Hello, friends! I’m back and diving straight in with a blog tour review for The Third Daughter by Adrienne Tooley. Special thanks to the TBR & Beyond Tours team for organising the tour and including me in it!

Thanks to Little, Brown Books for Young Readers for providing a digital ARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Click here or on the banner above to check out the rest of the fantastic bloggers on tour!

TL;DR: The Third Daughter is an interesting start to a new duology(?) that I think holds a lot of potential. Tooley’s prose is compelling and it’s easy to become absorbed in the world she has created. Elodie and Sabine are complex, morally grey and not always the easiest to like or even empathise with at times but it makes their arcs even more engaging to follow and their characters feel more realistic. The book takes on a surprisingly darker tone that I wasn’t really expecting, especially in regard to faith and politics and how often and easily those two are mixed to the detriment of society. While I think there were elements that could’ve been written better to make the story even stronger, I’m definitely looking forward to seeing where it goes next.

This is only my second book by Tooley but I really enjoy her writing style. The story flows well and the author’s writing is accessible and easy to follow, so it’s no hardship to immerse myself in the setting. Though I do think that the history and world could’ve been expanded upon in more detail, it makes this fantasy perfect for those who don’t usually read the genre and who don’t want heavy or overly detailed world-building. Throughout the story, the author explores a wide range of themes including complex family dynamics, unhealthy relationships, and the politicisation of religion. If you’re not a fan of political stories, I wouldn’t say this was too bad because it’s broken up by other aspects such as the romance and the internal struggles of our main characters. These elements weren’t necessarily “light-hearted” but they did lessen the seriousness of the politics. I personally felt that it detracted a bit from the story because of that and I wished that the romance had been less “insta” but I know that many readers will enjoy it nonetheless!

Our two main POVs are Elodie and Sabine who I thought were interestingly complex characters. If I’m being honest, I was expecting to like them a lot more than I did but I will say that they’re a lot more likeable than the other characters in this story (take that as you will, lol). Elodie is the eldest princess who has given up her place to her second youngest sister, the third daughter. She’s a little bit spiteful, a little bit green and a little bit mean but I do think she has her heart in the right place (she does love her siblings and country) even when it doesn’t necessarily come off that way. As a princess, she’s obviously spoiled and blind to the realities of the people, particularly those who live in the poorest districts such as the Harborside, where Sabine is from. That said, Elodie has a regal strength to her and a ruthlessness and determination that was pretty badass, lol.

Sabine is the middle child of three; her father is a drunk gambler who’s working off his debts at sea and her family is struggling to make ends meet as they rely mainly on Sabine’s magic for money. She’s “cursed” with magic that manifests through her tears which is used to amplify the potency of any draught it’s added to. It was pretty heartbreaking to see how her family treated her as a commodity and how little empathy they had for what she had to endure, and I think the relatability of her situation made it very easy to empathise with her. She is quite a meek character who’s understandably drowning in her emotions but I do wish that her growth had been a bit more gradual by the end. I think Tooley did a great job depicting the complexity of family relationships for both of these characters!

If I had to point out two main issues it would be 1) the depth and 2) the stakes and I don’t think they’re necessarily separate. There is a large cast of supporting characters, mostly family, and many of these connections and relationships felt underdeveloped and shallow. There was enough depth for you to want to root for these characters but it could’ve done with so much more! No spoilers but towards the middle/end some of the character interactions were so bizarrely out of character and felt so sudden and without any explanation that it was just very weird. I think the lack of depth in the relationships also contributed to the lack of tension in the story, which made it hard for me to feel invested in what was happening because I didn’t see that the characters were ever truly in danger or that if they didn’t figure out the problem everything would fall into utter chaos. Sadly, this made one major plot twist fall flat for me!

Overall though, I think there’s a lot of potential in this new series/duology(?) and I hope that some of these issues get resolved in the next book because I thought the premise was interesting, I just wanted that bit more depth and tension to strengthen the delivery of the story!

Have you read The Third Daughter or is it on your TBR?

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