Book Review: And I Darken (The Conqueror’s Saga #1) by Kiersten White

C+ | Enjoyable as this novel is with characters that will both annoy you and endear themselves to you and set in an interesting time period, it is hampered down by historical inaccuracies and wasted opportunities all for the sake of drama. Aside from Lada, there are no major other female characters. The other female characters that are present are either presented as nothing more than one-dimensional beings. Mehmed’s characterization is, unfortunately, another thing that pulls this story down as it completely erases the more ruthless side of him. I can’t speak about the Muslim representation here because I am not Muslim myself, so for any thoughts on how Islam was presented here, please seek out #ownvoices bloggers to get more.

Title: And I Darken (The Conqueror’s Saga #1)

Author: Kiersten White

Synopsis: No one expects a princess to be brutal. And Lada Dragwlya likes it that way. Ever since she and her gentle younger brother, Radu, were wrenched from their homeland of Wallachia and abandoned by their father to be raised in the Ottoman courts, Lada has known that being ruthless is the key to survival. She and Radu are doomed to act as pawns in a vicious game, an unseen sword hovering over their every move. For the lineage that makes them special also makes them targets.

Lada despises the Ottomans and bides her time, planning her vengeance for the day when she can return to Wallachia and claim her birthright. Radu longs only for a place where he feels safe. And when they meet Mehmed, the defiant and lonely son of the sultan, Radu feels that he’s made a true friend—and Lada wonders if she’s finally found someone worthy of her passion.

But Mehmed is heir to the very empire that Lada has sworn to fight against—and that Radu now considers home. Together, Lada, Radu, and Mehmed form a toxic triangle that strains the bonds of love and loyalty to the breaking point.

Publication Date: June 28th 2016

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— REVIEW:

Let’s get one thing out of the way right now: I didn’t hate this book. In fact? I enjoyed this book. I think that overall in the grand scheme of things, it’s a good book. However, pull away the surface layers and there are plenty of issues abound.

But let’s talk about the good things first.

Worldbuilding/History & Plot

Okay, so if anyone looks into my GR read history, you’ll see that I have read a few books on Ottoman history and have many more on my tbr. This particular period of history really interested me (& still does, but not to the same extent) because it’s such an interesting time period politically, religiously, and socially. Plus, Mehmed the Conqueror has become of my favorite historical figures.

White does a decent job introducing this time period and who is who. Anyone who isn’t familiar with anything happening here won’t be completely lost. There is enough information provided to at least navigate the waters well enough. However, I do think there are certain things that people will/may have to google to get a better understanding simply due to the fact that it wasn’t explored very well.

Plot-wise, there’s not much to talk about. The majority is set during Mehmed the Conqueror’s early years when Lada (the female version of Vlad the Impaler) and Radu are at the Ottoman court as Murad II’s political hostages to keep their father, Vlad Dracul (Vlad II), in check. (Not that it worked, of course). Due to their friendship with Mehmed, our protagonist and deuteragonist get involved in the drama that is the Ottoman court. It’s pretty straight forward.

Another strength? The politics of the time period are present and are never forgotten.

Ottoman politics are crazy. There’s a lot of layers that made up the empire and how it functioned politically both from the external and internal spheres.

You can’t write a book set within the Ottoman court (especially one set during Mehmed’s time) without talking about the politics. I know this can be a huge turn off for some people, but it’s one of the things you absolutely need in a book like this. If you don’t like any politics what so ever in books, this is NOT the book for you.

Writing? On Point.

This story is about survival. White does not shy away from showcasing the anger, the loneliness, the confusion, the guilt, and the brutality that comes with trying to survive. She does a fantastic job at conveying Lada and Radu’s emotions.

Furthermore, the novel’s pacing is just right; it’s neither too fast nor too slow.

Radu

He is truly the only shining character in this book. By that I mean, he’s the only one that I liked from start to finish. Between him and Lada, I much preferred Radu simply because he felt so much more real. Yes, Lada’s emotions were evident throughout the book, but Radu just felt so much more alive.

However, while Radu felt alive, his storyline was an utter disappointment to me which brings me to the not so great parts of the book.

Radu’s Storyline & His Feelings for Mehmed

What a waste of a perfectly good, interesting character. I didn’t mind the fact that Radu had feelings for Mehmed. However, it came to a point where it was all about Mehmed for him. He got involved in the politics of the empire to protect Mehmed. He became jealous of Lada because Mehmed had feelings for her.

Mehmed, Mehmed, Mehmed.

I ask with all sincerity though, why did Radu fall in love with Mehmed? What was it about the future conqueror of Constantinople that drew Radu in? I honestly couldn’t even tell you because that wasn’t explored. Oh, we certainly get Radu questioning his sexuality and his feelings, but not the why he fell for Mehmed of all people.

