[expander_maker id=”7″ more=”Cover artist” less=”Close cover artist”] Cover artist: Lars West [/expander_maker]
When they brought me up to the auction block, I looked out over the crowd and thought:
I would kill you all if I had a knife. And if I wasn’t naked, I amended.
And shackled. I had never felt so helpless, and-
These are the opening lines of Chapter 1 of Jenn Lyons‘ fantastic novel – The Ruin of Kings.
559 pages of epic fantasy – the best I’ve read since Patrick Rothfuss’ The Name of the Wind.
Kihrin is the slave. His jailer is Talon. She is a lot of different things – human is not among them. Kihrin is not interested in telling his story, but Talon has very good arguments to get him to do so anyway. She also has firsthand knowledge of details of which he is not aware. How she has that knowledge is a story (or stories) in itself.
As you are taken along for the ride, you will be well advised to concentrate. This is not a book about just the protagonist and his jailer. There are many people, gods and demons and more to keep track of. Things are not always what they seem, persons may not be, who you think they are….and so on.
The story is told with lots of footnotes. This is very well done – giving you more important information and an extra perspective on the story.
When you have finished the story, you want more, more, more.
And don’t worry, you shall get more. The Ruin of Kings is the first book in Chorus of Dragons a projected series of five books. TOR is planning to publish them with short intervals. Book two – The Name of All Things – is being published on October 29, 2019. So we don’t have to wait too long.
The scope of this first book, the intrigues, the incredible world-building, the characters and the quality of the writing leaves me in awe of Jenn Lyons – I cannot wait for October to come around!