The Gilded Cage by. Lynette Noni | Book Review

My Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

Title: The Gilded Cage (The Prison Healer, #2)

Author: Lynette Noni

Format: eBook (own)

Pages: 448

Publication Date: 10/12/21

Publisher: HMH Books for Young Readers

Categories: Young Adult, Fantasy, Political Intrigue

Kiva trades one cage for another when she leaves behind a deadly prison for a deceptive palace in this dark and dangerous sequel to The Prison Healer, which Sarah J. Maas called “a must-read.”

Kiva Meridan is a survivor.

She survived not only Zalindov prison, but also the deadly Trial by Ordeal. Now Kiva’s purpose goes beyond survival to vengeance. For the past ten years, her only goal was to reunite with her family and destroy the people responsible for ruining their lives. But now that she has escaped Zalindov, her mission has become more complicated than ever.

As Kiva settles into her new life in the capital, she discovers she wasn’t the only one who suffered while she was in Zalindov—her siblings and their beliefs have changed too. Soon it’s not just her enemies she’s keeping secrets from, but her own family as well.

Outside the city walls, tensions are brewing from the rebels, along with whispers of a growing threat from the northern kingdoms. Kiva’s allegiances are more important than ever, but she’s beginning to question where they truly lie. To survive this time, she’ll have to navigate a complicated web of lies before both sides of the battle turn against her and she loses everything. 

The Prison Healer ended on such a crazy cliffhanger, I needed to read this sequel right away. This one is a much slower story, still with good tension, but Kiva is out of her element. She went from a death prison to Jaren’s home where people are nice to her and care about her despite her wearing a prison mark. Of course it helps that the Jaren is her number one defender.

Speaking about the Prince, Jaren is the sweetest guy ever. The romance is a SLOW BURN…seriously, too slow at times for me but so absolutely sweet because he doesn’t push her at all. Jaren gives her space, he even works and keeps busy because you know, he’s an heir and soon to be ruler of his kingdom but wow…Kiva got herself a keeper, if she doesn’t mess things up.

We get to meet Kiva’s siblings and I love Tor but her sister Zulee? Wow…she is hateful. Kiva is torn about her family and Jaren, especially when the secrets starts to be revealed. We also meet Kiva’s grandmother (her mom’s mother) and wow did she through a few more twists into the story.

I found some new loves in this book, Caldon – Jaren’s cousin. He and Kiva have a fun, love/hate relationship and honestly, I like how he is protective of Jaren. Jaren is a sweetheart but Caldon is my kind of guy! Also Tor, Kiva’s brother is the only one who really cares about her and I loved getting to know him.

This is what I love most about the story – it’s twisty and so good! It keeps me on my toes. Every time I thought I knew what Kiva would do and choose with the facts laid out for her, her manipulative sister would step in and I wanted to yell at Kiva to tell her to see the danger that I could see coming. Of course the ending is another cliffhanger which made my jaw drop and now I have to wait again to continue the story.

Content Warnings: toxic family, death, grief, family betrayal, drug use, abuse

This story deals with so many toxic issues, a lot of them being about broken families. Kiva’s sister is awful, thank goodness her brother is a good guy. But just learning about Kiva’s family secrets made me feel bad for her – she was stuck between falling for Jaren, or choosing her awful family. I understand loyalty but wow, I thought Kiva was too forgiving.

Kiva has to make some hard decisions. She knows Jaren and what kind of guy he is – she knows his friends and family (for the most part). And Kiva is just starting to know her own family…and not liking what she learns. I didn’t like some of her decision making. She was confused between her loyalty to her family and then her love for Jaren and honestly this made her do some rash things. Like trusting her sister because she is family, even though she treats her like crap…Kiva is too forgiving and too trusting and you would think living in a death prison would have taught her a few things about seeing through people and their true intentions.

Why you should read it:

• slow burn romance
• political intrigue, lots of twists in the story
• my new favorite character, Caldon

Why you might not want to read it:

• toxic family relationships
• Kiva’s indecisiveness got annoying

My Thoughts:

Though not as intense as book one, I thought this sequel was entertaining mostly because of Caldon being his amazing self and Kiva’s family drama. I dislike Kiva’s sister so much and I got a little annoyed with Kiva’s actions but overall, I love all the twists in the story. I’m starting to think this author definitely knows how to write a cliffhanger ending! Will be looking forward to book three.

📚 ~ Yolanda