Title: Gild (The Plated Prisoner Series #1)
Author: Raven Kennedy
Genre: Fantasy, fantasy romance
Publisher: N/A- Independent
Publication Date: 2020
Page count: 386

Rating:

The Plated Prisoner series is one of my most anticipated series of this year. I’ve seen it just about everywhere, with most people telling me that it only gets better as the books go on, so I finally took the first book, Gild, off of my TBR and started it last week.

I wasn’t sure what to expect from the series other than knowing that it was a retelling of the story of King Midas, but I definitely couldn’t have guessed where it would go. Not only was the book well written, but it was also probably the first book in quite a long time where the plot twists genuinely surprised me. The characters were memorable and heartbreaking, the story unique, and the set-up for the rest of the series divinely executed. At times the pace was a touch slow, but I think it was necessary to the story and the world-building that was taking place, so I didn’t mind it and it didn’t prevent me from plowing through it at record speed.

Before picking up this book, I would heavily recommend checking trigger warnings—the content was a lot darker and more difficult than I expected it to be or ever could have predicted. That said, I thoroughly enjoyed the book and can’t wait to pick up the second one next month.

Fair warning: spoilers ahead for anyone who hasn’t read this book.

Book Review: Gild by Raven Kennedy

Gild begins with an introduction to the story’s protagonist, Auren, who is passively watching King Midas with a series of saddles (or sex slaves) from inside a life-sized golden cage. Auren is the king’s Favoured (seemingly the most prominent sex slave) and as a result, is not permitted to interact or come in contact with anyone other than the king. Her gilded cage stretches throughout the castle, allowing her to join the royals whenever they see fit while keeping her at a distance. Her defining feature, above and beyond having the king’s favoured position, is that Midas has gold-touched her, meaning that everything about her apart from her teeth and the whites of her eyes is gold. She is the only one in the entire kingdom to have this honour and it’s clear that while Midas views it as an honour, it causes most people to look at Auren with jealousy or rage.

Despite Auren’s privileged position, she immediately presents as restless and frustrated at the long stretches of isolation she must endure. While she’s always quick to acknowledge her appreciation of her favoured position, particularly when she considers the trauma-filled background from which Midas saved her, spending all of her time alone in a cage except for when Midas deigns to visit her is taxing on her well-being. She’s bored, restless, and desperate for human connection.

As the story unfolds, we learn that Midas is young, ambitious, and somewhat untested as a king. He ascended to the throne through marriage to the reigning princess, principally due to the significant power he could wield and the wealth that could be obtained through his golden touch. Midas is no longer content to bask in the wealth of just his kingdom though and begins unveiling a scheme involving Auren that will win him a new realm.

Above and beyond the fact that these plans, if executed poorly, will dismantle a peace between the kingdoms that has held for eons, they also hinge on the humiliation and degradation of Auren. Midas assumes she will be a willing participant, playing whatever part is required of her out of her eternal devotion to him. However, he misses that Auren is quickly becoming discontent with having no control over her life. She realizes that while a cage may keep you safe, it also prevents you from being free, and she will have to decide just how much she can take before she’s pushed too far to come back.

I’m not extensively familiar with the story of King Midas above and beyond the basics, but I know enough that Gild is an inventive approach to the classic tale. Through Auren’s eyes, you’re first able to see Midas as a benevolent ruler, bringer of wealth, and rescuer of damsels in distress. Then, as she grows and learns and evolves, you see Midas for who he actually is: a greedy, overbearing, selfish and violent king. The use of Auren as a personification of Midas’s greed and power is both clever and captivating, but who Auren becomes, and her experience as a woman, are what makes the story so powerful.

Almost all women of consequence in Gild are sex slaves, Auren included, with absolutely no autonomy over their bodies, their thoughts, or their actions. While Midas and his supporters tell Auren that she sits above these other saddles, she finds that when push comes to shove, she doesn’t have any more power than any of the other women in Midas’s life. Her body and actions ultimately belong to him, and he can choose what to do (or not do) with that power. She has significant trauma from before she met Midas and became his gold-touched, enough that a cage for a decade was a welcome reprieve, but as she grows and develops as a character she begins to find that she’s not actually satisfied with simply being someone’s puppet. She craves the ability to form relationships of her choosing and to experience her world without fear, but her position refuses her the ability to do either without dire consequences. The existential crisis she begins to experience as she tries to determine who she is and who she wants to be is a slow burn that isn’t linear and seems likely to be a recurring theme in the stories to come as well.

The plot itself was a wild ride and covered a lot of ground. There were some absolutely gut-wrenching moments that had me either outrageously stressed out or incredibly sad, and some plot twists that I honestly did not see coming. The end also leaves on a massive cliffhanger with so much potential and no indication of what direction things will go, which is my favourite way to finish a book.

I thought Gild was a wonderfully unique story with some great characters and really memorable scenes. I’m so excited to see where Auren goes from here and how it impacts Midas and his plans. There are so many different directions the series could go in next, and I can’t wait to see it unfold.