Kings of Paradise

4.5/5 rounded up to 5 stars because how much I've thought about it since finishing.

This book was fantastic and utterly engaging. I had a few small problems with it, but the pros are much larger than the cons and I can't wait to start book 2.

We follow three, but primarily two, main characters. Both of these storylines are interesting from first to last. We have Ruka, in the “land of ash” which is Dane-inspired, but with a matriarchy priestess leadership that makes it more unique than other Dane-inspired fantasy. Ruka is an outcast and is one of the most complex and fun to read protagonists I can think of. He does bad things, but you also root for him. This character alone makes the series worth reading.

Then we have Kale, fourth son of a king, in “the land of sand”, a Pacific Asian inspired kingdom. Kale struggles with finding a place for himself and figuring out his purpose. He also has a love interest, Lani. I generally find the romances in a story the least engaging parts, but I was genuinely interested in their story and was entirely invested in them, to my utter surprise. Kale's story goes to several unexpected places throughout the novel.

We also have Dala, who I found interesting but less so. She kinda fades out of the narrative after not accomplishing much, but I assume she's important for the rest of the trilogy. Still, the set up for her didn't feel boring, just unsatisfying because she didn't reach any sort of natural conclusion for her arc. I will trust that Nell has plans for her.

The characters and worldbuilding in this book are incredibly strong, and have me thoroughly invested. If you care about either of these things, I think you'd be satisfied.

Now for a few negatives:
-The grammar. This wasn't the biggest deal, but it was noticeable. I've read self-published before and I noticed more mistakes in this one, but nothing crazy. The one that bothered me the most personally is using ‘quotations' wrong in ‘places' where they ‘wouldn't' go. (He uses it for ‘servant' about 150 times for a character who is clearly not just a servant- this was my least favorite part of the book. We get it, there's more to him!)
-the pacing was incredibly strange. We would get like 5 Kale chapters in a row, and then not see him for like 100 pages. But then when we DID see him again, no time had passed. When we left Kale (or later, Ruka) it was at a natural “time lapse” part of the story, so I thought we'd be checking in on Kale several months later to see his progress, but it was the next day or something. I think alternating the chapters so it was less of large blocks of one character would have totally negated this.

And then the last quarter of this book covers A TON OF STUFF very quickly after being pretty slow for the first 3/4s. I've started book 2 already, so I know we are getting some flashbacks to fill in this time, so I'm less bothered. Still, without knowing that ahead of time, it can give the reader a ton of wipelash.

But that's it. This book is well worth your time and I cannot wait to finish book 2!