[Review] The Defiant by Lesley Livingston

The Defiant by Lesley Livingston

Series: The Valiant #2

Rating: 4 stars

Published: January 23rd 2018

Goodreads Synopsis: 

Be brave, gladiatrix… And be wary. Once you win Caesar’s love, you’ll earn his enemies’ hate.
Fallon was warned.
Now she is about to pay the price for winning the love of the Roman people as Caesar’s victorious gladiatrix.
In this highly anticipated sequel to THE VALIANT, Fallon and her warrior sisters find themselves thrust into a vicious conflict with a rival gladiator academy, one that will threaten not only Fallon’s heart – and her love for Roman soldier Cai – but the very heart of the ancient Roman Empire.
When dark treachery and vicious power struggles threaten her hard-won freedom, the only thing that might help the girl known as Victrix save herself and her sisters is a tribe of long-forgotten mythic Amazon warriors.
The only trouble is, they might just kill her themselves first.

Last year I absolutely adored The Valiant. Female gladiators in Ancient Rome was right up my alley. The Defiant still retains a lot of its charm, but had a bit of that second-book in a series syndrome.


Don't get me wrong. There's a lot of badassery and sisterhood all around. Over the course of the series Fallon has grown into a natural leader and it shows how much she cares for the Ludus Achillea. But I think it was also especially important to show that even she can make mistakes, and she isn't perfect, which I think The Defiant did well.

"These girls... I've known most of them longer'n you. I don't like most of them either. But we're sworn to each other - to fight and die for each other - and Nyx never understood that. Porridge is one thing. Blood's another and thicker than even that."

Plus the cameos of Cleopatra just being all epic were pretty great. Elka was also always a much needed source of levity in the book - I just wish there was more of her than just a couple of lines every so often! Fallon's romance with Cai was okay - I'm glad they had each other through and through, and there was never really any deep set issues in their relationship.

However, I guess because I was expecting it to live up to its predecessor - when it didn't, I just felt, meh about it. It's a good book, but there weren't any particularly heart-wrenching, gut-wrenching moments for me. Everyone I cared for always managed to end up okay, so I never felt like I was on the edge of my seat reading. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, just an okay thing. It's hard to talk about these things without spoiling. There was a good amount of focus on the Sons of Dis, and I was struggling to remember who they were from the first book, which could have thrown me off.

But the Sons of Dis subplot ultimately revealed a certain plot that I am looking forward to in the final book of the series. So while The Defiant wasn't as addictive as The Valiant, I am looking forward to the third and final book, The Triumphant.