The High King's Golden Tongue

the book was just.......okay
there was ALOT of details to take in, I even forgot what was what lmao and that's not good for me.
also i kind of felt underwhelmed with their relationship at the end, It needed a bit more connection, hardly felt anything and got bored with them.

3.5
Megan Derr's writing reminds me of those fairytales I listened to when I was young, the writing just seems so light, and the characters troubles may pressure them, but the way in which they are told don't make it gloomy. You get sucked into her story world right away, although Derr doesn't explain it in great detail.
The main reason why I gave this book precisely this rating is that there's one major plot hole that eats it's way through the entire book. The changes happen too fast, especially at the end when mutual attraction bloomed between Allen and the High King Sarrica. I just felt that there was somekind of connection missing. As the part where they first met wasn't included, there was just something missing that would've been important for me in this story. This way I couldn't really enjoy the part where Sarrica comes to Allen's rescue, because I didn't knew much about their first meeting. Sarrica humiliates Allen when they first meet and this is such a huge issue for Allen, that he goes on a mission with a group of soldiers. It wouldn't have mattered if their first meeting didn't hold much importance for either of them, but the way it is, the absence of it is responsible for the two missing stars.
All in all this book was nice to read, short and sweet, and ideal for reading before going to bed.

Allen is probably one of my favourite protagonists of any book I've ever read.
If you enjoy queer fantasy then I would totally recommend this book.

(I totally missed that Nyle and Tara were transmen?? But if that's true then that kinda just makes this book even better.)

Absolutely lovely slow burn romance with a wonderful cast of secondary characters. I adored the group of friends, but I especially loved Sarrica and Lesto's friendship because they've got that wonderful needling, bantering thing going on that only the best of friends can do.

The only thing that's kind of odd is there almost seems to be a third gender. Not exactly separate from the other two, but...there's a couple of instances where two people of the same gender have biological children. I have the feeling that the author was trying to do away with the need of having one man and one women to procreate - thereby getting rid of things like the (male) High King needing a female consort to produce heirs. This opens up plenty of chances to not have arranged marriages always be between two people of the opposite gender. I do like the idea, as odd as it is (maybe that's why I like it) - but it's never explained. I don't know if they were supposed to be trans or intersex (is that the right term?) or if we don't even currently have a proper way to refer to them. It would have been easy to just give a little mention of how this is possible (he was born in the wrong body - for example) but there's no mention at all. This would have been the perfect opportunity to delve deeper into this culture and this world and it was just a little disappointing to me that it's all left up to reader to try to figure out how this is even possible.