Review by Melissa: The Immortal Crown by Richelle Mead (Melissa’s review)

The Immortal Crown (Age of X #2)
written by Richele Mead
published by Dutton/Penguin

find it here: (affiliate links) Barnes & Noble, Amazon, iBooks, Book Depository, Goodreads

Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of this book in exchange  for an honest review.

Did I enjoy this book: Do you ever get to the end of a book that’s so good you find you’ve forgotten how to say anything except, “Holy Sh*t” over and over again?  Yeah.  This is one of those books.  It’s better than the first one.  It’s better than sleep.  It’s better than the epic Nutella-banana-marshmallow fluff camper pie my brother-in-law made me last night.  This is the first of Ms. Mead’s series that I’ve read, but you can bet I just added a whole stack of her other books to my TBR pile.  WOWZA.  She’s good.

Would I recommend it: It’s awesome.  If my TBR list wasn’t quite so long, I’d read it again immediately.

About the book – from Goodreads:  The #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Vampire Academy and Bloodline series returns with the second installment in her acclaimed Age of X series.

Gameboard of the Gods introduced religious investigator Justin March and Mae Koskinen, the beautiful supersoldier assigned to protect him. Together they have been charged with investigating reports of the supernatural and the return of the gods, both inside the Republic of United North America and out. With this highly classified knowledge comes a shocking revelation: Not only are the gods vying for human control, but the elect—special humans marked by the divine—are turning against one another in bloody fashion.

Their mission takes a new twist when they are assigned to a diplomatic delegation headed by Lucian Darling, Justin’s old friend and rival, going into Arcadia, the RUNA’s dangerous neighboring country. Here, in a society where women are commodities and religion is intertwined with government, Justin discovers powerful forces at work, even as he struggles to come to terms with his own reluctantly acquired deity.

Meanwhile, Mae—grudgingly posing as Justin’s concubine—has a secret mission of her own: finding the illegitimate niece her family smuggled away years ago. But with Justin and Mae resisting the resurgence of the gods in Arcadia, a reporter’s connection with someone close to Justin back home threatens to expose their mission—and with it the divine forces the government is determined to keep secret.