A heart to protect. A debt to repay. A game to win.
After being swept up in the magical world of Caraval, Donatella Dragna has finally escaped her father and saved her sister, Scarlett, from a disastrous arranged marriage. The girls should be celebrating, but Tella isn’t yet free. She made a desperate bargain with a mysterious criminal, and what Tella owes him no one has ever been able to deliver: Caraval Master Legend’s true name.
The only chance of uncovering Legend’s identity is to win Caraval, so Tella throws herself into the legendary competition once more—and into the path of the murderous heir to the throne, a doomed love story, and a web of secrets…including her sister's. Caraval has always demanded bravery, cunning, and sacrifice, but now the game is asking for more. If Tella can’t fulfill her bargain and deliver Legend’s name, she’ll lose everything she cares about—maybe even her life. But if she wins, Legend and Caraval will be destroyed forever...
Welcome, welcome to Caraval . . . the games have only just begun.

Scarlett and Tella are safe and away from their abusive father, but troubles are far from over for them. Empress Elantine’s 75th birthday is approaching, and with it, another Caraval game and Tella still has a favor she needs to pay to her mysterious “friend” who has helped her find Legend, and, as it turns out that friend of hers is no one else but the Prince of Hearts. He might have a way of finding Tella’s mother and Tella s willing to do anything to find her – including another Caraval game and betraying Legend to Jacks in order to save both her and her mother’s life.
While Caraval was told from Scarlett’s perspective, its sequel has been presented from a point of view of her adventurous and cunning sister. Tella is determined to find her mother, who she hasn’t seen in over a decade, not knowing what she’s getting herself into. Her head is always filled with various schemes and plans to get to what she wants, but she rarely considers the consequences – the number of people she’ll hurt trying to accomplish her goals. I have to admit I was tremendously annoyed by her character in the first book, mostly because she was just going around and screwing with Scarlett, but Tella’s brave and she’s got balls to do what needs to be done. I think Garber chose the perfect character to carry the dynamics and adventures the second book has to offer.

Legendary takes a slightly different path then we’d expect after reading Carval, but that’s all it’s about – series progressing and advancing in unexpected directions, leaving those comfortable beginnings we fell in love far behind and taking their books to a new level. This time, the danger is real, and not only the lives of Tella and her loved ones, but the fate of the whole world depends on the choices Tella is going to make. When she realizes this time, Caraval is just a game, but what it’s about isn’t – in order to save her mother Tella needs to win and betray Legend, but what if her mother’s life comes at a cost the entire world will have to pay? It’s about so much more than Caraval and playing the game because the Fates are about to get freed into the world and *spoiler* Tella is dying, this time for real, as a consequence of trusting the Prince of Hearts.

The romance was absolutely unnecessary and vigorously forced, I don’t know for what reason, but I would be perfectly all right reading a YA fantasy book that isn’t intertwined with pathetic pulling around with smirky mysterious love interest. Dante was also a shitty one, too, since he did nothing and had zero (0) personality that would make me even consider him as a character. And was it such a great plot twist at the end *spoiler* that he was Legend, really? Anyway, I like it where this series has headed only I pray Dante won’t be an endgame :P