Rating: 4 Stars
The Ruin of Kings is a debut fantasy novel by Jenn Lyons. It is the first in, what I understand is to be, a 5 books series titled A Chorus of Dragons. To date, I have only read the preview, so this review is based on that alone.
Since I have not read the book in it’s entirely, here is what the publisher has to say:
Kihrin
is a bastard orphan who grew up on storybook tales of long-lost princes and
grand quests. When he is claimed against his will as the long-lost son of a
treasonous prince, Kihrin finds that being a long-lost prince isn’t what the
storybooks promised.
Far from living the dream, Kihrin finds himself practically a
prisoner, at the mercy of his new family’s power plays and ambitions. He also
discovers that the storybooks have lied about a lot of other things things,
too: dragons, demons, gods, prophecies, true love, and how the hero always wins.
Then again, maybe he’s not the hero, for Kihrin isn’t
destined to save the empire.
He’s destined to destroy it . . .
What I liked most about the book is that I was drawn into the world immediately and became invested in the character right away. I felt sorry for Kihrin because he was in jail, even though I thought he brought some of his situation on himself, I wanted to know the whole story behind how he ended up in this situation.
The plot moved along nicely. Even though I only read the preview, I was able to get a sense of the world that allowed me to follow the story without any problems. I would think as the book progressed you would have more world building and character development. It worked for me and I actually prefer that authors don’t do a data dumb at the beginning.
The way the author told the story from the present looking back reminded me of The Name of The Wind by Patrick Rothfuss. However, unlike Rothfuss, the author had two characters tell the story and the book jumped between three time lines, the present, and two pasts told from different POVs. This I found a little confusing and a couple of times had to reread a few pages to stay on track with each timeline. I thought this could have been handled better and took away a little from the book.
Overall, despite the one negative, I liked the story and want to read the book in its entirety. I would recommend this book to anyone who likes epic fantasy.
I received my preview of The Ruin of Kings, via NetGalley, from the publisher.