It makes his reasoning for wanting to stay within the Ottoman court weak when it could have been much stronger. Yes, we all want to believe in that lightning strike. But why? Okay, so Radu found a home in the Ottoman Empire — that I can be certain of for sure because he found people who understood him and who welcomed him there (contrary to what happened in his homeland and with Lada). But if love is also a factor, then it also needs to be as believable to give weight to this desire.

On the other hand, we have Lada.

Oh Lada, Lada, Lada.

Where do I even begin with you? I both love and don’t like Lada. She is one of those characters that is well written and multidimensional, but oh so infuriating.

I am all for antiheroines. I am all for girls who refuse to wear dresses and skirts, who fight dirty, and who are absolutely ruthless. I am all for girls who don’t fit our expectations of how heroes should be or how women should act. Without a doubt, Lada is one of those girls.

But you know what else she is? She’s “not like other girls.” She has a superiority complex over women that she got from her father that borderlines misogyny. She believes herself to be better than the women who do follow society’s expectations of them. She scoffs at the idea of wearing dresses. Furthermore? She just plainly refuses to interact with other women.

Look, I get that the harem is a terrifying place, especially for Lada who obviously knew that the women in the harem are slave concubines. But, what really bothered me is that she never actually had any female friends and there was never any attempt for her to have female friends.

But it’s not just female friendships this book is missing. It is other multidimensional female characters.

One Dimensional Female Characters

Look, we don’t know much about the lives of the women in the imperial harem, especially if they were slave concubines. Regardless if they had children or not, these women would only be remembered if their son had risen to power or their daughters married powerful pashas. In the harem? Women had no power until they bore a child for the sultan. Their entire future was based on their son becoming sultan and/or the marriages they force their daughters into. It was how power was condensed in the inner court.

We have five prominent female side characters. Do I remember all their names? You bet your butt I don’t! The only ones I know are the historical women — Mara, Hüma Hatun, and Halima Hatun. I know them because well, like I said before, I love this time period and Mehmed is one of my favorite historical figures.

Since there isn’t a lot of information about Hüma or Halima, there’s a lot of wiggle room to flesh them out. In Mara’s case, well, she’s nobility and we have more things on her as well as what happened to her after Murad died. But she also could have been another woman who could have been fleshed out and have been — well a friend for Lada or at least someone she can turn to and ask for advice.

Instead, we get:

• Mara who basically just gave up and is waiting for Murad to die
• Halima who is a little fool ready to get down and dirty with an older man who could care less about her
• Hüma who is made to seem like a power-hungry, desperate woman who wanted a title that didn’t even exist for another few generations.
  

It pisses me off that instead of getting complex female characters who could be models for Lada, we get one-dimensional characters. This is the one place where a creative license could have run free, but no. It just seems so ridiculous to me that this author didn’t take the opportunity to actually write interesting female characters based on their historical past.

Mara becomes someone whom Mehmed comes to trust and turn to when he needs guidance. For god’s sake, she CAME BACK to his court to become an advisor to him because they had such a great mother/son bond! Why she’s cast aside when she could have a more prominent role just seems ridiculous to me.

Halima, I’m sad that we don’t get a lot of scenes with her because I do think that she could have been a better foil. Here is a young woman who is simply trying to live her life in a harsh environment. This goes back to my dislike of Lada’s superiority complex over women. She (& Mara which is another thing that pisses me off) thinks Halima is a happy little fool. Rather than us getting something along the lines of a friendship between Halima and Lada and Mara, we get Lada and Mara essentially mocking the concubine. It’s quite disgusting, really.

There could have been so much to unpack between all of these women. There could have been solid female friendships here, but instead, we get sh!t.

Don’t even get me started on Hüma.

Actually, let me get started on her because Jesus Lord Almighty.

Did this author watch Magnificent Century or something while she was writing this? Because, Jesus.

As I said before for women in the harem, their fortune comes from childbearing. The favorite can have some power, but she has nothing until she has a child — specifically that one son. What set aside Hürrem Sultan (whom was Sultan Suleiman’s beloved favorite who he would free and marry), was because she broke the tradition of the one concubine-one son policy. She returned to Suleiman’s bed and gave birth to several more children after she had her son.

Hüma Hatun was a slave concubine whose fortunes rested on Mehmed ascending to the throne. This is historical fact. But this is where facts end.

The Historical Inaccuracies

Oh boy.

Liberties were taken in this book. I get it. It’s historical fiction. Creative license is a given. But there are certain things that are fact and shouldn’t be altered. What are these you may ask?

