[Review] Dark of the West by Joanna Hathaway

Dark of the West by Joanna Hathaway

Series: Glass Alliance #1

Rating: 3 stars

Published: February 5th 2019

Goodreads Synopsis:

Aurelia Isendare is a princess of a small kingdom in the North, raised in privilege but shielded from politics as her brother prepares to step up to the throne. Halfway around the world, Athan Dakar, the youngest son of a ruthless general, is a fighter pilot longing for a life away from the front lines. When Athan’s mother is shot and killed, his father is convinced it’s the work of his old rival, the Queen of Etania—Aurelia’s mother. Determined to avenge his wife’s murder, he devises a plot to overthrow the Queen, a plot which sends Athan undercover to Etania to gain intel from her children.
Athan’s mission becomes complicated when he finds himself falling for the girl he’s been tasked with spying upon. Aurelia feels the same attraction, all the while desperately seeking to stop the war threatening to break between the Southern territory and the old Northern kingdoms that control it—a war in which Athan’s father is determined to play a role. As diplomatic ties manage to just barely hold, the two teens struggle to remain loyal to their families and each other as they learn that war is not as black and white as they’ve been raised to believe.

Dark of the West is a fantastical romance of epic proportions. It alternates between the POV of Aurelia, Princess of Etania, and Athan, son of the General of Savient. Etania and Savient are two Northern countries meant to be allied together in their fight against the South. However, that changes when Athan's mother is assassinated and his father, the General, blames Aurelia's mother, the Queen of Etania. Now Athan is tasked with spying for his father and for his country, but that becomes difficult when he falls for the enemy.


I'm usually all for political intrigue and court machinations, but Dark of the West just didn't do it for me. The backdrop can be likened to the 20th century during WWI, with fighter planes and warships and an unsettled populace with monarchial/autocratic rule - and this itself is new for me because books often go the medieval era route. But I felt like I was inundated with too many key players in this supposed game of chess. There's Athan and Aurelia. The General and the Queen. Athan's brothers (and he has several). That ambassador who's into Aurelia. Athan's best friend. A bunch of court royals. Aurelia's brother. You see what I mean? There's too many to keep track of and honestly after a few chapters I couldn't be bothered to care for all of them.

I will pause and say that this book can barely pass the Bedchel test because while Aurelia does have a best friend all she talks about with Aurelia is cute guys to the point where they didn't even seem like best friends anyway.

Then there's the plot itself. It's somewhat okay to follow in the beginning (see first paragraph); but then all these reveals start emerging at the very end and all these things started happening at once and maybe to some these reveals seem very clever (read: it's one of those 'everyone is not who them seem plots') but to me, it was messy. We're told not to trust 'x-character' or 'x-country' at the same time we're told that 'y-country' was behind it all along! And certainly don't forget 'z-character'! I'm turning them into a variables at this stage, aha. There are a lot of countries and places and people to follow along on this journey that I'm forever lost trying to swim out of the whirlpool to figure out what I'm supposed to make of it all.

And I've come to the conclusion that for a plot that's meant to be intricate, it just ends up very confusing. I could have seen myself growing attached to these characters and their sentiments over a series of books, but at the end of the very first (with a whooping almost 500 pages), I couldn't feel one way or another for them.