Lions In The Garden (Uprising #1) by Chelsea Luna : ARC Book Review

Title: Lions In The Garden
Series:Uprising #1
Author: Chelsea Luna
Publisher: Kensington Publishing Corporation
Published Date: March 1st 2016
Genre: YA, Historical Fiction
Page Count: 236
Format: Kindle

My Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★

Goodreads Summary: 
Prague, 1610

Ludmila Novakova--Mila--has barely set foot outside Prague Castle in her seventeen years. But with the choice between braving the bandits and wolves of Bohemia's uneasy roads or being married off to a disgusting old baron, she's taken what she can carry and fled.

Escape won't be easy. Even Mila has heard the rumors of a rebellion coming against the court. The peasants are hungry. The king hasn't been seen in months. Mila's father, the High Chancellor, is well known and well hated.

But Mila can't sit behind a stone wall and let fear force her into a life of silk gowns and certain misery. Her mother's death has taught her that much. She has one ally: Marc, the son of the blacksmith. A commoner, a Protestant--and perhaps a traitor, too. But the farther she gets from the castle, the more lies she uncovers, unraveling everything she thought she knew. And the harder it is to tell friend from enemy--and wrong from right . . .
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 My Review:

MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS 
"I hated all of them. I hated what they stood for. The way they arrogantly led their lives. I hated myself because I was no better."

This book was a whirlwind of so many twists and turns and tragedy.

We start this story with Mila running away to avoid marrying a man that is her father’s age she, an injury ends up stopping this though and Marc (blacksmiths son) comes to her rescue. While talking to him she learns not only of a potential revolution that the protestant peasants are planning if the Catholics in power keep ignoring and terrorizing them. Mila is shocked by these claims and tries to deny them.

Once back at the castle Imogene realizes that maybe what he told her wasn’t a lie and that certain people were abusing their powers. As she is learning all of these things she is told that she will be marrying a childhood friend Radek who she not only didn’t love, but who she also didn’t trust anymore.

When thieves try to steal the king’s jewels Mila ends up seeing them and gets kidnapped along with the jewels as well. This is when things really start getting good, and you learn a lot of things about what life was like for the protestants in Prague during that time.  With the help of Marc she escapes the thieves and heads back to the castle, in the process of this though she ends up falling more in love with Marc and ends up learning terrifying things about Radek and what he is doing.

When she gets back to the castle and talks to her father she thinks she has fixed everything and has cleared Marc’s name. Sadly that was not to be the case instead she sealed his fate. But when she learns this she decides to do whatever she can to try to save him and help the revolution.

Her father tries to stop her and Radek tries to threaten her as well, but when she finally learns the truth about her mother’s death she becomes unstoppable and starts playing the parts she is supposed to in order to keep the one she loves alive.

While Mila was naive she had every right to be, she was kept in the dark and inside the castle at all times and wasn’t able to leave, so there was no way she could learn about the things that were going on.  I really liked her determination to help the revolution even though it meant the end of the world as she had known it.

I loved this book and I can’t wait till the second one is released. I hope September gets here quickly. 

"I was walking in my mother's rebellious footsteps. I would finish what she started."

Thank you to Netgalley and Kensington for a E-ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review