Bookish Thoughts: Trickster in the Palace & Other Tales by Kaitlyn Carter Brown

Instanolde Chronicles | Novella Collection

Rating: Highly Recommend

Return to Instanolde alongside familiar characters and scenery for new, wild adventures and impossible struggles, all crafted with the heart and starlight indicative of Carter Brown.

Wow. What an amazingly wild ride alongside favorite characters and spaces with new perspectives. We follow Razhar on one of his troublemaking schemes (during which he may or may not unwittingly save a king), then ride in the amazing cardant races alongside Lystra and her fierce determination, before learning more about Cormek and Elerek’s multi-faceted brotherhood. I absolutely loved this collection of tales, and they’ve made me long for another trip into Instanolde where a fierce queen and cursed king have one summer to live.

The kingdom of Instanolde on the edge of the harsh Sancen desert holds many tales, of which Elerek and Lystra’s daring attempt to save their people is only one. Travel back in time and hear stories from our favorite characters’ pasts, laughing alongside them or lamenting the breaking of bonds and dreams.

In “Trickster in the Palace” we trot alongside Razhar as he longs for a swath of green silk, banters with his grumpy best friend (and discovers the infamous scowl), and unwittingly saves a king.

Ride alongside fierce noble Lystra in “Daughter of the Desert” as she pursues her long-held dream of entering her own racing team in the cardant races. Not without its challenges, there does linger some sweetness among the pages while Lystra discovers the sometimes harsh relationship between ambition and consequences.

“Royals of Instanolde” brings a perspective never seen before in the best ways, highlighting the frustration of fracturing relationships when all we want is for them to be whole.

Enter into the colorful streets and scorching sands alongside these wonderful characters, and whet your appetite for the larger story to come.

Some of my favorite quotes:

• “Perhaps it was good to take stock of the good, to remember it, and mark the silver lining.”
• “And if drowning—whether by curse or broken things—were to be a part of life, hope was a golden shore upon which they could take refuge.”
• “But the thought of more toil, of more years seeing so little, the thought was enough to bring tears to her eyes and lay her spirit low.”
• “I suppose this is the part where I tell you to not do whatever it is you’re thinking of doing, and you’ll ignore me.”
• “No, he had to seek out beautiful things to balance the shadows.”

A dose of humor and deep heartache and longing combine on the pages of these three stories, painting a picture of lives intersecting among the streets of a desert kingdom long before invasions and one summer to live. Personally, it was wonderful to revisit characters I fell in love with over the course of the duology, and see that things hadn’t changed all that much from the times before the main story began.