Joanna Ruth Meyer
47North
1 August 2025
384
eBook - EPUB
Romantasy
ARC via NetGalley
Brynja spent her childhood as a captive performer in Tenebris, the imposing mountain palace of King Kallias. Every night she risked death for the king’s entertainment until his rebellious son, Prince Ballast, helped her escape. Now twenty, Brynja has never forgotten the brutal king. Or forgiven him. Under the cloak of a three-month-long Winter Dark, Brynja is returning to Tenebris for revenge.
Accompanied by a rival court, including the alluring Prince Vil, Brynja poses as diplomatic royalty to barter peace between nations. No one is better equipped to infiltrate the palace than Brynja―she remembers every hidden passage like a bad dream. But her quest to destroy Kallias is complicated by her feelings for Prince Ballast, whom she isn’t sure she can still trust. And Kallias’s own quest to mine a catastrophic weapon of war buried in the mountain’s heart will threaten them all, and force Brynja to face the darkest parts of herself.
The lives of everyone she loves depend on the choices she must make. So, too, does the fate of the world.
While the Dark Remains was a bit of a mixed-bag read for me. I struggled a little with the opening, when we had to suddenly absorb big chunks of information on the setting to understand what was going on. The chapters set in the current day dragged a little for me, but I did feel more interested and involved with the alternate chapters set a few years earlier; I found those characters and scenarios more compelling. However, as the book progressed and the timelines came close together, there was also less need to tell the reader as much new information, and therefore the pacing improved dramatically and I become more caught up in the story. Ballast was the most interesting character, and part of me wished we could have heard from his POV too. However, I also liked Brynja, and the twist in the story near the end involving her caught me by surprise. Overall, the ending was satisfying and I was glad I stuck with it despite the slow start, so I am giving it 3.5 stars that I will round up to a 4 for Goodreads.
I received this book as a free eBook ARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
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