• Titles
• Deaths
• A person’s known characteristics that has been consistently mentioned by multiple sources
  
  • What/whose deaths they are responsible for
    

Fact: While queen mothers were given special treatment in the harem, the title “Valide Sultan” didn’t become an official title until Hafsa Sultan who was the mother of Sultan Suleiman I (Suleiman the Magnificent). Queen Mothers were called “Valide Hatun” prior to this.

Fact: Hüma died BEFORE Mehmed ascended to the throne for the second time. Thus, she had nothing to do with the decision to kill Mehmed’s brother. It was Mehmed himself who codified the Law of Fratricide which the Ottoman sultanate would follow until the 1600s when they turned to confining the sultan’s brothers in the Kafes instead.

Turn Hüma into a raging, power-hungry b!tch, fine. Whatever, I guess. We have to have some sort of nasty character and god forbid it be Mehmed, for example. But don’t have her hunting for a title that doesn’t exist for another few decades, especially when that title carries a lot of weight in Ottoman history. Valide Sultan isn’t a title that you can just throw around to look fancy like you know what you’re writing about. When you use it in this case, you make it clear that you don’t know and BARELY did any research. Queen Mothers were called Valide Hatun — get it right.

Second, Hüma was DEAD by the time Mehmed came to the throne again. She wasn’t around to see him ascend for the second time in 1451 because she died in 1449.

I get it. We want Mehmed to seem like a sympathetic figure — a character we can root for along with Lada and Radu. So, obviously, turning Mehmed’s mother — a woman who needs her son to ascend to the throne in order to obtain some sort of semblance of control over her life — into a power-hungry woman willing to kill is the only way to go. Don’t mind me as I CRINGE.

Mehmed was a logical man whose actions, ideas, and intellect eventually led him to conquer the prized jewel he, his ancestors, and so many others have long sought after: Constantinople. It was always his obsession. Hell, it’s noted in this book that it was his obsession. Now, while Mehmed wasn’t born during his grandfather’s reign, he would have learned about how his grandfather and grand-uncles fought each other for the Ottoman throne, almost leading it to destruction (Ottoman Interregnum). He would have heard about one of his grand-uncles, Mustafa Çelebi, attempting to claim the throne from his father when Murad first ascended to the throne with the Byzantines help.

It’s important to remember that the Ottomans believed that each one of the sultan’s sons had an equal claim to the throne. There was no such thing as first in line or second in line for the throne. They were all first in line for the throne and basically had to work with their mother, tutors, and other supporters to ascend to the throne. The more supporters you had, the more intelligent and cunning they were, the more likely you would ascend to the throne. It was the prince’s mother and tutor’s duty to essentially foster these relationships and when the prince was old enough, he would need to prove his abilities to govern as well as foster and maintain his own alliances.

Why am I talking about this?

Mehmed being the one to order his little brother’s death is well within his character. After all, Ahmed was a son of a sultan and thus, a rival for Mehmed’s own sons. Anyone who went against his rule could easily prop up his little brother and use Ahmed to eliminate Mehmed. Why wouldn’t Mehmed take an active role in trying to keep power within his grasp?

Quite frankly, it annoys me that we could have had such a complicated Mehmed who is intelligent, cunning, and willing to do what needs to be done to fulfill his destiny — even if it means codifying and following the law of fratricide to protect his legacy and his empire. I would have much preferred a gray!Mehmed over this whitewashed version we got of him. I’m not asking he be turned into a bad guy, but I don’t want him to be this whitewashed figure who needs to be told what to do by people who don’t understand how things work.

How can I believe that this version of Mehmed can conquer Constantinople? I can’t. Again, I’m not asking that he be perfect, but there has to be a showcase of Mehmed’s intellect, cunning, stubbornness, and ruthlessness that had enabled him to conquer the prized jewel that was Constantinople in the first place.

It would have also created a better conflict between Mehmed and Lada instead of the whole “I love you, but no I can’t” bullsh!t between them.

Overall?

While I am disappointed, I will be reading the next books in the series because I am curious to see where this series goes, especially after hearing the next book is far better.

As of right now having NOT read any of the other books, I can only recommend this book with a lot of hesitation.

It’s a good book. It’s enjoyable, interesting, and has its share of complex characters. You will love and/or hate the characters. You’ll end up feeling something. But unfortunately, the things I mentioned above took too much away from my enjoyment of the book that I can’t recommend it with my entire being.

Look, I completely understand that historical fiction is fiction and there will be things that are changed for the sake of drama (even Rise of Empires: Ottoman has its share of changes for the sake of drama), but facts are FACTS. Some things should just be left alone and keep to history.