literary gluttony

The third installment in Raven Kennedy’s The Plated Prisoner series picks up in the aftermath of everything that shattered at the end of the previous book. Auren is forced to confront painful truths while trying to reclaim her agency in a world determined to define her worth. Alliances shift, enemies circle closer, and the war brewing across Orea grows more dangerous with every page. As kingdoms maneuver for power, Auren must decide who she can trust—and what kind of future she’s willing to fight for.

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There comes a point in a long fantasy series where every book either builds incredible momentum or feels like it’s simply moving pieces into place. Unfortunately, Gleam landed firmly in the latter category for me.

After finishing Glow, I expected this installment to hit the ground running. There were so many emotional threads and political conflicts ready to explode that I was eager to dive in. Instead, I found myself waiting… and waiting… and waiting for the story to fully commit to moving forward.

The biggest issue for me was the pacing.

This book spends a significant amount of time circling the same emotional conflicts and conversations. Characters revisit the same fears, the same doubts, and the same decisions repeatedly without feeling like they’re making meaningful progress. There was so much back-and-forth that eventually it began to feel repetitive rather than emotionally impactful. Several chapters could have been condensed without losing anything essential to the overall story.

I kept expecting a major turning point that would justify the slower buildup, but even when exciting moments arrived, they often felt buried beneath lengthy stretches where very little actually changed.

One thing that continues to surprise me is how disconnected I still feel from these characters.

Four books into a series, I usually have at least one character I’d gladly ride into battle for. Here… I’m still waiting.

Auren has certainly grown since the beginning of the series, and I appreciate the journey she’s been on. I respect her resilience more than I necessarily enjoy reading her perspective. I wanted to feel more emotionally invested in her victories and setbacks, but there’s still a distance between me and the cast that I haven’t been able to overcome.

That said…

Slade is finally becoming the character I hoped he would be.

While I’m still not completely attached to him, he’s beginning to develop into someone far more intriguing than he was earlier in the series. There are layers emerging that hint at a much more complex character beneath the intimidating exterior, and I found myself paying far more attention whenever he was on the page. If anyone is pulling me through this series right now, it’s him.

Kennedy’s writing also remains one of the strongest aspects of these books.

The world of Orea continues to expand in interesting ways, and the political landscape is becoming increasingly complicated. There are plenty of reveals and shifting alliances that kept me curious enough to continue turning pages, even when the pacing struggled. The atmosphere remains immersive, and the author clearly has a larger story she’s building toward.

I just wish the journey to get there felt tighter.

At times it almost seemed as though the story was intentionally delaying its biggest moments rather than naturally building toward them. When every emotional conversation stretches for several pages and every decision requires multiple rounds of internal debate, the tension starts to dissipate instead of intensify.

That’s not to say Gleam is a bad book.

There are genuinely exciting developments scattered throughout, and by the end, I found myself interested enough to see where the series heads next. I simply wanted more momentum and less repetition.

At this point, I’m invested more in the mysteries surrounding the world and the promises of what’s still to come than I am in the characters themselves. Hopefully the next installment finally delivers on the buildup these last couple of books have been working toward.

Devour or Nibble?

Nibble.

If you’ve already committed to The Plated Prisoner series, this is still an important bridge to what’s coming next, and there are enough intriguing developments—especially surrounding Slade—to make it worth continuing. Just be prepared for a slower journey than expected. The repetitive back-and-forth and drawn-out pacing made this feel longer than it needed to be, leaving me hopeful that the next book finally cashes in on all this setup.