Ever the Brave (Clash of Kingdoms #2) by Erin Summerill

🌟🌟🌟🌓 out of 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

Synopsis:

Ever the Divided. Ever the Feared. Ever the Brave.
After saving King Aodren with her newfound Channeler powers, Britta only wants to live a peaceful life in her childhood home. Unfortunately, saving the King has created a tether between them she cannot sever, no matter how much she'd like to, and now he's insisting on making her a noble lady. And there are those who want to use Britta’s power for evil designs. If Britta cannot find a way to harness her new magical ability, her life—as well as her country—may be lost.

The stakes are higher than ever in the sequel to Ever the Hunted, as Britta struggles to protect her kingdom and her heart.

Ever the Brave surpasses Ever the Hunted in my opinion. It begins where the last book left off and throws the reader right into the thick of things. The king and Britta have both healed from the injuries and are attempting to move on from what happened in Ever the Hunted. Cohen has been tasked with catching the channeller who had manipulated the king and used him as a puppet. 

I enjoyed the story and characters more in this book because they didn't feel as whiny to me.  Britta was not as preoccupied with her feelings for the love interest in the book. She was more invested in taking down those that opposed the king and hurt those close to her. Cohen seemed to get his act together as well but he still annoyed me a bit. I have to say that I wasn't rooting for him as strongly as someone else to be with Britta but he did get his act together by the end of the book. I enjoyed how the villain was more central in Ever the Brave rather than being the "man behind the curtain" in Ever the Hunted. It added an interesting element to the story making a much darker book than the first. I would have liked for the author to take the story even further though. I felt that the confrontation between Britta and her companions and the villains was anticlimactic. I would have liked for it to have been a more drawn out, bloody battle. I wanted to learn more about the powers and their uses in battle. The author only said things like Britta learned from so and so and spoke about how other types of powers can be used for healing. 

Overall, the book was good and an improvement on the first but average. I don't think that I will be reading any further into the series if there are more books to come.