TL;DR: A very slow story but with good bones.
Source: NetGalley, so many thanks to the publisher!
Plot: Assassin turned bodyguard and a Princess struggling to take power. It was decent.
Characters: The greatest weakness of this story.
Setting: The bones were excellent but I think we needed more.
Romance/SFF: I’m very confused on why this was pitched as romantasy as I didn’t see it. The SFF was intriguing but needed more work.
Summary:
The fate of a desert kingdom rests in the hands of a princess desperate for power and an assassin with a dark secret, in this action-packed debut of fire magic and ancient prophecy from a stunning new voice in fantasy.
The Ravani kingdom was born of a prophecy, carved from unforgiving desert sands and ruled by the Ravence bloodline: those with the power to command the Eternal Fire.
Elena Aadya is the heir to the throne—and the only Ravence who cannot wield her family’s legendary magic. As her coronation approaches, she will do whatever it takes to prove herself a worthy successor to her revered father. But she doesn’t anticipate the arrival of Yassen Knight, the notorious assassin who now claims fealty to the throne. Elena’s father might trust Yassen to be a member of her royal guard, but she is certain he is hiding something.
Thoughts:
I am incredibly… meh on this one. I was very hyped for it for a long time (so long I did the procrastination thing), so perhaps I let that get the better of me. But unfortunately this was not the hit I was hoping. The Phoenix King is a political fantasy very loosely based on Indian mythology and I love that idea. The bones of that idea is what saves this, but the characters are what kill it.
The side characters in this were the strongest by far. For a book that is trying intensely to focus on Elena and Yassen, the two felt a bit like archetypes. Leo, Elena’s father was by far the best character we had, while Samson was stronger still than the primary two. Yassen wasn’t bad, I liked his storied past and conflicted inner world but Elena read very much like a Mary Sue type YA heroine.
The rest of the novel had a ton of potential. And honestly I wonder if the weird marketing on this might have killed it? I was under the assumption based on cover and reviews and pitches I’d seen that this was romantasy. Yet it felt like it was trying very hard to be epic SFF. And though the writing was nice, it still felt a bit like a YA novel.
So while the potential is there, this one didn’t quite stick the landing for me. I don’t know that I’ll finish this series but I might look into future works by the author to see how she grows and develops.
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