Kings of Paradise

This is one of those stories that will resonate with me for a long time. I have read many books where I have liked the villians even though they were terrible people. Sometimes they're funny, witty, smart, or just all around likeable characters. But in this case it was not any of those... I felt a true and utter sadness inside me for Ruka. I felt this for Dala as well, but not on such a deep level. This author has a masterful way of making your heart break without doing it in such an obvious and expected way. I do not want to depress you though lol, this book has many things aside from heartache. Revenge, friendship, family, love, brotherhood, magic, battles, religion... it is all around a truly good read. All the characters were really well written and developed. Kale's story is as engrossing as Ruka's with an interesting twist at the end that I am excited to see where it goes.

This book was on my TBR for entirely too long and I am so glad I finally took the plunge... and I enjoyed it so much that I have immediately started the next book even though I am in the middle of a readathon with my book club and I had my whole month planned. To hell with plans...

3.5 out of 5 stars

This was a solid dark fantasy. The characters and setting are well-drawn and the writing is quite good. I connected with some POV characters more than others and this meant that there were long stretches where I was disengaged from the story as I just tried to get through the POV chapters I enjoyed less. I'm undecided as to whether I'll pick up the next book in the series, but I had a good time with this one.

See this review and others at The Speculative Shelf.

Very good. Very brutal but very good. The (relatively) lighter, more traditional Kale story offsets the at-times grim Ruka story. Looking forward to the next in the series.