“Courage could cost him everything.
Third Blade Leith Torren never questions his orders or his loyalty to King Respen until an arrow wound and a prairie blizzard drive him to the doorstep of the girls whose family he once destroyed.
Their forbidden faith and ties to the Resistance could devastate their family a second time.
Survival depends on obedience, but freedom beckons. How far does he dare go to resist the king and his Blades?
No matter what Leith chooses, one thing is certain.
Someone will die.”
Series: Book #1 in the “Blades of Acktar” series.
Spiritual Content- Daniel 6:10 & 16 at the beginning; Scriptures are mentioned, remembered, quoted, & read; Stories about Daniel are shared and paraphrased (the first handful of chapters); Bible reading; Witnessing & Being witnessed to; Prayers & Blessings over food; Many talks about God, Jesus, Daniel, and not hiding one’s faith; ‘H’s are capital when referring to God; In this world, being a Christian and/or owning a Bible is illegal (Leith thinks the king banned the Bible because he doesn’t want to be told that he was under anyone’s control); Renna struggles with the idea of healing Leith, but knows his life isn’t hers to take so she does her best to heal him and places his life in God’s hands; Renna thinks about hiding her faith in front of Leith, but her little sister is not afraid; Renna thinks about how God being for her doesn’t mean she can’t still be arrested or killed for her faith; *Spoilers* Renna’s little sister tells Leith stories about Daniel and God, which interests him; When praying for the first time, Leith doesn’t think he is worthy to be heard by God, but hopes that God will help him for the sake of Renna and her family since God cares about them; Leith feels content with the idea of being used for the good of Renna and her family; Leith doesn’t think God would want him after everything he has done, but another tells him that God will listen to every prayer for Christ’s sake and that Leith is already one of God’s people; Leith wonders if God has adopted him as a son and loved him & feels peace at that thought *End of Spoilers*; Renna thinks that God was silent when her parents were murdered; Many mentions of God, Jesus, trusting Him, God being in control, & His will; Many mentions of Bibles, Bible reading, & those and events in the Bible; Mentions of Christians, faiths, & witnessing; Mentions of prayers, praying, & blessings over food; Mentions of churches, secret services, ministers, sermons, & worship; Mentions of miracles; Mentions of cross necklaces; Mentions of sins; A few mentions of Heaven; A mention of devotions; A mention of Godspeed;
*Note: Someone comments on facing God’s eternal wrath if you use His name in vain; The king comments about God is imaginary and no match for him; Renna says that God doesn’t work with miracles like Daniel and the lions’ den anymore because “miracles like that are no longer needed” and God works through other ways; Leith remembers seeing those who were killed showing either terror or peace as they saw into the “realm beyond death”; A couple comments from side characters who don’t protect the churches in their areas because they could get hurt for it by the king & having different beliefs than Christians; A conversation where someone says it’s wrong to rebel against the government and the king that he believes God has placed over him (another argues that the government is trying to destroy their faith); Mentions of evil (including someone saying that “all of humanity is evil at its heart”); A couple mentions of luck & being lucky.
Negative Content- Minor cussing including: a ‘dumb’ and two ‘stupid’s; A mention of a curse (said, not written); Eye rolling; Fighting, Being attacked, Being shot and stabbed, Being cut, Being held at knife-point and nearly killed (x5), Cauterizing a wound, Pain, Injuries, Blood/Bleeding, & Passing out (semi-detailed); Imagining killing someone & being killed (including in a nightmare, up to semi-detailed); Seeing others killed, blood, & the bodies (mostly slit-throats; including Renna remembering seeing her parents killed, up to semi-detailed); Helping someone injured and bleeding (up to semi-detailed); Leith is an assassin & has killed or helped killed others before; Renna struggles with wishing that Leith would die due to his role in her parent’s murders; Many mentions of deaths/murders (including of parents), assassinations, bodies, blood/bleeding, weapons, & grief (up to semi-detailed); Mentions of a war & fighting; Mentions of torture & executions; Mentions of slaves & being slaves to a man; Mentions of a kidnapping; Mentions of threats (of harm and death); Mentions of arrests; Mentions of stealing, stolen items, & thieves; Mentions of a tavern, alcohol, & a drunk; Mentions of lies, lying, & deception; Mentions of gossip, rumors, & eavesdropping; Mentions of hatred; A few mentions of nightmares; A couple mentions of beatings & being whipped; A couple mentions of jealousy; A couple mentions of gambling/card games;
*Note: Leith’s father was a physically abusive drunk & sold him to cover a debt; Leith doesn’t think his mother wanted him.
Sexual Content- An embrace & a bit of smelling (barely-above-not-detailed); Some noticing (including muscles and a form-hugging dress, barely-above-not-detailed); Some blushes; A Blade kidnaps a teen girl in order to “have some fun”with her (but Leith stops anything from happening by ordering the other Blade to take her back; This is mentioned a handful of times again); Mentions of crushes, infatuation, & blushes; A couple mentions of a married couple sharing a couple kisses; A mention of a girl who had “all but draped herself against” a guy; A mention of a girl making eyes at a boy;
*Note: Renna tries to kick a guy in a “sensitive area” in self-defense but misses.
-Leith Torren, age 18
-Renna, age 17
P.O.V. switches between them
336 pages
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Pre Teens-
New Teens-
Early High School Teens-
Older High School Teens-
My personal Rating-
There’s three series in the Christian YA market I’ve been meaning to read for years, but have pushed off because I’ve been intimidated by them despite having many book friends that enjoy the books. I’ve made it a goal the past three years to finally start on them, but it’s never happened until now with “Dare”. This series intimidates me the least of the three, so I decided to start it first. I do think it still might be too violent at times for my tastes, but I guess we will see as the series continues what I think about it on that element.
The pacing of this book was interesting because while it felt slow with actual plot points, it moved fast. Which feels like a total contradiction, but basically it means that while not a lot happened at first, I was reading and looked down at the page number and was surprised that I was already seventy pages in. That’s kind of how the whole book felt because while there’s some major plot events, not a ton happens in the grand scheme of taking down an evil king, but yet I still read it faster than normal.
On the violence: while it’s not super gory, some parts were a bit much for my visual brain and why my personal rating is lower. I honestly think those that are okay with fighting and blood and whatnot in PG-13 rated action movies would probably be fine with this one, but those aren’t movies I gravitate towards, so I was reading through squinted eyes at those scenes.
I did really like all the faith content and the parallels to Daniel. When I first started this book, I didn’t realize it was going to have a lot of faith content plainly shared; I was expecting an allegory or another name used for God, so it was a nice surprise to have God and Jesus talked about on-page and very often. It was neat and great to see strong Christian faith content. Leith’s faith arc was well done and reminded me of Saul/Paul in the Bible. I can see the hype for this series based off of the faith moments alone and I have to admit that I’m curious to see what will happen next for our main characters.
See y’all on Friday with a new review!
*BFCG may (Read the review to see) recommend this book by this author. It does not mean I recommend all the books by this author.
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