Book: Anarchist Underground by Nicole Rowles
Reviewed by kats_reads_books
Rating: 5/5
🪶 Enemies to lovers
🪶 Political intrigue
🪶 Secret identities
🪶 Betrayal and revenge
🪶 Action adventure
🪶 Found family
🪶 Super stabby FMC
Aela is the commander of Dunwyn's army, returned from winning the war between the lands of Dunwyn and Nielle to discover her King is dead. Removed from her ranking she is lost and looking for a fight. Bryn is the prince who killed the King, his father, and has been hiding out in the criminal enclave in the city known as Anarchist Underground ever since. Under King Saban the Anarchist Underground had been allowed to operate within their defined border, but with the King dead the Steward in charge has other ideas. All is not as it appears however and as Aela and Bryn, along with child spy and genius Bowie, set off to investigate what is really going on they find more than they bargained for.
The world building in this story was so good and I loved the motivations behind the characters, even the "bad" guys. I also love a good political intrigue story and this had me guessing how it would end. I thought I had foreseen a twist, only to find another twist right around the corner! The banter between the characters was fantastic, the romance was top notch, but it was really the found family aspect that warmed my heart and made me love these characters so much.
This is a fantasy that doesn't have magic, or faeries, which is a nice change. It has brilliant and complex characters who grow throughout the story. My heart repeatedly broke, especially for Bowie who is so wise beyond his years but circumstance has not been kind to him. He was hands down my favourite part of the book, every time he appeared to save the day I cheered! Without spoiling anything I'm so glad he had Bryn and Aela.
I'm seriously on a roll with amazing reads from debut authors, I'm so excited to read more from Nicole in the future!