Need an intense, diverse fantasy full of magic and betrayal? Then look no further because I have just the book for you. I read Kingdom of Souls by Rena Barren and it fits all of these things.
Synopsis: Arrah is a young woman from a long line of the most powerful witch doctors in the land. But she fails at magic, fails to call upon the ancestors and can’t even cast the simplest curse.
Shame and disappointment dog her.
When strange premonitions befall her family and children in the kingdom begin to disappear, Arrah undergoes the dangerous and scorned process of selling years of her life for magic. This borrowed power reveals a nightmarish betrayal and a danger beyond what she could have imagined. Now Arrah must find a way to master magic, or at least buy it, in order to save herself and everything she holds dear.
An explosive fantasy set in a world of magic and legend with a twist you will never see coming.
This book had a refreshing cast of all diverse characters. I think there were actually no white characters at all and that was a first for me.
I would call this a slow burn fantasy at first because there was a little bit of information dumping at the beginning as the world is being built for the readers. But it builds into a huge crescendo by the end and had me glued to the pages wanting to know how it all came to an end (at least for this one since it is the start of a series).
Arrah was a likeable character and her personal growth throughout the book was developed in such a way that you wouldn’t consider her to be the same person by the end. She puts the “strong” in a strong female character.
There were a bunch of tribes that all had unique names and they represented different parts of the nation. I found them to be a little hard to keep track of but that was only a minor detail.
I would recommend this book to anyone that wants a great, diverse fantasy full of plot twists and sacrifice.
Book Rating: 4/5
You can buy this book on Amazon and find it on Goodreads.
Disclaimer: This book was sent to me as an ARC (Advanced Reader Copy) in physical format by Harper Collins to read and give an honest review.
I did my first ever reading vlog! It was a lot of fun to make and it was kind of like a review as I read the book. It was also my first ever Brandon Sanderson book!
One of my authors that I follow regularly, Lucia Mann, has put out another book called Endless Incarceration Sorrows. It will be releasing in January 2020 so keep an eye out for it!
