I have mixed feeling with this book. the concept and overall plot was exciting and just my kind of thing. However, the pacing was inconsistent and the FMC seamed to be trying to be contradicting of herself. her actions didn't always lighn up with what her values were. I did enjoy the author's way to telling a story, but I think the book could of used a little more refinement.

I love a political fantasy moment! This book weaves together themes of political intrigue and personal conflict in a fantasy world teetering on the brink of revolution. The author's vivid writing brings to life a diverse cast of characters, each navigating their own ambitions and moral dilemmas against the backdrop of a tumultuous society. The novel's particular strengths lie in its intricate world-building and the complexity of its characters, which is always my favorite part of any novel. However, I will say that there were certain plot developments that felt hurried and underexplored, which affected the pacing. The blend of high-stakes drama with compelling character dynamics made it really fun!

This book was a great read! Intriguing and captivating. The plot was unique and interesting. The characters arcs were great, and the world-building was excellent. I highly recommend it to all fantasy lovers.

I originally did not finish this book, finding the writing to be a bit flat, the pacing a bit chaotic, and the characters a bit typical. As I found myself without internet for a few days, I only had this left on my kindle and curiosity got the better of me and I ended up re-reading and finishing the book! I can’t believe I passed this over before, I feel like I was just being pretentious! I’m so happy that I was able to give this a second chance, because it deserved it and I will look forward to reading more from this author!

This book was an absolute delight! I couldn't put it down. The story was captivating, the characters were compelling, and the world-building was superb. I highly recommend it to all fantasy lovers.

A beautifully written rebellion story. With all the faith and all the good intentions to right the wrongs. The overall writing was okay, not epic but okay. There could have been subplots to enrich the main story (the ones were not adequately written). The next installments could be better.

loved this so so much. would definitely hand-sell and add to my staff recommendations. will probably go buy a hard copy when out because this was honestly amazing. normally have a little trouble getting into books but this was perfection.

What an absolute cracker of a book!!!… sucked me straight in… absolutely addictive page turner… absolutely absorbed me…

I had a hard time to get into the book because of the pacing. I liked most of the characters but somehow I just couldn't click with them. Good book but not for me.

Lack of world building, hard to get into for sure. Couldn’t connect with any of the characters at all. Not what I was expecting.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a digital Arc n exchange for my honest review.

Unfortunately I didn’t enjoy this book. The premise was really good and the first 5 chapters were very engaging but after that I did not feel any connection with the story.

I didn’t really liked the FMC and I just feel like I was expecting more since the premise looked really promising.

DNF’d at about 45%
Run of the mill fantasy book with not enough world building and a story that felt lacking. I didn’t feel a connection to any of the characters and just found myself not caring to continue.

Thank you to Net Galley and the publisher for this eARC.

This was genuinely just your average fantasy rebellion story with nothing that made it special. The romance was even disappointing, which is something that may have bumped it up to 3 stars if only the author didn’t ruin it. Everything happened way too quickly and easily so it wasn’t even a well-developed rebellion story. Just disappointing and lackluster.

Oh that book and I, we aren't friends. I was unable to bond in any way with the protagonist. The idea of the book sounded really gret but the overall story lacked. It was not executed well enough. I can't really analyze the story much because I didn't get very far.

A rare rebellion story about a rebellion seeking to overthrow a brutal monarch and install a democracy. In fantasy, I far too often see rebellions that are just trying to replace a brutal monarch with a more benevolent one. As if a monarchy is a good system of government as long as the current monarch is benevolent. (Never mind that any monarch will eventually die and there is no way to ensure that all the future monarchs that follow will also be benevolent instead of cruel. Besides, I never really bought into the idea of the mythical benevolent and just monarch.)

The pacing was a bit slow at times and the story kind of got bogged down by detailed descriptions of fancy clothes, fancy events, fancy servant tasks, and other stuff I just found boring. Especially in the beginning. I found it a chore to get through some of these parts. But, things did pick up and there was plenty of action, fights, and suspense. Once things picked up, I did start to get a little invested. The plot also did manage to surprise me at times. The overall plot was pretty interesting.

I didn’t really get invested in the main romance. It felt rushed and underdeveloped. I didn’t particularly like the love interest. I liked a lot of the other characters, but most of them weren’t given that much development as they deserved. The friendships and other relationships seemed to suddenly turn deep overnight without enough development.

The main character was … erratic. Sometimes I kind of hated her. Sometimes I kind of liked her. Sometimes she made unbelievably stupid mistakes, seemed weak, or even came off narcissistic. Sometimes she seemed brave, bold, strong, skilled, loyal, selfless, and so full of anger, determination, and hope that she was a force of nature. She flip-flopped back and forth between these extremes and changes in her beliefs came off as too rushed to ring true. So, instead of this all coming off as genuine character growth of a strong female character coming into her own or as a strong female character with a vulnerable side, it simply came off as inconsistent characterization. By the end, she showed a lot of grit. But, frustratingly kept ending up in circumstances where the only possibility was for her role in events to be passive. It felt like there were a lot of missed opportunities for her character to be a stronger one.

