The first book was good YA book, and this one is too. But there failed to be anything to distinguish it from the masses of YA fantasy.

Thanks to Hodder & Stoughton for allowing me access to this title. After reading Incendiary I was really looking forward to the sequel, but unfortunately the romances between core cast members were unconvincing for me and took over much of the plot.

Brilliant new duopoly from Zoraida Cordova. Excited to see what she publishes next! Brilliant new duopoly from Zoraida Cordova. Excited to see what she publishes next! Brilliant new duopoly from Zoraida Cordova. Excited to see what she publishes next!

I loved ILLUSTIONARY SO MUCH. I read Incendiary and it became a favourite readof mine, and this sequel entirely lived up to the same level.

I was really looking forward to reading Illusionary. Ever since I had finished Incendiary over a year ago.  A book that had sucked me in and ended too fast. I needed all the secrets to be spilt and they finally were in this book. There were a lot of twists and turns that I was not expecting. But when they were revealed they should have been so obvious.

For me Illusionary is when Renata finally finds out who she really is and what is capable of. Her journey of discovery is over and now she is on a mission. A mission not only to find herself but also to help those around her and save the kingdom that she loves.

We pick up right when Incendiary left off. On the run with a prince who should be the enemy and difficult decisions to make. I loved also how we got to explore more about the structure of magic in the kingdom. There was also a lot of history to go through. Which explained so much.

I loved the epic conclusion as Renata and Castian put the kingdom to right. Plus the battle is pretty epic.

Also the ending of Illusionary was pretty perfect. Yes it was pretty soppy, but it ticked all the boxes and everyone got what they wanted. What more could you want?

I won't say anything other than this was the PERFECT sequel to Incendiary - everything I loved about it and more! Not often that sequels exceed expectations nowadays.

After realising this was a sequel, I quickly grabbed a copy of Incendiary so I could enjoy Illusionary properly! As a sequel, I enjoyed watching how Ren developed. The plot was still a good pace and kept me enthralled; I find sometimes the second in a duology to be either lacking the energy of the first book or being too quick to wrap things up. Cordova manages to tie up loose ends while still keeping the same tension that is present throughout the first book. A great sequel!

This was, put simply, the ideal conclusion to a duology. In fact, it's one of those books that is hard to write about because it just provides everything you could have hoped it to.

Continuing on a journey of self development and self discovery, there are (many!) moments where you wonder whether Renata will see the other side of the book. It wasn't an easy book to read, but it was utterly addictive.

This was a really good conclusion to the duology. I really liked Renata as a character and her arc across both books was really good.

Thoroughly enjoyable and something a little different to the norm imo.

Solid 4 stars.

Absolutely loved this, I loved the twists and turns in the story, the magic of this series is amazing and enchanting, so immersive and that’s down to the writing and perfect world building. The character development from the first book is excellent and I loved the slow burn, friends to enemies to friends to lovers romance. I just loved the ending and so many tears involved, highly recommend this duology to everyone

Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for a free copy for an honest opinion

I finally got around to reading Illusionary and thoroughly enjoyed it. I especially liked the character development - Renata grew so much throughout the book - and of course the romance.
An amazing sequel to a very underrated duology!

I loved Incendiary and loved illusionary.
The author is a talented storyteller and this story kept me turning pages.
Great world building and character development.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine

Starting already with the fact that I liked Incendiary very little, alas, Illusionary was no less.
I really had a hard time finishing this read.
From this second book, however, I could see, how little I tolerate the main character, Renata.

However, after the conclusion of the first book, we left Renata alone, betrayed by half the world and with no allies.
So all she has to do is accept the help of Castian, her enemy, but hey he's a big beef too.
Together they go in search of the legendary Knife of Memory, so they can kill the ruthless King Fernando and bring world peace. What a heavy burden, and Renata made it even heavier.
In addition, the romance part didn't blow me away. I found it a bit out of context.

I'll probably be one of the few readers who didn't enjoy this dilogy and that's why I have to be reminded that, reading is subjective.
What you like I may not like and this is proof of that.
Both books are very smooth, although the first one struggles to get to the end because of plot holes, the second is developed a little better.
The plot is already more straightforward and clear, despite the fact that it didn't blow me away.

In conclusion, do I recommend this series? Yes, it reads in a blink of an eye and who knows you might like it.

A great conclusion, following Renata through more danger, mystery, violence and some romance!
This is the second part to a great duology, I certainly would buy this book to go on my shelf

I'm so behind on my reading that I've gone to go read this and it's now not showing on my kindle. The file has now been archived so I've purchased the book and will update my review once I've read it!

Sorry!!

