Kings And Daemons

Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book from the publisher as part of my participation in the tour hosted by The Write Reads.

Book Overview

Kings And Daemons: by Marcus Lee (The Gifted and Cursed #1)
Genre: Fantasy
Length: 416 pages
Rating: ★★★★ (4 Stars)

Published May 25th, 2020

Purchase: Amazon

Book Tour Info

I read this book as part of a book tour with The Write Reads.

Book Synopsis

Over fifty years have passed since Daleth the seemingly immortal Witch-King, and his army conquered the Ember Kingdom.

Now, with the once fertile lands and its enslaved people dying around him, the Witch-King, driven by his insatiable thirst for eternal youth, prepares his forces to march on the prosperous neighbouring Freestates. It will be the beginnings of a conquest that could destroy nations, bringing death and destruction on an unimaginable scale.

Then, when a peasant huntress whose rare gift was concealed from birth is exposed, it sets in motion a chain of events that could alter the destiny of generations to come.

First Impressions

It’s been literal ages since I’ve read any book that could fit neatly within the high fantasy genre, and so I was excited when this tour came around. High fantasy was my go-to summer reading when I was in high school, and considering that it is yet again, summer time, I figured it was as good a time as any to get back into it. I can safely say that if you’re also looking to get back into high fantasy, Kings and Daemons is certainly the book to do it.

Review

Usually, I struggle with reading books that have multiple perspectives. I find it difficult to keep the different storylines straight. Most of the time, I end up wishing that the author would just stick with one character. Not this time. Throughout the course of the novel we end up with the narrative being told from the perspective of at least five different characters, all of whom have their own arcs that fit into the main story perfectly. I think my favorite part of the multiple perspectives was that as readers, we don’t just see one side of the story, but rather, both sides of it. Yes, we want the heroes to succeed, but we also get to peek into what the Witch-King is doing throughout the story, which I felt was a very unique perspective. While we do see into the Witch-King’s story, the narrative never tries to convince you that he’s a good guy, doing bad things, something that’s easy enough to do if you buy into the whole “everyone’s the hero of their own story” thing.

One of the other things that I absolutely loved about this novel was the relationship between the two main heroes, Maya and Taran. Before they meet, they’re the only two Gifted characters in the book that have perspectives in the narrative, and so I was really worried that they were going to end up in a relationship that felt forced. When they do meet, Maya is a prisoner on her way to the Witch-King, and Taran’s a solider assigned to escort her there, which means my hopes were not high. Without giving away too much of what happens, one thing leads to another, and their relationship is one of my favorites. They’re absolutely perfect together, and if anything happens to them, I will cry.

Now, I do have to warn you that this story does start rather slow. There are moments that feel like there’s too much exposition, however, once you get past that, the story does pick up, and I was able to finish it rather quickly.

Rating & Final Thoughts

Rating: 4 out of 5.

The next books in this series are definitely going on my TBR. I need to know what happens next. There’s so many questions that I still have!