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pudustazja 's review for:
Prince of the Sorrows
by Kellen Graves
By all means, this should be a perfect book for me. Folk-inspired fae lands with a bloody mystery and queer main characters? It feels like this was written specifically for me. The premise had also sounded fun and original - having to solve something that requires reading without the knowledge how to do so, needless to say I decided to give The Prince of Sorrows a read.
Some people use the phrase that something is "written like a fanfic" to say that it is written badly, but I think this would be a disservice to all the well written fanfiction I read over the years and that have stuck with me. My high expectations for this book were sadly not met and I only finished the story out of frustration, hoping that surely the next chapter will be better, surely there's a method to this madness!
We follow Saffron, who is our human main character, as he tries to solve the mystery of his friend Arrow's murder. However, Saffron gets distracted by the Big Horns of Prince Cylvan and instead we witness their romance bloom and the mystery gets forgotten about until the last few chapters.
The LI starts as a horrible person, abusing their power over Saffron (I found the party scene with the fruit eating particularly vile). It felt absolutely unrealistic to me for Cylvan to turn into this suffering fragile prince who kisses the ground our human MC walks on not even halfway through the book. Their romance did not win me over.
The side characters are only mentioned in name and in relation to the MC, other than that they felt paper thin and not fleshed out. Only Lettuce, Saffron's friend is privy to a romance of her own, but even this is mentioned in a couple of sentences, for we are told about this rather than shown.
I liked the idea of the human settlement and its more rustic feel, as well as the naming customs for the Beanthinges, as each is called after a spice, textile, vegetable and so on. Kellen Graves certainly knows how to paint a picture for the audience. The reader is taken to multiple locations that have been carefully thought about. The author also knows how to design a visually striking characters - you can tell that Saffron and Cylvan were crafted with love.
Perhaps the story would have benefitted from being only a romance, as this was clearly Graves' favourite part. The murders and the wolf in the woods have fallen short in comparison, so much so it was actually sad to see. Either cut it out, or let the story marinate a bit longer.
Despite all of the above, I plan on continuing the series, as I am hoping that the author's craft will hone with next volumes of Rowan Blood tetralogy. After all, I was positively giddy when discovering the book for the first time and was looking forward to the read.
Some people use the phrase that something is "written like a fanfic" to say that it is written badly, but I think this would be a disservice to all the well written fanfiction I read over the years and that have stuck with me. My high expectations for this book were sadly not met and I only finished the story out of frustration, hoping that surely the next chapter will be better, surely there's a method to this madness!
We follow Saffron, who is our human main character, as he tries to solve the mystery of his friend Arrow's murder. However, Saffron gets distracted by the Big Horns of Prince Cylvan and instead we witness their romance bloom and the mystery gets forgotten about until the last few chapters.
The LI starts as a horrible person, abusing their power over Saffron (I found the party scene with the fruit eating particularly vile). It felt absolutely unrealistic to me for Cylvan to turn into this suffering fragile prince who kisses the ground our human MC walks on not even halfway through the book. Their romance did not win me over.
The side characters are only mentioned in name and in relation to the MC, other than that they felt paper thin and not fleshed out. Only Lettuce, Saffron's friend is privy to a romance of her own, but even this is mentioned in a couple of sentences, for we are told about this rather than shown.
I liked the idea of the human settlement and its more rustic feel, as well as the naming customs for the Beanthinges, as each is called after a spice, textile, vegetable and so on. Kellen Graves certainly knows how to paint a picture for the audience. The reader is taken to multiple locations that have been carefully thought about. The author also knows how to design a visually striking characters - you can tell that Saffron and Cylvan were crafted with love.
Perhaps the story would have benefitted from being only a romance, as this was clearly Graves' favourite part. The murders and the wolf in the woods have fallen short in comparison, so much so it was actually sad to see. Either cut it out, or let the story marinate a bit longer.
Despite all of the above, I plan on continuing the series, as I am hoping that the author's craft will hone with next volumes of Rowan Blood tetralogy. After all, I was positively giddy when discovering the book for the first time and was looking forward to the read.