The Prison Healer by Lynette Noni

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Yet again, I have found a book that has replaced a SJM book as my favourite of the year! (so far).

We follow a girl called Kiva who has been in surviving in the notorious Zalindov prison for 10 years. Kiva is the prison healer and one of the most necessary prisoners.

During her time in Zalindov, she has received messages from outside, telling her that help is coming and to stay alive. Then the prison gets a new prisoner: The Rebel Queen, with a note telling Kiva to keep her alive. The Queen is facing the Trial of Ordeals, four elemental challenges only charged to the most traitorous and dangerous of criminals. Kiva knows the queen is too sick to survive even the first trial so she volunteers to be the queens champion and taking the trials herself, granting herself and the queen freedom if she survives all four trials, the only thing is....no one has ever survived all the trials. With chaos invading the prison in all sorts of ways, Kiva is in for the most challenging time of her life at the prison.

This was one hell of a book. As horrible and dark as the setting is, I absolutely loved it. The prologue had me immediately intrigued and I could not put this book down. There were so many characters that I adored in this, they all seemed to have such a good sense of humour in a place that is soul-destroying for most. Naari and Tipp both have a special place in my heart. (also I will never stop shipping Naari and Kiva, the chemistry is so strong!). Tipp is just an adorable little thing that needs to be protected at all costs, he's too precious. I enjoyed Jaren's character but honestly up until the end I wasn't that bothered if he got sick or not. Also there's a certain hand joke made that absolutely cracked me up.

At one point I did think that Naari was the rebel queen but that theory very quickly got put to rights. From then on I really did not have a clue about anywhere this story was taking me and I didn't mind because the affect the ending had on me was worth it.

Now this is where things get super spoilery because I need to get this out of my system.

So the ordeals were actually insane one of them, Kiva was locked in a CREMATORIUM for 10 minutes and I was so shook when I read that. The other ordeals are still crazy but this one was definitely the worst in my opinion. Then we move onto boring Jaren who turns out, he has all FOUR elemental powers and then it turns out he is also the prince who came in undercover to interrogate the Rebel Queen. Then Tipp almost DIES and I was honestly about to riot this book! Then the final and best part of this ending was that KIVA IS THE REBEL PRINCESS! Honestly I love this and she's going with Jaren (the prince) and infiltrating the royal family that tore her family apart and I can not wait for more!