“Just a rat, she repeated to herself. After all, there were rats in the palace. Human and otherwise. Could be worse.”

The Demon King by Cinda Williams Chima
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Inteeeeeennnsseeeeeee!!!

This book was fun. I had read so many positive things about this series, so I decided to give it a go through my favourite medium, audiobooks. And boy was I right.

The book starts slow. At some points it dragged a bit and I took big listening hiatuses in between. However, there is a part on it's last quarter when you just want to listen all the way without any interruptions. This book obviously reminded me of Tolkien and Robert Jordan's worlds. I had a great time listening and better yet, i had a lovely read-along discussion time with my friend Kerry, who read it with me. Lots of details, nicknames, laughs and wonderings during our readalong.

The Seven Realms are a convoluted place. A thousand years ago there was this thing called the Breaking, where a very powerful wizard, the Demon King broke the world and all the Clans had to help to save it. A charismatic queen Hanalea had a prominent role in saving the world and making an allegiance with the Clans, making bargains to ensure wizards won't gain as much powers as they did and that no queens would be able to marry wizards. We start by having a quick introduction into this world by an unruly young wizard (Micah Bayar) who tries to herd some deers by burning the forest. Witnesses to this event, Dancer and Han (the later, one of our main characters) confront the young wizard and a chain reaction of events occurs, triggered by the decisions of this encounter. This carefully unfolds throughout this story.

This book is told from two main points of view, Princess Raisa ana'Marianna (alias Rebecca Morley) and Han Alister, with his aliases: street rat name - Cuffs, Clan name: - Hunts Alone. It also has an in between character, Amon Byrne, friend and guard of Raisa who occasionally adds his view.

We've got an I-haven't-done-anything (sure) kind of character in Lord Bayar, Micah's father and High Wizard.



A magical scary amulet



We also have the best (saddest) description of a possible romantic interest, Amon by Raisa's view:
"comfortable, like a pair of broken-in moccasins." *sad face*




Also, secret secret meetings and night escapes!




And good old bad-desisions-with-bad-consequences



*fist-bump* you guessed it right. There is a part, when it gets obvious, that yes, you'll find both of our characters being awesome and outsmarting evil or learning what they can do.



It was fun, entertaining and very very rich.

I'm ready for more!



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