Loved this. I really enjoy the unique magic of this series and how it affects the characters themselves and their personalities.
I loved the twists and turns and the character growth from everyone was amazing.
The writing was beautiful and yet concise and fell perfectly into the right balance between the two:
The pacing was great and made the book fly by!
Totally recommend the series and can’t wait to read more by the author.

I LOVED THIS BOOK SO MUCH!! This review may contain spoilers.

Oh gosh, I really don't know how to review this book because Illusionary just swept me away. Absolutely fantastic!! The first book in this duology, Incendiary, was a an enjoyable 3 star read for me. I liked it, found the characters and story interesting, but I didn't *love it*, but that cliffhanger ending?! Had me on the edge of my seat for this one . . . and rightly so! Because WOW. What a fantastic sequel and conclusion.

I love Renata and Castian, and their journey together throughout this book was filled with angst, dislike, sexual tension, romance, and I ate every single scene up!! Seeing Renata try to work through her memories of Castian, both as a child and up until recently of being a rebel, and seeing him now - trying to work out who he is and put all these different versions of him that she has known together. And then there's Castian!!!! Who supports Renata while also working through his own grief over himself, his brother and his mother. Ugh. I LOVE IT. I loved seeing them grow together & individually, and I love how their story ended up.

I really enjoyed the ending of this book. I won't say too much because of spoilers, but I think the characters all ended up where they needed to me, it made sense! I hate books that put characters in to a role where the entire time the series was characterising in another way, so you were certain they'd make *that* decision, and then they just . . . don't. But not this! While reading, I was like (this character should totally be x. They fit all the boxes for it. AND THEN IT HAPPENED!).

Okay back to Renata and Castian for a second. They KILLED me. Their scenes together. Castian 'wherever you are, that is my world' . . . I had to set the book down so many times and just yell about how much I loved it. Also the love triangle? WHAT LOVE TRIANGLE? That concluded well too. I appreciate that.

The plot was great. I enjoyed the unravelling of the mystery and the sea voyage, and the introduction of all the characters! I also liked how this was a conclusion, but the ending certainly left a door open for Cordova to return to this story either through the eyes of Renata/Castian or through someone else. It wrapped things up, but not too neatly, which I found realistic - and again, gave that opportunity to come back later on while still providing closure.

I'm sorry, this review has been all over the place, but the important things to state are: I LOVED IT and it's one of my favourites. Highly recommend!

You know when a book disappoints you so much you actually feel pretty angry about it? After finishing this book, I’ll admit I’m at that point right now. I really enjoyed Incendiary, it wasn’t anything ground breaking necessarily but it was enjoyable and I got through it pretty quickly. Illusionary, however, the sequel in this duology felt a lot harder work to get through.

The biggest thing that irritated me in this book was the romance. In book one Ren is in love with Dez to the point of willingly putting her life in danger getting herself caught to avenge him. He tells her she loves him, she regrets never telling him back how much she loved him, they make love etc. Then plot twist, Prince Castian, the monstrous prince who killed Dez, didn’t actually kill Dez, he only pretends to be a monster, he only let Ren mourn her love that he created the illusion of murdering for her to see, he’s actually the good guy! And Dez, the good guy, his character is just switched in a way that makes no sense, he flees, he lets Ren think he is dead and evades her and even turns on her. It makes no sense. But it’s totally fine because as much as Ren loves Dez, her life is all about Dez, she grew up being protected and loved by Dez, it’s because she knew Castian as a child, A CHILD, she realises she has always loved him and stops loving Dez like it’s been switched off, just as her repulsion and hate for Castian switches off. It feels incredibly immature romance. Similarly at the start of this book, Castian and Ren work together to find Dez, Castian asks questions about his brother (because in the most obvious twist of all, Castian and Dez are brothers), he wants to know about this brother he thought he lost, he longs for his brother and Ren loves Dez too much to talk about him, neither stop and either consider Dez or how them getting together would effect any future relationship with Dez. Essentially Castian chooses Ren over his brother (knowing how close they were because she had a pregnancy scare) and doesn’t once question the propriety of that, or Ren flirting and ultimately sleeping with the brother of her love who got messed up after finding out he had a brother and his life was a lie. I’m sorry, maybe Vampire Diaries normalises sleeping with both brothers but it’s weird.

