Long May She Reign by Rhiannon Thomas

     This was such an unexpectedly great book. The gorgeous cover made me pick it up, and while the blurb on the book flap sounded interesting enough, I wasn't expecting a whole lot from it.

     First of all, let me just say how awesome I thought it was that the main character, Freya was into science and suffered from anxiety. Both these aspects are so rare in heroines now days that it was really nice to see that. I also have a weird obsession with black hair and loved that she had black hair. It seemed a little strange that the security of Freya was so lax after 400+ people died but, I guess that was needed to move the story along.

     The book kind of glossed over some details that I wish they'd gone a little more in depth with (how Freya's mother died) but, they were mostly minor details that didn't seem to be significant to the storyline. The romance in the story wasn't too overbearing and was pretty adorable. The friendships in this book were also wonderful. I loved that Freya at one point risked her life to save her cat because let's be honest, I would definitely take a bullet for my pups.

     I suspected the actual killer right from the first meeting. It wasn't that it was predictable, I just had a gut feeling about it from the get go. The discovery of who killed all those people and how it was dealt with fell a little flat and seemed a bit rushed.

     I really loved the development and growth that Freya went through. She really came into her own as Queen but, still managed to stay pretty true to her personality, which can be rare and hard to do sometimes. I feel like if there had been an additional 100 pages to this book it could have been even better, but it was still a great read. I would love to see a sequel to this book or a related novel and won't hesitate to buy the next book that comes out from Rhiannon Thomas.

Rating: 4/5 stars