FEARLESS - Lauren Roberts - Review & Summary

The end of The Powerless Trilogy

May 20, 2025

“Every brutal act is born of love.” - This basically summarizes the whole book.

The Powerless series has started on a pretty strong note, a bit of hunger games, a bit of fantasy world and some magical powers.

I already discussed the 2nd part of this series - Reckless as well, so if you are new to the series - I have it all.

Now… April was the release month of the 3rd and final part of the series - Fearless…

And I have THOUGHTS

To the review though… NO SPOILERS

The third and last book in the series speaks about mental issues, love, devotion, and being torn between them. It speaks of what is good and evil in a way that may get overlooked, yet it is there (trust me).

The book starts at the throne room, where we finished the Reckless- When Kitt asks Paedyn to marry him. A choice that seems unheard of and not anticipated (depending on if you anticipated it during the Reckless read. I personally did the moment Kitt touched his “mysterious box” for the first time.)

The book is written in a similar way as the previous parts, and there are a couple of typos and grammar issues (I had to read some sentences a couple of times to figure out what it was supposed to mean).

There are no trigger warnings - but there should be. Especially for Domestic Violence and Psychological Violence survivors. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

The ending? ~~I kind of saw it coming.~~ It was just and fair. Nice finish to the series. It’s the ending that most of us could hope for if we went through stuff like this.

SPOILERS REVIEW BELOW THE PIC

“Nothing is stronger than a woman who is told she’s weak.”

Star review

Fantasy: ⭐️⭐️⭐️ (all of a sudden they have photographs too)
Writing: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (Easy to read)
Storyline: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
World-building: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Characters: ⭐️⭐️⭐️ (Because I find some of it problematic)
Plot Twist: ⭐️⭐️⭐️ (I saw some things coming)
”Good For Her”: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Romance: ⭐️⭐️ (I have a huge problem with it)

Overall: ⭐️⭐️⭐️.7/5

Is the Fearless on your TBR list? Or have you finished it already? Share your thoughts!

SPOILERS REVIEW

Ok, since we are in the safe bottom of a review - let’s talk spoilers and discuss this book. Starting with:

THE AMOUNT OF ABUSE AND MANIPULATION IN THIS BOOK IS OFF THE CHARTS!

I actually made a separate post about it as well as a rant video with psychological background to what I am saying. I will skip on this particular topic though (because it would make this post way too long).

So… As you may imagine - despite the King’s decision to marry the *checks notes* murderer of the last king… the court is not happy about the whole event (I wonder why). So, they come up with a splendid idea… you guessed it - another set of trials.

Why, so she can prove 3 important things:

Bravery
Benevolence
Brutality

Now here… Logical Lexie wants to say… Hasn’t she proven all of those things before?

Bravery - taking part in trials for Elites as an ordinary. Living on the streets, stealing, pretending to be an Elite to people’s faces, helping Kai, Surviving the Trials. Oh! I forgot the running away from Ilya to another city to start her life anew.
Benevolence (well meaning and kindly) - working with the resistance to save the ordinaries, making friends within Elites, Kitt, Kai, Lenny, some other contesters…
Brutality - Did someone miss out on the king being dead? Fighting with people during the trials?

But I guess I should digress…

And that is… just going?

In the first trial Paedyn needs to find the crown of a queen that has been lost. No one knows where her grave is. So she has to go through the desert (despite having another, better road there as well, but there’s nothing better than re-traumatizing victims of awful events). The gear she has for it?

None.

No water, source of light, weapon (not even a dagger), and no watch. But she has to come in by midnight. Pae apparently has a solid internal watch which we can all be jealous of. Oh, have I mentioned that the area is known of highwaymen? Ah yes, if anyone needed a show of king’s support to his own idea - that’s totally the one.

She obviously manages. Don’t pretend to be shocked.

Then she gets *gasp* a short break during which she tries to be friends with her future husband, and… *checks notes* still loves his brother. Things obviously go downhill.

Second trial is to cross the sea that no one has crossed for the last *checks notes again* 10 years. With a ship that did not go through the sea for 10 years, a crew that has not seen the sea for 10 years, and a captain that did not captain for the same amount of time.

What could go wrong?

Now, Kai did a good thing to say “I’ll go with her” because he knew people love her so much - they’d throw her out of the ship (which… they tried doing anyway). Pae is obviously greeted in a world of normal people, and the queen seems to be jealous of Pae killing the king (I want a backstory to this one. I unfortunately did not get one).

Things go well, except for Kai’s great idea to break in and sleep with Pae which the queen has seen (blackmail material here, also threatening the whole mission. But I digress… LOVE)

On the way back they are attacked by a monster that the queen mentioned (coincidence? I’ll never get to know). But they survive thanks to Pae (the only person that worked to be strong her entire life, unlike Elites that rely on their powers a bit too much. Maybe except for Kai. He still did not… perform).

Was it odd? YES. The queen is not doing much till the end of this book (despite blackmail material) I really find it bizarre. It’s as if the whole thing was made “for the plot” *gasp*.

Then things only get worse to be fair.

I won’t go through the entire recap, actually… I kind of felt like this whole book was rinse, change some details and re-use. Book 3 is kind of like book 1 but on a bigger scale. The ending was predictable, and there was just one plot twist that kind of shocked me. I did not see just one thing coming, but I had a lot of issues with the entire book considering that I believe Pae was not treated like a human being by ANY and I mean ANY Male character in this book.

It did not touch me in the ways promised by instagram.

It was worrying, and I am worried for the fans of the book more than I was worried for the characters. It gets the best rating for “good for her” although I have a feeling that Pae did not get enough justice for what she endured.

What I liked:

Pae seemed to be the only smart person in all this madness despite being manipulated and abused (need to be friends with husband, need to survive, need to kill the beast, need to save people)
“Good for her” moments (Calum died, Kitt died, Blair murder moment, The queen was jealous of her killing the king)
Bickering was on point at least.
There was a deeper meaning and reason for insanity. It was well explained as well.

What I found… Weird (or not good):

The amount of abuse and psychological manipulation
The trials made no sense… She already proved all those things in the trials before
The other queen was there and gone… Kind of… for the plot?
A lot of what happened seemed forced. It had potential, but was basically a re-telling of the same story.
The epilog was… odd? The last chapter as epilogue would be better

All in all - I am worried for the fans of the series, but I may be biased as a survivor of such behaviors.

What are your thoughts about Fearless?

Crown Of Shadows

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