The ending was bittersweet and hopeful. There were some continuity errors and some times where I thought characters made unrealistically ridiculous choices that made no sense. None of the continuity errors actually interfered with the integrity of the plot. However, the unrealistically poor choices made by experienced and supposedly competent characters really stretched the limits of my suspension of disbelief.

All in all, this book was a mixed bag. I love a good rebellion story. I found it really refreshing to find a rare example of a rebellion aiming to replace a dictatorship with a democracy instead of a so-called good dictatorship. This is especially rare in the fantasy genre. But, the execution of the story wasn’t the best.

WARNINGS: Death, violence, gore, blood, infanticide (off-page, mentioned)

I received a free eARC of this book via netGalley. I am writing this review completely honestly and voluntarily.

This was one of those nothing new kind of books. The story was good but nothing to really write home about. I did enjoy it and it was worth the read.

A novel with great promise. Think the Selection, Hunger games and I was sold. Unfortunately it became a struggle to finish. A knot of Lies and Rebellion suffers from a confused plot, poorly developed characters and very little world building. After the first chapter's I could feel myself starting to lose interest. Emeuri was a consistent source of annoyance as she kept making very blatant mistakes that didn't make her very sympathetic. She puts her family in danger, but there is very little emotional turmoil involved in making the decision to join the rebellion. She also seemed to fall in love with anyone that so much as looked at her. The romance was very underdeveloped and it felt painful to read. The world-building should have been really fun to read about, however this too fell flat. Overall I felt like the story could have done with further development as this seemed rushed.

A Knot of Lies and Rebellion by J. Collette Smith tries to tell an inspiring story of a power hungry sovereign being overthrown, but falls flat in its delivery.
In order to secure a better future for herself and her family, Emeuri's biggest dream is to become an attendant to one of this season's debutant Ladies. The first scene, her audition, was dynamic with engaging dialogue and a character that was quick to come up with solutions to problems, but it went downhill from there.

Emeuri present herself as a stubborn yet determined girl, when really she's flighty at best. She reminds herself, and the readers, that she must be a good attendant to give herself and her family a better future but she constantly risks that future even before she goes off to join the rebellion.
As for the rest of the cast, some are more complex than others. I was most intrigued by Kes, Lunal, and Alixe, while I appreciated Beck appearing powerful yet welcoming at first before revealing just how authoritative he is as the book went on. I didn't think Jax or Moran stood out all that much, in fact they are very similar in both their characters and their roles.
As far as character development, Lunal's was the only one that stood out. Emeuri finds herself in situations (both traumatic and not) that don't have much of an impact by the end, while the others were even more marginal.

The fundamental problem with the plot was that it tried to do too much for its length. Emeuri is supposed to mingle on the fringes of high society, fall in love, join a rebellion, defeat the sovereign, and install a new government all in the span of 326 pages. As such, sequences that should have taken chapters and chapters to impact both the main characters and the readers are rushed through, which left me unsatisfied and unable to connect with much happening.

For the next section of the review, I will be going into spoilers regarding the second half of the book, even the climax of the story:

My first major issue with this book was that the goodreads blurb for the Kindle edition gave most of the story away. Instead of keeping it vague the last paragraph goes as far as saying that Emeuri's family is captured which happens in the last 20% of the book. While the book itself is formulaic and a captured family can be expected to a certain extent, putting it in the blurb robbed the story of its tension since I knew what was coming.
My second major issue is that the story lacks continuity during two glaring and very important scenes and here is where I'll be going into a lot of detail because if I caught this, an editor definitely should have:
- The first has to do with the plot twist. Within this society, twins are seen as abominations and the second one born gets banished to a wasteland to die. While Emeuri is training, she learns that her friend Kes was a twin and she also learns that Sovereign Beck was one. However, when the second leader of the rebellion is revealed to be the sovereign's twin, Emeuri doesn't remember what Kes told her and describes the encounter as if it was the very first time she's heard of the banished twin.
- The second has to do with a major character's death. While getting rescued, Moran dies from an arrow to the neck. It's written as a poignant scene where he says goodbye to his loved ones before passing. Later, when Emeuri remembers this she states he was killed from an arrow to the chest.
I'll admit I did skim parts of the book so there could be more continuity errors, but these two jumped out at me immediately, and they are both integral to the plot itself so they should have been caught.


A Knot of Lies and Rebellion by J. Collette Smith has an intriguing premise that overpromised and underdelivered. The book's flaws add up to an unsatisfying read while the glaring mistakes just left me with a bad impression overall.

I have to be honest this wasn’t for me but Thank you to netgalley and the publisher for access to this book!

I honestly tried to give this book a chance and I just couldn’t get past the main lead’s behavior. She proved time and again that she always doubted herself and finally in the end believed in herself. It does have a happy ending but this book did not hit the mark for me. This is solely my opinion.