Gender bender version and retelling of the story of Vlad III, And I Darken is a great surprise in my reader's career. 
 Less great was discovering that a lot of fellowe readers - italian in that case but also international ones - never heard a word about Vlad III - for was like a story that I read when I was little before going to bed, just for making you understand - and someone asked if Dracula - Stoker's Dracula - is real. Which is kinda like asking: so, do vampires exist? 
 Let pretend that it never happened. 
 At the start, I was sura that this novel was going to reach high levels of cruelty, since Vlad's life has been eveything but not a fairytale. Also, since Vlad wasn't so well treated like Lada at the Ottoman's court, I was bracing myself for the worst, so I'm glad that happned nothing of what I was expecting. I suppose that Now I Rise will show the worst side of this story... and I'm pretending that I'm totally read for it. 
 I'm getting older. Once upon time I was all for bloody books, but I've to say that this passion is slowly returning. 
 One of the thing that I don't like about the book is how the author handled history. Everything is really fast! Sometimes I got lost during the read - mostly because I pay no attention to the dates, so it's totally my fault - but at the same time I'm aware that if the author would has focus on a complete and too much true version of the story, that follows all the histrocial's facts... 
 No, my head just ache. 
 Anyway, I loved this book. And In felt that love only after having turned the last page. I was excited while I was reaching the end and totally happy, even if it was like one of the worst moment for the protagonists. 
 But - I'm the "but" woman - still, the spark is missing. My bookish love started but never full iginites in a full fire of fangirling. 
 And Mehmed - hope that I get it right - wasn't my favorite at all. He says nothing to me. Zero. Void. Dark void of nothingness. 
 It's not like the poor guy has done something for deserving my hate - maybe saying "I love you Lada" and then having babies with the harem' women isn't the best choice that shows cleverness - but I felt the same love for him that I would show for a empty shell of a chestnut. 
 What kind of comparison that's, no one know. 
 Lada and Radu are magnificent. They're special and fantastic. They're so different from each other but I was able to understend both of them and I wanted both of them to have an happy ending. 
 Lada is a real feminist when it comes the herself. She's proud, she want to gain power not with the help of a man, neither with her body, and she has difficulties to understand the harem's women mentality. 
 Someties she has the emotional and mental ability of and angry animal but I love her anyway. She punghs people, she get angry, she screams, she breaks people and throws other punches, she's trying to find a place in a male society and she even reach her goal. 
 Adorable. 
 Radu is adorable too and he has the brain that Lada miss. He's totally able to save the situation just with his words and I totally connect to him while he speaks about his sensations to be put of place, his sarch for somenthing that can give him solace. 
 Reading the end was kinda painful, seeing how the relationship between Lada and Radu was going to fell. 
 Maybe the love triangle - if it can called like that, because it was clear from the start how it was going to end - was unnecesary but it didn't really bother me. 
 If you're a lover of a bit slowpaced books and historical ya book with politic intrigues, thats' the bok for you.