dragontomes2000 's review for:

The Emperor's Blades by Brian Staveley

4.0

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This was an excellent debut novel and also first book to a series. Brian Staveley's writing is wondrous and his story even more so. Even though it started a little slow and suffered from a few pacing issues, once it found it's footing I was immediately hooked. The story and plot was made even better thanks to our three main characters, Kaden, Valyn, and Adare, who are children to the assassinated emperor. Each of their stories are very different in how they deal with the aftermath and each one is very entertaining. However the story focuses so much on Kaden and Valyn, that Adare is only given a tiny spotlight. Which sucked just a little because her chapters were so interesting and added a nice little buffer to the rest of the story. I was so impressed with this debut and am excited to see how this story plays out in the upcoming novels.