A few years ago, I started reading Gild, the first book in “The Plated Prisoner series by Raven Kennedy. At first, I didn’t manage and DNF’ed the book. I picked it back up later and now I’m slowly making my way through the entire series. This month it was time for Gleam, the third book.

This series contains graphic content such as abuse, drug use and violence. Therefore it’s not suitable for readers under 18.

Title: Gleam
Author: Raven Kennedy
Series: The Plated Prisoner #3
Publish date: May 23, 2021
Publisher: Indepently published
ISBN: 9798509076145
Number of pages: 673
Genre: New adult, Fantasy

King Midas made me the woman I am today. Notorious. Unattainable. His.
The thing about being confined is that you believe it’s to keep the bad out… Until you realize it’s about keeping you in.
I’m now in a strange kingdom surrounded by liars, with no allies of my own, but I won’t sit idly by and let myself wither. No, there’s something that’s bloomed from the pit of my repression. Something dark. Something angry.
But the last thing I expected was for my anger to call out to him. King Ravinger.
He’s sinister and powerful and entirely too seductive. I’ve learned my lesson with trusting manipulative kings, so why does my chest constrict every time he’s near? I need to tread carefully, or I’m at risk of losing much more than just my freedom.
Regret and revenge war inside of me, and I need to figure out a plan fast before I get tangled up in the schemes of kings and queens.
Because I won’t be caught in a cage again. No, this time, It’ll be me setting the trap… I just hope my heart comes out of this unscathed.

The story picks up where Glint ends: Auren and Midas are back together and Ripp just revealed his true identity. Auren is still torn between leaving Midas or staying. First of all, she has to navigate between several truths and she needs to find out what is true and false. Meanwhile, in another kingdom, queen Malina is trying to take back control. So, this book knows several narratives. We start out with 3, but later on in the book another one gets added. Because of spoilers, I can’t say too much about this. All characters are excecuted well. There are some revelations about several of them though which makes the book more intriguing. Moreover, Auen visibly grows throughout the story.

The atmosphere is quite tense. This story is set in a different kingdom and castle. It’s still cold and the castle has many secrets. Readers explore these alongside Auren. Also, the threat of displeasing Midas is still looming over Auren which makes the book more tense even.

Quite frankly, the writing is not that great. It’s becoming quite repetitive and that’s something I notice a lot in independently published books. This is literally the biggest reason why I usually don’t read them. As well as the writing, the plot is getting repetitive. The characters do not move a lot and therefroe the plot feels stuck either. Somethimes, it felt like Gleam was dragging, especially in the middle part. The first part was interesting since we got a flashback to 10 years before Gild started. We already knew bits and pieces about Auren’s life before, but now we get more information on it. Further on the information from these flashbacks (there are multiple) happen to be very, very important for the development of the book. The ending however makes me want to pick up Glow, because the cliffhanger is immense.

This book partially intrigued me. Let’s be honest, the plot is not the best and it has to have it from all the revelations and plot twists. These are the ones that keep me on the edge of my seat and make me want to continue this series. As stated before, the middle part of the book is dragging. Also, queen malina’s POV was the most interesting and I hope we get more of this in the next book. Despite the book being dragging for most part, everything made sense and was logic.

Overall, I enjoyed Gleam. The size is a little bit intimidating and honestly a little bit too much for what actually happens in the story. However, the visibility of Auren’s growth, queen malina’s POV and the revelations and plot twists near the end made me enjoy reading it. The cliffhanger is huge and makes me want to pick up Glow. However, I hope the plot becomes less repetitive though.