Bitterblue by Kristen Cashore

Bitterblue is another novel written by Kirsten Cashore which is third in her series. While fire was set in a time before Graceling, Bitterblue is set after and back in the same land of which Graceling was set. Bitterblue is the young girl that Katsa and Po had saved in the first novel. Now that Bitterblue is eighteen she wants to start taking a more active role as queen. She has been queen of Monsea since she was ten years old, her four advisers have been looking after the kingdom and getting her to sign different paper works and to attend the occasional trial. However Bitterblue feels that not all is well in her kingdom, she feels that the effects of her father king Leck still have affect in the kingdom. Bitterblue decides to sneak out and see her kingdom for herself, she dressed in servant clothing and snuck into town. She found herself in a story telling pub where people can tell stories. These stories contain personal stories, stories about her dear friend and her hero Katsa; she also hears the stories of her father. Bitterblue finds herself drawn to this story room and sneaks out night after night to listen, and that is where she meets teddy and Saf. These two boys soon start to become her friend; however neither knows her true identity. She finds out that teddy is a writer and publisher, a person who seeks the truth and spreads it to the world, while Saf is a thief. However a strange one he is, when Bitterblue saw him one night steal a gargoyle from her castle. She soon finds that Saf steals things that king Leck had stolen from the people and gives it back. Teddy is attacked because of his want to share the truth and his printing room burnt down so he couldn’t print anything for the world. Bitterblue knows something is wrong when people are attacking people who are trying to spread the truth and tries to find out what is going on.

Where graceling focused on a fighter, it was a more of a secret mission, journey sort of story more action. Fire focused more on the war and planning an army, finding traitors, and learning insight to the enemy. Bitterblue is more about the politics of running a kingdom, about how to help her people recover from a terrible king, about finding who is still working in the wrong and to finally cleanse her kingdom from the footprint of her father.

Kristen Cashore has truly shown her writing improvements through these books, she has become a very good writer; her use of language is more extensive. She knows how to create interesting characters, and is able to connect all her books in small ways which link them together and create a thrilling series. Kristen Cashore is an excellent writer who is defiantly worth checking out. She is a feminist and you can see this throughout her novels in certain ways, more evident in her first book, and in Bitterblue. This series has defiantly a high place in my favourites.