dragonwriter 's review for:

The Phoenix King by Aparna Verma

4.5

challenging informative tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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Mood: 🤔😥😯🥰🤯

Elena’s coronation is quickly approaching, leaving the princess to quickly wrap up her final tasks. She needs to dismantle her father’s loyal fanatics, the Gold Hats, and she needs to learn how to control fire, as all rulers of Ravence must, but her father is much too busy to teach her, leaving Elena to find her own way to control fire. Delving into her late mother’s research, Elena begins to uncover the horrible secret about her family’s past and magic, and the price to control it. This price is something her father is actively keeping from her, even as he works to ensure her coronation proceeds without incident. Unfortunately the priests recognize a sign from the godly Phoenix that her prophet is coming with fiery vengeance upon the royalty of Ravence. Determined to protect Elena from this prophet, Lucien begins to search for this mysterious prophet, trying to follow the clues in the Phoenix’s message and rooting out possible zealots. As Elena and her father get closer to the coronation, more plots and allies appear, in Samson, a handsome young general with his own army, and his friend, the wanted assassin, Yassan. Tensions build in Ravence as the coronation draws ever closer, forcing Elena and Lucien to reveal their secrets and create alliances that may very well be their undoing.

Books with strong political plots always feel slow to me, and it made it hard for me to get through most of this book. There’s such a focus on the various politics of Ravence, from their religion around the Phoenix and the sacred fire, to the political parties like the Gold Hats and the rebels, then talking about the brewing war with the nearby kingdom with the cyborg royalty. There is a lot of world building focusing around these political issues and religious issues and a lot of discussion of self-sacrifice for the good of Ravence. I thought it was interesting that you have Lucien and Elena who are so focused on doing everything “for the good of Ravence”, but you still have this simmering rebellion that wants to lash out. Rebellions are natural for any kingdom, but you still had to deal with this approaching war, the approaching prophet, and Elena trying to learn how to firebend. Elena’s relationships with her father and Pherma were interesting, since she had some strong support with both of them. Her father being obsessed with making sure Elena was safe, while not wanting to sacrifice himself was really interesting when you see that Elena reads as him not wanting to give up power and let her rule. Then you have Pherma being a mother figure and body guard, and absolutely ruling the scene just by being awesome. Yassan’s reveal about ⅔ through felt a little strange, since Samson and Elena were both devoted to him by then, and it only had a mild impact on the story. The bigger reveal at the end was much more impressive and made me very interested in the sequel. Overall, I liked the characters, and I’m looking forward to book 2.