"The Ring and The Crown" by Melissa de la Cruz

Title: The Ring and The Crown

Author: Melissa de la Cruz

Format: Hardcover, 384 pages

Published April 1st 2014 by Disney-Hyperion

My rating: 5 stars

Two girls.

One beautiful and strong.

One plain and powerless.

Only one shall be queen...

And the other shall serve her.

But as I awake from sleep, I still do not know-

Which one of them is my daughter?

And which one is the traitor?

First thing is: That book is sooo pretty!!! I'm really happy I got the Hardcover version this time. The book comes with one of those paper wrapper covers a lot of hardcover books have and I have to admit, even though the cover pic is beautiful, I hate those. They simply get in the way while reading.

Here comes the great thing though: When you remove the paper cover, you get a black book with the title written in red letters on it, that totally looks stunning! Well.. It's probably quite plain, but it's simply not something you expect under a colorful cover, so it makes a great surprise.

I also loved the overall use of fonts and decorations at the start of each chapter, that help make even the written text look beautiful. :)

Now to the story: Marie, a young princess, is supposed to marry the kronpinz of prussia, Leopold, in order to form an ally. But, as it's the case most of the times, she loves someone else. In desperate need to escape her fate, Marie asks her old friend, a young sorceress, to take her place. As the marriage draws near and some unexpected events occur, Marie has to ask herself: Is her own happiness really worth sacrificing her own kingdom?

I loved how the story slowly unfolded and a lot more people were involved, than just Marie and Leopold. At first it's a little bit confusing, since the perspective changes a lot, but in my opinion that makes the story so much more interesting. Slowly we get to collect the pieces, until everything becomes a whole and great story with a lot of loveable(and sometimes not so loveable) characters.

In my opinion „The Ring and the Crown“ is a story about finding your own place in life. As we see a lot of young people searching for their purpose in life and how the gradually grow stronger.

Overall I have to say I loved everything about this book. The story was solved clearly and since I'm not sure, if there is supposed to be a second one, I'd actually be satisfied with this as a stand alone. The writing was light and never made me tired, so I had no problems reading fast and enjoying everything. :)