A Court This Cruel and Lovely (Kingdom of Lies Book 1)

The plot had so much potential. I enjoyed the first 20ish chapters, I liked the idea and the setup. It was good, it was interesting... until it wasn't. Prisca in the beginning was just a village girl in fear of being caught with her power, especially after witnessing a fellow villager be condemned on "God's day". When discovered, Prisca goes on the run where she is found drowning in river and Lorian and his fellow mercenaries rescue her. Still good. BUT, she goes from being this innocent villager to death craved mongrel because Lorian told his men to leave her after pulling her from the water. Which is kind of understandable? They have their own mission, why would they take her with them? She was 100% a liability and would waste their resources. The part where she tries to steal supplies and a horse, now that's reasonable but vowing to kill Lorian for leaving her behind? No. And somewhere prior to her relocating Lorian and almost stealing the horse, she kills a hunter for trying to bring her in. Again, understandable but could she really blame that on Lorian? It like deepened her desire to find him for vengeance. Her journey with them appears short lived and the conversations are a bit bleh. It's all filler, leaves nothing for the audience to really adventure into - just serving constant information. After running into her brother and fulfilling her duty of getting Lorian and his men into the city, Prisca now suddenly joins a resistance to infiltrate the castle to free all the slaves, which is fine. Kind of reminds me of the divergent series-ish. But her sudden ability to also infiltrate the queen's ladies when she has a poverty background? Seriously questionable. The rest goes into wayyyyyy too much explanation with little action. At one point, the explanations are just repetitive as hell. WHAT KILLED ME was the near end when the two brothers just openly blurt out how Prisca is now suddenly the heir to a kingdom. I LITERALLY GROANED OUT LOUD IN AGONY. I HATED IT. Maybe hate is a bit much, I strongly disliked it. I was big mad that I stopped and walked away for a bit. What I wanted/Expected: ▲ Tygres to be aware that Prisca wasn't his sister the entire time and want her for himself. Maybe, love triangle between Prisca, Tygress and Lorian?? That would of been interesting. ▲ More of enemies to lovers, this was more like acquaintances to lovers to something, I don't know. ▲ Less maid/butler speak, just let things play out. Not every single thing needs to be explained.

First, I do wanna say this books plot and story was a lovely read. Not amazing, but certainly compelling. There is consistent foreshadowing throughout the story so it doesn't feel rushed or forced. It also doesn't beat you over the head with it, which I appreciate.

Now the sins of this book:
The overuse of wildcat.
Poorly written sex scenes, if your forte isn't sex scenes you're more than welcome to fade to black.
Weird awkward sentences and cringy sayings.