Twin Daggers

Author: MarcyKate Connolly

Publisher: Blink YA Books

Release Date: August 25, 2020

Rating: 5 Stars

Reviewer: Jessica Higgins

One of the best YA books I have read in a long time! The suspense was top notch, my emotions were all over the place with the characters, and I continually held my breath to see how things would turn out. Some books deserve more than five stars, and this is one of them!

Aissa and her twin sister Zandria have spent their lives living a lie. They pretend to be normal Technocrats going to school and getting ready to learn the roles they will have in their new apprenticeships. However, at night they plot how they will take down the Technocrats and help resurrect their people, the Magi from hiding.  Aissa is given a new mission; she is to find and kidnap the heir to the Technocrat throne.  Rumor has it the heir is one of the Heartless, a person born with no heart and survives only by using mechanical replacements. When Zandria is captured by the Technocrats and taken away, Aissa has to work everything in her power to help get her sister back, including asking from help from a young Technocrat researcher she has become close to and may be the secret to finding a cure for the Heartless.

“Aissa’s life is a web of carefully constructed lies.”  One of the best opening sentences I’ve read this year. MarcyKate Connolly has crafted a fun, entertaining, heart-pounding, suspenseful read that I feel certain will be read again and again. This was my first book to read by Connolly and it is safe to say I was not disappointed. I absolutely love a great YA book; I am a big fan of The Hunger Games and the like and would easily say this book rates up with those for me. From the very beginning, readers will be pulled in with intrigue and wondering what these characters are going to have to face. It didn’t take very long at all for me to find a connection with Aissa and stick with her through the journey. The fact that she is a twin made the emotions run that much higher when her sister is captured, and she is trying to save her by herself. I’m a twin and I’ll tell you, that emotional connection is huge. Throughout the whole book every different relationship Aissa found herself in, whether with her parents, her sister, Aro, Remy, readers see a connection and each one feels absolutely real and nothing is forced. This is written as the first in a series and I am itching to get my hands on the next. That is the hard thing about finding a new author and book you love so much; you have to wait for the next to come out and it can sometimes be agonizing. I would recommend this to readers that love young adult dystopian novels with characters they can embrace and route for and a story that will pull them in from the first page and not let go. I received a complimentary copy of this title from the publisher.  The views and opinions expressed within are my own.