Princess Lia is being forced to marry against her will. Her parents have secured her a marriage to a prince of another land–a prince she has never even met. As a First Daughter, she is supposed to have the gift of sight, which makes her valuable. However, Lia knows that she does not have the gift and that her parents are lying in order to form an alliance with a different kingdom. Lia refuses to be a political pawn and instead runs away on her wedding day, hiding in a far off village while pretending to be a waitress in an inn. When two mysterious men arrive and appear interested in her, she finds herself torn between the two, not realizing that one is the prince she ran away from and the other an assassin sent to murder her.

This was such a great read! Lia is a smart girl who isn’t the typical princess–she hates doing the normal “girly” princess tasks and instead loves to run around with her brothers. When she finds out that she is expected to marry a stranger and move to a nearby kingdom that she has never been to, she is extremely unhappy. She is not the type to sit and be a docile wife but rather she loves to talk back to her father’s advisers and keeps herself educated. Lia, along with her maid and best friend, Pauline, flees the kingdom, leading her father’s men on many false trails and managing to hide herself away in a distant village.

What was really incredible about this book was the narration style. The majority of the book is told from Lia’s point of view, but every few chapters we get a short chapter told from the prince’s point of view and then from the assassin’s. This enables the reader to get a better idea of the other character’s motives and how they are conflicted once faced with Lia. The prince chases after her to see what kind of girl was bold enough to jilt him at his wedding and nearly cause a war between two kingdoms, and the assassin was sent by his employer from a distant land to kill Lia. However, once he meets her, he finds this more and more difficult to accomplish.

Lia is a very humble character for a princess–she gets a job in an inn and is willing to learn and pull her own weight in order to make her way. She doesn’t expect to be handed anything simply because of who she is and she treats her former maid Pauline as an equal. After spending some time away from home and then hearing from her brother about the war that is brewing, she realizes that running away did not only stop the wedding, but may have started more than she intended. Though she is enjoying her new life, she realizes that she may have to consider returning and facing her responsibilities before it is too late. It grows increasingly difficult to leave, however, because she finds herself gaining the attention of both the prince and the assassin, both of whom are torn between their feelings for her and their own responsibilities.

Overall, The Kiss of Deception was an exciting fantasy read that kept me turning pages. The narration style really made the story, especially with a twist I wasn’t expecting, and I look forward to reading the sequel!

The Kiss of Deception will be released on July 15, 2014 and is the first book in The Remnant Chronicles.