The Girl of Fire and Thorns

* * * */Four Stars (almost five, but not quite)

Genre: Action, Adventure, Humor, Fantasy, Suspense, Danger, Romance, Fiction

Elisa isn't beautiful, good at fighting, or cut out to rule a kingdom even though she is a princess. However, Elisa has been chosen for a remarkable destiny by God himself when she was given the Godstone in her navel at her christening. This makes her a valuable chess piece in a political game; but not necessarily threatening. This is why it's so ironic that, when she is wed off by her father and her older sister to a foreign king in a business agreement, she will become the queen of a nation twice the size of her family's. As she travels away from the only home she has ever known to a strange new land with only a few possessions and her servant and friend Ximena, she begins to realize that her sheltered life has kept her from important truths about bearers of the Godstone and that her new acquaintances in the castle are not all that they seem. In an new world where everyone has their own agenda and she doesn't know who she can trust, can Elisa rise above it all and succeed in her magnificent destiny?
I really enjoyed this captivating and somewhat amusing book by Rae Carson. Brimming with adventure, conspiracies, plots, and magic, 'The Girl of Fire and Thorns' is a story that you won't soon forget.