Captive Series: The Blackcoat Rebellion #2 on December 2014
Pages: 304
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For the past two months, Kitty Doe's life has been a lie. Forced to impersonate the Prime Minister's niece, her frustration grows as her trust in her fake fiancé cracks, her real boyfriend is forbidden and the Blackcoats keep her in the dark more than ever.
But in the midst of discovering that her role in the Hart family may not be as coincidental as she thought, she's accused of treason and is forced to face her greatest fear: Elsewhere. A prison where no one can escape.
As one shocking revelation leads to the next, Kitty learns the hard way that she can trust no one, not even the people she thought were on her side. With her back against the wall, Kitty wants to believe she'll do whatever it takes to support the rebellion she believes in—but is she prepared to pay the ultimate price?
In a future United States, the rich upper classes live in luxury while the underclasses suffer. Kitty has been Masked – her appearance surgically changed to look exactly like the Prime Minister’s niece, Lila Hart. She is living a life of luxury and comfort, but secretly helping the Blackcoats plan their rebellion to overthrow the corrupt society and bring down the elite class.
Reading back over my review of Pawn, I actually rated it reasonably highly for a story I don’t remember liking all that much. I felt Captive was a better story, told in a very engaging and compelling way. There is plenty of action, and in between the feeling is extremely tense – in fact by the time I finished reading it I felt I needed something a bit lighter!
My main problem with this series is Kitty. In Pawn, she was forced into most of the things she did, so I could understand her whining. In Captive, she constantly either refuses to do things for the rebellion, or decides to take action on her own. Any time she does anything, someone ends up dying, but she just carries on jumping to conclusions and basically messing things us. She does develop a sense of responsibility through the story, but my goodness, I hope she’s not such a whiny little idiot in the third book!
The twists and turns in this book get pretty convoluted. I was never sure who could be trusted or who would be killed off next, and I ended up treating each new character with a tentative, almost Game-of-Thrones-esque wariness. If I started to like them, I was sure they would be next in the cage.
I wasn’t really convinced by the brutality of Elsewhere. I didn’t really see the point in the different sections or the work they did there – why couldn’t the captive underclasses be put to work growing food or doing something productive rather than being so militaristic – and Section X was supposed to be the one for favoured prisoners! I just thought it seemed unnecessarily brutal.
This series is not for the faint-hearted – there’s plenty of death and destruction in this brutal rebellion, and it’s certainly not over yet. It’s a very interesting story if you’re a fan of the overthrow of dystopian societies and the action is certainly exciting. Don’t let my dislike of the main character discourage you!
– A brutal world and a bloody rebellion, the oppressed fighting for their freedom. Disappointingly annoying protagonist in an otherwise compelling series.
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Due for release in 2015 |
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Anni
Anni lives in Brisbane, Australia with her young family. She loves everything fantasy and science fiction and believes sleep is really very underrated.
Alexandra
Thank you for the review! I’ve been meaning to start this series for a while.
Alexandra recently posted…Don’t miss this great giveaway!
Salisa Waheed
Thanks for the review. I’ve had my on this series for a while but always something comes up and i have to push it back..