Fearless

Encourage readers to connect the book’s themes and characters with their personal experiences.

1. How did you respond to the revelations about Paedyn’s parentage? How did this plot twist alter your sense of Paedyn’s character and storyline?

2. The novel explores the enduring power of love via Paedyn and Kai’s relationship. How does Paedyn and Kai’s romance compare with your own romantic experiences? Do you believe that love can last the way Paedyn and Kai’s does?

3. Compare Kai’s and Kitt’s characters. Who do you relate to more? Who is more believable and sympathetic? Consider how their pasts inform their characters in the present.

4. Paedyn is thrown into palace life when she accepts Kitt’s proposal. Which aspects of her orientation to the castle surprised or disappointed you? Would you respond in the same way to these new circumstances? What would you do differently or similarly?

Examine the book’s relevance to societal issues, historical events, or cultural themes.

1. Fearless is set in a segregated world where Ordinaries and Elites aren’t allowed to live together in peace. How does this fictional society provide insight into and commentary on contemporary social issues? Are the Ordinaries and Elites metaphors for different classes and/or demographics?

2. The Plague that Kitt tries to manipulate is reminiscent of the COVID-19 pandemic. Explore the metaphoric possibilities of this fictional illness. How does Roberts rethink widespread illness in the context of her fantastical world—what does she use it to say?

Dive into the book’s structure, characters, themes, and symbolism.

1. Consider Roberts’s use of multiple points of view in the novel, especially Paedyn’s and Kai’s first-person point-of-view narrations. How do their respective chapters add dimension to their characters? How do their chapters create narrative tension?

2. Discuss the formal, narrative, and thematic significance of Edric’s sections. How would the novel resonate differently without these sections, and why?

3. Violence pervades Fearless. Examine the narrative and thematic role of these violent sequences. Are they necessary, sensational, or gimmicky? Why or why not?

4. Recurring images of jewelry and jewels pervade the novel. Discuss the significance of these motifs. How would the novel’s themes resonate differently without them?