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lightoferebus's review
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
Graphic: War and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Violence, Blood, Sexual content, Death, and Murder
Minor: Racism, Classism, Drug use, Alcohol, Child death, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Grief, Mental illness, and Sexual harassment
bree_h_reads's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.25
Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Violence, and Blood
Moderate: Gore and Sexual content
Minor: Homophobia
mrshays's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Graphic: War, Sexual content, and Violence
Moderate: Murder
Minor: Homophobia, Death of parent, Gore, Blood, and Injury/Injury detail
wildflowersnwhiskey's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.75
Graphic: Violence, War, Murder, and Sexual content
Moderate: War, Death, Blood, Injury/Injury detail, and Violence
Sibling death, sibling murderrobin_reads's review
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.75
This was a lovely read. Very enjoyable. The pacing was just right and the characters were lovely. No notes.
Graphic: Violence, Blood, and Death
Moderate: Death of parent, Murder, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Sexual content
Minor: Homophobia
crufts's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
But there's no time to think about that. With Zavrius's four siblings murdered in suspicious circumstances, the people are turning against their new ruler. Can Balen protect the king and do his duty to his country, or will Zavrius's reign be over before it starts?
The audio quality was good and clear, with crisp enunciation from the narrator.
However, he has an odd, sultry tone of voice which subtracts from the clarity of his reading. Very innocent lines like "Balen went stiff" (referring to his posture) land differently in this tone of voice.
When it came to reading out Zavrius's flirty double-intendres, the narrator absolutely nails it and I can't imagine anyone doing it better. The problem is that he has a tinge of this sultry Zavrius voice going all the time.
However, by the end of the book the narrator's tone has become neutral, without the sultry tone. This is much better and allows the dramatic ending of the story to land as intended.
> But [Character] had to disagree with that. "It's not the right decision," he said.
It's obvious that he's disagreeing based on his dialogue line. You don't have to tell us the same thing in the narration.
> [Character] was offended by the rude remark, perhaps because of her relation to the matter. "You're being very impolite," she snapped.
It's obvious from her dialogue that she was offended. There's no need to tell us.
> [Character] said "[dialogue]". It was unclear if he was reacting to [past event A] or [past event B].
Of course it's unclear. You don't have to explain this to us in the narration, we already know this.
Consider climactic battles such as Balen vs Thenlyss, Balen vs Alick or Zavrius vs Theo. If Balen had been told at the start of the story that Thenlyss and Alick were traitors and faced each of them off in a duel, nothing would have been different. Balen would have defeated the two of them all the same, because he beat them simply by being a better fighter. So what does it matter if he wins?
Similarly, before the story begins, Zavrius had already defeated his entire family in battle, Theo included. It's not like he needed to change or grow in order to be strong enough to defeat them again. So what does it matter if he beats Theo at the end? We already knew he could do it.
Just imagine if this happened in real life - say, the simultaneous assassination of Princess Diana, Prince Charles, Prince William, Princess Royal Anne, and Earl of Wessex Edward. The suspected enemy state would have been instantly banned and embargoed, no matter how much they denied the murders. Leaders across the kingdom would be calling for immediate declarations of war!
I just don't believe that the Rezwyns would be allowed anywhere in Uslef, let alone up close with the new King where they could assassinate him. The same objection applies for all other scenes where the Rezwyns were invited to Dynasty events.
Similarly, I found it odd that in scenes like the coronation ceremony, that nobody was calling the Rezwyns "savages", "bloodthirsty", etc for their supposed slaughtering spree. The attendees' comments were weirdly tolerant of these supposed murders, instead mildly saying things like "Oh, well, you know, they have that weird religion..."
Graphic: Body horror, Violence, Animal death, Cursing, Blood, Gore, Murder, and Sexual content
Minor: Xenophobia
Blood, gore, violence, murder, body horror: There is a fight scene which graphically describes a baddie burning to death from the inside. Another baddie dies due to his organs no longer being inside his body.Animal death: A horse is killed in battle, rather messily.
Sexual content: Lewd remarks and anatomical words are used in conversation between the protagonists. There are also two explicit sex scenes.
Xenophobia: The foreign Rezwyn Empire is treated with suspicion.
Funnily enough, there isn't really any homophobia. Several people denigrate Zavrius as a "flamboyant dandy", but nobody really cares that he's into guys. Similarly, when fellow paladin Alick teases Balen for his crush on Zavrius, the gender of his crush is irrelevant.
r0secaptain's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Moderate: Violence, War, and Murder
20sidedbi's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.75
Graphic: Blood and Sexual content
Moderate: Violence, Body horror, War, Murder, Grief, and Death of parent
Minor: Homophobia, Classism, Animal cruelty, Suicidal thoughts, and Sexual harassment
thecatconstellation's review
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Graphic: Blood, Sexual content, War, Murder, and Violence
wardenred's review
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.5
Don’t make promises you know you won’t keep.
I really expected to enjoy this book. I mean, a second chance royal bodyguard fantasy romance with political intrigue and magic? Sounds right up my alley! But alas, in practice... th book and I, we never really clicked. I continue to like the idea of it, but I was disappointed by the execution.
The worldbuilding is full of promise and interesting ideas, but it's hard to pull them together into a coherent picture because the author kept swinging between two extremes when delivering all those details. Either there were endless boring infodumps, or it was just, you know, pages of characters carrying on in their world without explaining anything. I vastly prefer the second approach when it's done right, but here, it just... wasn't. Like, I still have no idea what a Prime Paladin even is. Is it the King's special personal bodyguard who's supposed to be at the King's side at all times? But Balen wasn't that. Is it someone who has some sort of special authority over other Paladins? Balen wasn't that either. He often deferred to Lestr and whatever authority he sometimes displayed when interacting with his brethren seemed to come more from his personality, skills, and pre-established relationships with them.
The prose felt as uneven and swingy as the worldbuilding: too sparse sometimes, then too convoluted. The characters were rather flat. At the beginning, I was intrigued by Zavrius and by his relationship with Balen, but then for the longest time, these two were just stuck in some kind of limbo, never making any progress. I wish I knew more about their backstories, like the details of their past relationship and also just the details of their individual pasts. A few flashback chapters/scenes would have gone a long way. Oh, and while I'm on the subject of characters: there are LOTS of named characters in the book, but we only really get to know 4-5 of them, including the main duo. And with the somewhat rocky pacing, it wasn't always clear which characters meant something and would have at least some shining moments down the line and which characters were basically decorations. Come to think of it, the same issue is present with the worldbuilding: with the way it was delivered, it was often hard to tell what was meaningful and what was flavor (a lot of it was flavor), so that made it hard to keep my focus.
As for the plot, most of the stars I'm giving this book have been earned by the political intrigues and mysteries that held a lot of promise. I just, once again, wish they were executed better. And I also wish the characters made smarter choices in relation to them, or suffered harder consequences for some of the... not-so-smart things they did.
Graphic: Violence