At the end of 2019, I read the Remnant Chronicles by Mary E. Pearson and absolutely loved them. In November and December of 2020, I reread the series, and I’m finally doing what I started to do in 2019 and never finished: raving to you all about them. A couple months ago, I wrote about the first book, The Kiss of Deception, and about how Mary E. Pearson pulls off a twist midway through the book that manages to be surprising without coming out of left field. You can read that post here. Now I’m back with another book review and writing topic post, and this time I’m talking about the second book in the series, The Heart of Betrayal, and what makes a good cliffhanger. Obviously, since I’m talking about the second book in a series, spoilers for The Kiss of Deception are unavoidable. If you think you might want to read the series, this probably isn’t the post for you. Also, since the writing topic I want to talk about is cliffhangers, there will also probably be some spoilers for the second book. I will make sure to flag them in the text, but as usual I will do a general spoiler-free review first before diving more deeply into my discussion of cliffhangers.
The Heart of Betrayal picks up right where The Kiss of Deception left off. Rafe has caught up with Kaden and Lia, and he’s lied to Kaden to accompany Lia into Venda. Rafe’s men are going to try and sneak into the city to help Rafe and Lia get out. But while Lia has nothing but revulsion and fear for the rulers of Venda, she cannot help but befriend the common people, and soon they are looking to her as more than just a prisoner princess. They believe, as Lia believes, that she is the one promised in the long ago prophecy Venda, founder of her namesake country, made before her husband pushed her off a wall. Lia is also growing closer to Kaden, much as she doesn’t want to. I feel like I’m doing an utterly terrible job of describing this book, but it’s really good. It’s full of political intrigue and secrets and the characters all have so much heart and resolve.
The Heart of Betrayal is certainly slower than the first book in the series. It’s more of a slow build with a lot of tension than the first book, which was pretty action-packed. We spend a lot of time getting to know Venda, and the characters all spend a lot of time getting to know each other, especially now that they all know each other’s true identities. But even though it is slower, Mary E. Pearson crafts such strong tension you can practically taste it, and it’s actually really important that we get to know Venda and the other characters so well, because that makes it real to the readers as well as Lia, and we can then fully understand her conflict as the book continues. And then of course we learn there are traitors in the court of Morrigan, Lia’s kingdom, and Venda is building an army to conquer Morrigan. And then the plans are laid, they go to escape, and all heck breaks loose.
The Heart of Betrayal works really well as both a sequel to the first book in The Remnant Chronicles and as a lead-in to the third book, which I will talk about soon. It is complex and intricate, but it is also easy to follow and full of wonderful feelings. And the ending is just fabulous
Which brings us to cliffhangers.
I think cliffhangers are something that are incredibly fun for a writer, because we live to torture our readers, but they can also be incredibly frustrating for a reader, especially if they have to wait a long time for the next book. There are a few ways to do a cliffhanger.
You could leave absolutely nothing resolved. Cassandra Clare does this at the end of the second Dark Artifices book. The book ends right as something absolutely terrible and tragic happens. Another good example of this is the ending of the third season of Castle, which ends right after someone is shot.
Another way to construct a cliffhanger is to leave the main character at a point where they have failed in their journey. This is similar to the first way, but often the author will also give the reader something else, a new element that gives the character the impetus to act, which they will do at the start of the next book. The Kiss of Deception actually does something similar to this. Lia has failed to escape, she has watched her brother die, she is surrounded by hostile soldiers and it is likely she will be killed anyway once they arrive in Venda. But then Rafe arrives, and even though he can’t overpower 500 soldiers to rescue Lia, they are now facing this together and there’s hope for an escape in the second book. The ending of Cinder by Marissa Meyer also does this quite well. Spoiler alert: Cinder is in prison, having failed to convince Kai not to marry Queen Levana and also having exposed herself as a Lunar. Queen Levana is going to take her back to the moon to execute her, but it’s this or war with Earth. Then Dr. Errland shows up with a new prosthetic hand and foot for Cinder and the news that she is the long-lost lunar princess and rightful heir to the throne, and we’re left with Cinder’s decision to break out of prison, which she does at the start of the next book. End spoilers.
The third kind of cliffhanger, and the kind I want to talk about today, is the kind of ending where almost everything is resolved except for one, maybe two things, and then there’s one final punch. The second Hunger Games book, Catching Fire, is a good example of this. Spoiler alert: Katniss has blown out the forcefield. She and several others have escaped the arena. But Peeta has been captured. And District 12 has been destroyed. End spoilers.
This might be my favorite kind of cliffhanger,. I tend to find the first kind, where we’re left in medias res, to be kind of jarring. And I’m generally frustrated by the second, though I did like the ending of Cinder. I just feel like the first and second options generally feel like the writer just hasn’t taken us all the way through the story. The third type, on the other hand, feels like we’ve reached the end of the story but the door is open for more and then we’re literally punched through that door. We the readers have taken a breath, we may even be relieved, and then something changes and it’s clear it’s not over.
I’m going to break this down in The Heart of Betrayal. Spoiler alert: The plan to escape goes awry. There’s a huge battle on the terrace. The Comizar has murdered the child Lia befriended, Aster. Lia has stabbed the Comizar. A huge battle ensues, and in the midst of it, Lia is proclaimed to the people to be the new comizar of Venda. Lia, Rafe, and Rafe’s men make a run for it. They jump onto their raft to get down the river (the only way to get across to freedom). They’re going to make it. They’re going to make it. And then bad guys show up and start shooting at them, and both Lia and Rafe fall off the raft into the river. Lia is shot, she can’t get her heavy dress off, and then she goes under. And then we switch to Rafe’s pov when he finds her on the riverbank. They are safely out of Venda, but as Rafe carries Lia on foot, we are left with him being unsure if she is going to survive. Spoilers over.
The ending of The Heart of Betrayal is wonderfully brutal. Just when we think they’re going to make it, things go wrong and we’re left unsure and dying for more. It’s everything that I personally love in a good cliffhanger.
If you’ve read The Heart of Betrayal, I’d love to know your thoughts on the whole book, particularly the ending. I would also love to know what kind of cliffhangers are your favorite and why. And of course if there’s a kind of cliffhanger I didn’t think of or if you would categorize them differently, I’d love to discuss. In the meantime, you should really give The Remnant Chronicles a read.