And I Darken (The Conquerors Saga #1)
Specs:
Title: And I Darken (The Conquerors Saga #1) by Kiersten White
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/27190613-and-i-darken
Published: June 28th, 2016 by Delacorte Press and July 7th, 2016 by Corgi Childrens
Country: USA and UK (it has two editions)
Genre(s): Young Adult, Historical, Fantasy
Synopsis:
No one expects a princess to be brutal. And Lada Dragwlya likes it that way. Ever since she and her gentle younger brother, Radu, were wrenched from their homeland of Wallachia and abandoned by their father to be raised in the Ottoman courts, Lada has known that being ruthless is the key to survival. She and Radu are doomed to act as pawns in a vicious game, an unseen sword hovering over their every move. For the lineage that makes them special also makes them targets.
Lada despises the Ottomans and bides her time, planning her vengeance for the day when she can return to Wallachia and claim her birthright. Radu longs only for a place where he feels safe. And when they meet Mehmed, the defiant and lonely son of the sultan, Radu feels that he’s made a true friend—and Lada wonders if she’s finally found someone worthy of her passion.
But Mehmed is heir to the very empire that Lada has sworn to fight against—and that Radu now considers home. Together, Lada, Radu, and Mehmed form a toxic triangle that strains the bonds of love and loyalty to the breaking point.
Personal opinion:
And I Darken as the synopsis and the author say it's a historical fantasy with a twist, because Lada is the young and feminine version of Vlad the Impaler. Again, we see the magical, fantastical and creepy side of Romania, full of myths and creatures, in the story represented by Wallachia. As I've seen in the reviews posted on goodreads by American and British readers, nothing seems abnormal and for them, especially for Americans, Romania is or it can be that way: bloody, stuck with few centuries back compared with USA in point of technology, buildings, food etc. The descriptions are very poor and if you're not Romanian you can move past them and enjoy the story, but as the author said that she made research and tried to keep it 'real', then you can make a comparison. Because even real Romania as it was then, at the moment of the story, and is not the same.
The only 'real' instances of Romanianess would be the characters's names and few places, castles and fortresses that appear in the book.
