The Sin Eater's Daughter by Melinda Salisbury

I am the perfect weapon.
I kill with a single touch.

Twylla is blessed. The Gods have chosen her to marry a prince, and rule the kingdom. But the favour of the Gods has it's price. A deadly poison infuses her skin. Those who anger the queen must die under Twylla's fatal touch.

Only Lief, an outspoken new guard, can see past Twylla's chilling role to the girls she truly is.

Yet in a court as dangerous and the queen's, some truths should not be told...




Rating: 2/5 Stars

“She has taken everything from me and now I will do the same to her. I will take the one thing she values and she will know what it is to suffer.”

I would be lying if I said I didn’t read this because it looked like Shatter Me… and because I have to study for college but want to escape my responsibilities (though that’s beyond the point.)

Truth is, The Sin Eater’s Daughter is nothing like Shatter Me despite the main characters having basically the same ability; their touch kills.

I was engrossed in the reading since the beginning, the writing is beautiful and it goes along nicely with the world the author has created;  fantasy and religion combine to provide a wonderful setting. I’m not usually a fan of religion in books but I can’t argue with the results here. I found myself looking forward to knowing more about this world, its history, its wars and its customs.

Twylla is Daunen Embodied, the daughter of the Gods. She’s life, for she can drink poison and not die, but she’s also death. The poison she drinks to prove her worthiness is kept in her skin, making her touch lethal. As Daunen she represents hope that the Gods are still present through her and the Royalty but she must also inflict punishments; she’s an executioner, inflicting fear and obedience in the hearts of her people.

The main character was interesting, at least in the beginning. She used to be the daughter of a Sin Eater; when a person dies, all of their sins true or assumed are laid on top of their casket and must be eaten by a woman who comes from a line of Sin Eaters; mothers train their eldest daughters and they in turn will pass on that knowledge to their own daughters. If a Sin Eater chooses not to eat a particular sin, therefore not finishing the ceremony, she’s condemning them to spent all eternity trapped in this world with no chance of moving forward.

I liked Twylla’s ambition, she didn’t want to be a Sin Eater but instead fancied to be royalty and rich. When the Queen comes to her home and announces she’s the daughter of the Gods, Twylla is more than thrilled to leave her old life behind, albeit as a little girl she didn’t know she was forsaking her family forever. Still, she seemed ambitious, smart and even cunning. I was happy to read about her because we hardly ever find selfish female characters like her in Young Adult, girls who like power rather than being horrified by it (see Shatter Me).

However, it lasted up until the romance started and then everything was just thrown out the window.

As soon as the Prince and the new guard appear, Twylla becomes this catatonic girl unable to speak or move for no reason at all!

“I fumble for the words to thank him and accept but can’t find them.”

“My mouth falls open and the Prince bites his lower lip as it begins to curve upwards. I blink at him, unsure whether I heard him rightly.

‘Twylla? He says when I continue to stare at him in awe. ‘Are you ready?’”

“Still I say nothing, my eyes burning from staring at the table top.

‘You will not reply?’”

Not to mention how she gets when another girl merely looks at one of the guys:

“She’s very pretty. I don’t like her.”

Both love interests were equally bad. The Prince is Twylla’s betrothed and he is also an entitled ass who thinks he owns Twylla simply because he likes her, and never care about what she really wants.

The Guard, Lief, is supposed to protect her but all he does is manipulate her and make Twylla feel bad whenever she “hurts his feelings” whether she actually did something about it or not. He was my least favorite.

The villain was the Queen and she was… well, she was crazy but I wish there had been more depth to her. She ended up being petty and one-dimensional.

I’ve seen a lot of mixed reviews on this book, and I can see why. There are both good and bad qualities to The Sin’s Eater Daughter I guess it all depends on how much you like romance in fantasy because this is actually a love story on a fantasy setting.