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A review by veereading
Medalon by Jennifer Fallon
4.0
The series is called Demon Child. I mean... DEMON CHILD!!! How could I NOT read it with such an insanely cool title?! Initially, I was drawn to this series because of The Lyre Thief, which just recently got released. But when I found out that Lyre Thief wasn't the first book in the series, I knew that I would have to start from the beginning. Which brought me here to Medalon.
Medalon is a small country bordered by the nation of Karien in the north and the nations of Fardohnya and Hythria in the south. The Sisters of the Blade rule Medalon with an iron fist, with an elite army of Defenders to enforce their rules. The Sisters forbid the worship of all gods, including the Harshini, a magical race that has been long extinct. They quash all signs of heathens with the force of the Defenders. And so, there is an uneasy peace. R'shiel Tenragan and her half-brother Tarja findd themselves caught up in a political battle when their mother takes on the role of the First Sister. In order to escape from her machinations, R'shiel and Tarja flee the Citadel for safer ground. But by fleeing, they incur the wrath of the Sisters and the Defenders, who hunt them as traitors. Meanwhile, in Hythria, Brak, a Harshini outcast, is tasked with finding the demon child, the half-human child of the dead Harshini king. But what does this have to do with R'shiel and Tarja?
I can see how I'm going to get hooked to this series! I really really liked this novel! When you read a lot of teen fantasy novels or standalone fantasy novels, there is a lot of world-building that gets missed. Not the case in this novel! You can tell the author spent a great deal of time envisioning this fantasy world; everything was well thought out and intricately put together. I felt like I was living in the story myself because it was so detailed! The story is interesting from page 1 and every perspective is explored at different intervals so you read about the situation happening in every country. There are some violent parts in the story, and rape does get brought up, so consider this your trigger warning! In general, I love power struggles; it's one of my favorite things about GoT, so I was really glad to see it expressed strongly in this novel.
I will admit, though, there were 3 things that I wasn't so happy about:
1) R'shiel is not a very strong protagonist; I wanted her to be more fierce but she was a lot more weak and stayed in the backseat while her brother took the main stage. Not that I didn't like Tarja, but I wanted to see some more badassery from her.
2) There is a romance element that made me feel really awkward. It should not have happened. Seriously, it just felt really weird and I have no idea why it came about that way and I really hope it somehow.... stops....
3) Brak's character is pretty much useless. He is supposed to find the demon child and bring them to one of the Gods but he literally does nothing except observe throughout the whole novel. It made me really annoyed because he could have had a more active role.
That being said, I still thought this was a really good novel. There was tons of action and duplicity and conniving characters and intrigue. The author really immerses the reader into this fictional world, and that allowed me to have a great experience while reading this novel. I will definitely be continuing with this series!
Medalon is a small country bordered by the nation of Karien in the north and the nations of Fardohnya and Hythria in the south. The Sisters of the Blade rule Medalon with an iron fist, with an elite army of Defenders to enforce their rules. The Sisters forbid the worship of all gods, including the Harshini, a magical race that has been long extinct. They quash all signs of heathens with the force of the Defenders. And so, there is an uneasy peace. R'shiel Tenragan and her half-brother Tarja findd themselves caught up in a political battle when their mother takes on the role of the First Sister. In order to escape from her machinations, R'shiel and Tarja flee the Citadel for safer ground. But by fleeing, they incur the wrath of the Sisters and the Defenders, who hunt them as traitors. Meanwhile, in Hythria, Brak, a Harshini outcast, is tasked with finding the demon child, the half-human child of the dead Harshini king. But what does this have to do with R'shiel and Tarja?
I can see how I'm going to get hooked to this series! I really really liked this novel! When you read a lot of teen fantasy novels or standalone fantasy novels, there is a lot of world-building that gets missed. Not the case in this novel! You can tell the author spent a great deal of time envisioning this fantasy world; everything was well thought out and intricately put together. I felt like I was living in the story myself because it was so detailed! The story is interesting from page 1 and every perspective is explored at different intervals so you read about the situation happening in every country. There are some violent parts in the story, and rape does get brought up, so consider this your trigger warning! In general, I love power struggles; it's one of my favorite things about GoT, so I was really glad to see it expressed strongly in this novel.
I will admit, though, there were 3 things that I wasn't so happy about:
1) R'shiel is not a very strong protagonist; I wanted her to be more fierce but she was a lot more weak and stayed in the backseat while her brother took the main stage. Not that I didn't like Tarja, but I wanted to see some more badassery from her.
2) There is a romance element that made me feel really awkward. It should not have happened. Seriously, it just felt really weird and I have no idea why it came about that way and I really hope it somehow.... stops....
3) Brak's character is pretty much useless. He is supposed to find the demon child and bring them to one of the Gods but he literally does nothing except observe throughout the whole novel. It made me really annoyed because he could have had a more active role.
That being said, I still thought this was a really good novel. There was tons of action and duplicity and conniving characters and intrigue. The author really immerses the reader into this fictional world, and that allowed me to have a great experience while reading this novel. I will definitely be continuing with this series!