But there’s more! Castian was engaged to Nuria, they loved each other to the extent she begged Ren to remove one of her most intimate memories of him to help her, and he just ditches it because he’s such a brooding hero. There is no apology or recognition between the 2 characters when they’re together on the page, in fact despite Nuria risking her safety to assist Castian throughout the story, there isn’t one interaction I can recall where he even acknowledges her. But it’s fine because how do you solve a love triangle like Dez, Ren and Castian? Just lump Dez and Nuria together at the end *eye roll*. I’m sorry but it feels underdeveloped, by the end of the book you’ve got Ren and Castian together, but she’s slept with his brother Dez too. And Nuria with Dez, but she’s also slept with Castian. Just putting the leftover characters together as some happy ending just annoyed, as did the dialogue where Dez goes from “how will I get over losing you” to ‘oh well, there’s a spare woman here, I’ll love her now’ and pretty instantly forgives his brother and former love for getting it on. This emotional maturity is from the character previously written to panic so much when he found out he had a brother and that he was a Prince that he fled everything?? Oh then we flip again and he just becomes King and takes on that responsibility easily enough. Sounds like he easily could’ve handled the stuff he was written to bail on too, but that would've got in the way of the need for Ren to get with Castian. It just reads inconsistent and written towards getting from A to B. Similarly, multiple members of the Whispers betray Ren and again it’s just glided over and moved past. It’s infuriating.

While there is no emotional development when it comes to relationships in the book, I did enjoy the emotional progression of Ren herself in this book. She starts off with such self loathing, being raised to be a weapon, a prop to be disposed of, and ending up loving herself. I wish that had been the love story in this book, self love, for both Ren and Castian, instead of 2 very broken, hurting people propping each other up. I actually preferred the ending when it looked like she boarded the pirate ship alone, doing something FOR HER but nope, Castian has to chase after her.

Relationships aside, this isn’t a bad book and at times I really did enjoy it, I just detest love triangles and flip flopping in character personalities, it’s a bit of an overused YA cliche. Also I have read too many books now where the plot is all about the protagonist having to make a sacrifice and it’s discussed for chapters, there’s an end goal which will save the world but the cost is her life, she hides it from him as he talks of their future etc. And she dies, a higher being or whatever speaks to her and is all ‘I know this is literally how it works but for the happy ending, I’m going to change the rules just for you and say it’s not your time yet’ as her love cradles her body and low and behold she returns. I can name several like this but I’ll be spoiling a lot of books if I mention them, i think it’s just been done too much now that you know it’s a bluff! I’m not saying I wanted the characters to suffer but it was just wrapped up too neatly and sweetly.

I’m sorry that sounds so bitter, it just didn’t do it for me and I could see such potential which is why I’m annoyed. Nuria was my favourite character and she’s barely used, as is Sayida and Argi, 3 women that would have totally changed how I felt the book had they been given more instead of the romance that instead took over this book.

Thank you to Hodderscape for my e-copy and hardback copy of Illusionary for review. Well, Incendiary is my favourite book of all time. I absolutely loved it. Renata is an absolute fiesty protagonist. Her ability as a moria mind reader really adds extra elements to the story. The castle and heist vibes and the twists and turns were perfect and there was a HUGE cliffhanger at the end which I needed to find out what happened! So I was looking forward to reading the sequel. I was not disappointed. This was just the conclusion I needed for the duology so I hope that there will be another series made in this world. I enjoy Zoraida Cordova's writing, the world building is descriptive and luscious. Please read Incendiary if you haven't already!

Incendiary was one of my most favorite books I read at the end of 2020, that's why I knew I needed to read the sequel as soon as possible. I was so excited when I got the opportunity to read an arc of this book. It gave me so many thoughts and emotions, although I cannot say that I liked this book more.

The story escalated quickly at the end of Incendiary, that's for sure. But it wasn't only an attempt to make readers terrified for their favorite characters, since the beginning of the Illusionary has the same thrilling dynamics as before. There's no time to waste, Ren and Castian are on an important mission, trying to find a part of their past they both thought they lost and trying to find a legendary knife that could change the world. Of course, this adventure is far from easy, so you can look forward to a few plot twists, new secrets and mysteries... and the slow development of their relationship.

Ren and Castian lived through a lot and they are completely different people from who they were in the first book. Ren started to be even more brave and strong, willing to do anything to stop the king's reign. Castian on the other hand started to act better, wiser and if you haven't loved him in the first book, I think you won't resist him this time. He got the redemption he deserved.

The writing style and pacing were great most of the time, so I could enjoy the story properly. However, the truth is that the theme of the sequel is different from the plot in book one. There is only a little of court politics, rebellion, or fighting. Instead, there are more scenes that focus on story-building and world-building, which means that sometimes the scenes felt rather too long for me and they were filled with details. Because of that and I easily lost my interest to read more. It disappointed me a bit since I had very high expectations for this book.

Overall, I enjoyed Illustionary, though it wasn't perfect, it is a book worth reading. My favorite part of the book was definitely the ending. It brought tears to my eyes in a good way and left me wanting more. I cannot wait to read another book written by this author! I would recommend Hollow Crown series for readers who want to read fantasy with great character development, slow-burn enemies to lovers romance, and thrilling plot focused on court politics and adventure.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.