did enjoy my time. I do love the story and I’m very interested to see what happens next. I’m invested. My technical rating is a 3-star, and my personal is a 3.5. So, we round up!
You can find Raven Kennedy: her personal website, Facebook, Goodreads, Instagram, and TikTok!
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Ivy Whitaker 