Book Review: A King's Radiance by L.R. Schulz

You should never judge a book by its cover. Whoops. I am going to be honest here, I only picked up this book because of the amazing cover, I mean look at it, it's gorgeous. But I am so glad it had such a beautiful cover because it definitely has the substance to back it up. This book is fantastic and one of my favourite reads so far this year. 

 The book follows three children of an ailing King, Dazen, Isha and Raiz. The World is split into different Kingdoms which are ruled by their own King's, but all of the Kings bow down to a central dictator and his band of "Eagles", magically strong Lords who, if their strength and perceived "Godlikeness" can do what they want. 

 The book opens with the three POV characters as children, and their Father, preparing for a visit from one of these Eagles. Upon seeing the middle Child, the Daughter Isha, the Eagle decides he wants her for his collection of beautiful and unique things and takes her. The story then jumps forward a number of years. Dazen and Raiz, the remaining brothers have grown apart, each trying to cope in their own way. Their Father is ill and Isha is dealing with her life as a pampered hostage. 

 The Characters are where this book really excels. Each character feels unique, shows good character growth throughout the story and is very likeable. 

 Dazen is the oldest child, the heir to the throne, having to juggle between doing what he wants, with doing what he needs to do to protect his Kingdom. Dazen was my favourite character and the growth he shows as the story progresses is fantastic. 

 Isha, at first seems to be a bit of a cliche, the beautiful princess needing others to stand up for her but as you read more about her you see that she is immensely strong-willed and doesnt let the situation she has been forced into break her. She cares deeply for others and goes out of her way to help them and never stops trying to help herself and those she cares about. 

 Raiz is the youngest and after the taking of Isha he flees his home on a revenge mission, here he meets up with a band of Vigilantes and together they begin to hunt the Eagles. The characters he meets are great and his POV is the most action packed. I did struggle with Raiz though as I initially found him to be a dislikeable character, he was good at everything and was a bit of a jerk to people, however this changed as the story progressed and his character did develop as he dealt with the consequences of his actions.

 The magic system in this book is also really good. It is very simple but also very intriguing. In a nutshell some people can channel the power of the sun and use it to fight with. Most of the nobility have this gift and some of the lower classes do too but those that show the gift are rounded up and made to fight in the Armies. I loved this magic system and the gifts and curses that came with it. It was used very well and resulted in some very amazing action and fight scenes. My only main concern was that it did seem to be making some characters too strong, making them almost invincible towards the end of the story and I hope this power creep doesn't continue into the next book. 

 This story is LR Schulz's debut and I must say it was very well written. The dialogue was good and felt unique to each character, the action scenes were easy to read and kept me engrossed and the story moved at a good pace with a lot of world building brought on through the character's actions rather than info dumping at certain points. The story does rely on a number of fantasy tropes but they are well handled and I enjoyed them. Some of what I felt was supposed to be plot twists and shocks were maybe reveleaded a bit too soon in the story but that is a very minor issue.

 In summary this is a great book that introduces a well crafted world with a unique magic system and some amazing characters. I will be watching out for the next book very closely and can't wait to continue reading. If you like epic fantasy and magic heavy stories then I definitely recommend picking this book up.

Book Review: The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan

The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan is an important young adult/fantasy series and I am ashamed it has taken me this long to review the book. It has been made into a fairly successful film (although heavily criticised for deviating from the books) and an upcoming series on Disney+, and the book series itself is regularly included on best lists of the fantasy and young adult categories.It had a lot of hype to live up to, and I had to wonder, could it? 

 Yes, yes it could. 

 The Lightning Thief begins with Percy Jackson and his friend Grover on a school trip to a museum. Percy isn’t a bad child, but he is constantly finding himself in trouble. He has dyslexia and adhd and has to deal with bullies picking on him. He also has the slight issue of his teacher changing into a Greek monster and trying to kill him, so you know standard high school problems. 

 You see it turns out that Percy Jackson is a Half-blood, he has one Human parent and one parent who is a Greek God, in Percy’s case he has a Human mother and a Father who is a Greek god.

 The beginning of the book focuses on Percy discovering who he is, avoiding the monsters trying to kill him and enrolling at Camp Half-blood where he can learn the skills he will need to survive. The second half of the book revolves around an argument between the Gods, someone has stolen something of Zeus’, you can probably guess what it is from the title of the book, but somehow Percy finds himself being blamed and the only way to clear his name is to go and retrieve what was stolen. So with the help of his friend Grover and the smart, but cranky, Annabeth, another Half-blood, they must travel across America and into the underworld which is situated in LA, because, well where else would it be? 

 From reading this book I can definitely see why it is so popular and why Percy as a character is so loved. The plot moves at a good pace, staying long enough in each place that you get a feel of the action and drama but never feels bogged down or drags. As the plot progresses we come into contact with bits of Greek Mythology brought to life and I must say they were very well done, a good play on the Myths I learned in school while being able to fit them into modern America and using them for hints of humour throughout.

 Initially I struggled a little with the characters, I found the dialogue to be quite juvenile and some of the attempts at jokes just felt a little too immature for me. Then I remember that the characters are around 12-13 and rereading the dialogue with this in mind felt a lot more natural and I began to fall in love with them, especially Percy. I can see why he gets so much love. He is funny, sarcastic, tries to do the right thing, and is brave in a realistic way. I was worried at one point that he was going to become a bit of a Gary Stu but while he did develop skills in some things he also had stuff he wasn’t good at. 

 Grover and Annabeth, I struggled to engage with quite as much. Grover was portrayed as a bit of a bumbling idiot and I couldn’t understand why he was allowed to go on such an important quest if he was such a liability, but I am glad he did as I did grow to like him. Annabeth felt a little underdeveloped, she was smart and a good fighter, funny and wise, but I did feel that maybe Riordan didn’t quite know what to do with her. I have been told she is used much better in subsequent books which I am looking forward to.

 In summary this is a fantastic story which will engage and delight readers of all ages. The Greek mythology is well done, the characters are fantastic and the plot is perfectly timed and will keep you reading on. If you haven’t read The Lightning Thief yet, then you should.