I appreciate the interesting approach the author has taken in how she wrote the novel. Filled with footnotes - which I hope science fiction authors might one day do when explaining their intricate technologies or aliens - and diving the story in multiple facets for each character to deliver his/her explanation of events, Lyons has made her novel almost interactive, in a sense. Her writing approach by having used this method makes the story feel as if each character is physically leading the reader onto their own turn of events, explaining to them in a very conversational-like way what happened next.

Story-wise, I thoroughly enjoyed The Ruin of Kings and hope it finds the level of success it deserves.

https://lynns-books.com/2019/02/11/the-ruin-of-kings-a-chorus-of-dragons-1-by-jenn-lyons/
The Ruin of Kings is an impressive, if somewhat convoluted, start to a promising series set within a fantastically imagined world and just rife with unexpected twists and turns. I enjoyed this but, at the same time, I can’t deny that it turned me into a hot mess at certain points, it was a total head mash and I literally became Gollum-esque arguing with myself about the pros and the cons *it burns us, it freezes us, preciousss* – make up your mind already! Does it burn or does it freeze.

This review is going to probably be mostly incoherent and more than likely a rambling stream of consciousness but, in spite of some niggles that will be outlined below I found this an exciting book to read in terms of the scope and vision and I look forward to seeing how the author progresses the story, particularly as I think the mode of storytelling employed in this first book is highly unlikely to be used in the next instalment.

The story begins with Kihrin in prison and persuaded (quite forcefully) by his jailor, Talon, to tell his story. Talon also narrates part of Kihrin’s tale – but from a quite unusual perspective and an earlier time frame. Added to this we have a third pov that takes the form of an unknown narrator who comments on parts of the story as well as providing information in the form of footnotes. Between these three different povs we eventually piece together Kihrin’s history, his humble beginnings, (an orphan and musician residing in a brothel), his night time exploits as a thief that lead him into trouble, his dizzy rise and his abduction and sale into slavery.

I don’t think I’m going to elaborate on the plot as I really don’t think I could do it justice in this review and on top of that there’s such a lot going on that this could end up turning into a dissertation. I’ll leave you all to your own devices in that respect.

So, here are my thoughts.

Well, firstly, I have to mention the world building. The creativity and imagination employed here is just amazing. This is a world that the author has fully immersed herself in and it shows. There’s history, politics, scheming nobles, mysterious islands, fantastical beasts, necromancy, magic, body swapping – well, let’s just round up by saying there’s a lot going on in this world and the way the information is delivered to readers is well thought out and just really impressive. I loved this world and found myself totally absorbed. There are no huge expositions, although the footnotes do assist with relaying tidbits of information here and there. Did I mention I loved this world? Yes? Well, a second time can’t hurt, it’s an absolute tour de force and this first novel feels like it barely scrapes the surface of what’s yet in store.

The writing and dialogue are also equally impressive. I think when you’re reading a book of this size it’s very easy to become bogged down or find the pacing slow at certain points but I think the author’s style is so easy to engage with that I really didn’t feel like this was ever an issue. Plus, the story is intriguing and the pace is driven by the constant switches in narration. Okay, every now and again, I didn’t want to be pulled out of one part of the story quite so quickly but at the same time I do also find myself appreciating the style of shorter chapters and the fact that these chapters all usually swapped during one or another crisis definitely kept me reading when I should have been sleeping.

There are plenty of characters and a lot to take on board – often with very similar sounding names and I did find that I had to really pay attention to prevent them all becoming something of a blur. I really enjoyed the dialogue and felt it flowed naturally and I found myself becoming attached to Kihrin and feeling quite sorry for all the trials and tribulations he encounters along the way. Although, I wouldn’t say that I absolutely loved any of the characters in particular – in fact, strangely, I found myself drawn to Talon’s chapters because she is so unabashedly herself in all her glorious nastiness.

So, the bad and the ugly? Well. I think telling the story in this way will probably cause readers to be split in opinion. I found myself at first wondering why we had the two different timelines/povs – it just puzzled me. Why didn’t Kihrin start from the beginning of his story instead of what felt like the halfway point. Part of me wondered if this was because the narrator’s, or one of them, was going to prove unreliable but in fact I don’t think that was the case – although the two did have some small arguments in terms of accuracy every now and again. I think the main idea here was not only to help show events from a different perspective rather than all from Kihrin’s pov – but also to show the extent to which Kihrin had been manipulated along the way. Plus I think Talon was trying to shock Kihrin with some of her revelations in that he was himself in the dark about such a lot of his own history. The problem that I had with this style was that I couldn’t always easily distinguish between the two voices and in fact sometimes, particularly at the beginning, lost track of who’s pov I was reading. Okay, I’m probably not as quick on the uptake as some! As it happens, I ended up really enjoying reading both Talon and Kihrin’s versions although it might have been more useful to stay longer with each of them at the beginning when the constant shift in timeline and perspective, coupled with all the different people and events was a bit much to take on board.

The only other thing that I would mention is that the twists in the story here, the casualties along the way, the deaths that weren’t deaths, the people that weren’t who you thought – well, it became too heavily relied upon at one point and left my head spinning a little in terms of keeping up with who was who. Sorry, I appreciate that’s very vague but it’s necessarily so in order to avoid spoilers.

Criticisms aside, this is a thoroughly intriguing world full of hateful characters and practices, different Gods, demons and scheming families that are then balanced by people trying to do the right thing. The political machinations going on here were well thought out and entertaining and the scope was just amazing. This is indeed epic fantasy. It’s entertaining, it’s engrossing, it’s well planned and executed. It reads like a labour of love and criticisms notwithstanding it feels like this is only the tip of the iceberg. I think the only piece of advice that I would give to others is that this is a book that demands your full attention, don’t pick this up with the crazy notion of blasting through or flipping the pages with dizzying speed.

Oh, and one final note that I nearly forgot about – dragons! Stands to reason given the name of the series but I thought I should give them a mention.

I received a copy through Netgalley, courtesy of the publisher, for which my thanks. The above is my own opinion.

I’m a big fan of fantasy, so this book sounded like it was right up my street. This is a massively complex epic fantasy, the likes of which I read but I don’t read all that often. The world building is incredible, Lyons brings together gods, demons, a huge dragon, various cities, the high seas and a huge world, and then knits it all together so skilfully that I never found myself questioning it. Even when a demon appeared for the first time after seemingly never having been mentioned before – it all makes sense and you as a reader just run with it all. There a few scenes, particularly those relating to demons and the dragon, that have really stuck in my head and I can picture even after several weeks and multiple books later.

The story is told in pretty much two timelines and perspectives. Both times follow our main character Khirin, one that is told by Khirin himself in the ‘closer’ past and one by Talon (a mimic) in the ‘further’ past. I have to admit I was very glad when the stories merged and we were finally in the present, I did keep getting slightly confused with the timelines and what had happened when – but that’s also to do with my lack of reading chapter titles and PoV markers, so my bad! Talon can tell Khirin’s story with incredibly accuracy as she is a mimic and absorbs peoples memories once she has killed them. Her relationship to Khirin is very convoluted and twisting, as with many epic fantasy family trees, so I got incredibly lost during the sections about that. And to be fair any sections that was attempting to explain anyones relation to each other.

I found a lot of the names were very similar, there were at least 3 characters whose name began with an ‘S’ and I couldn’t differentiate easily, and then once they all met up I had no idea who was who and who had what backstory. It was so confusing for me, but I also admit freely that I am completely useless with remembering names! Plus then there was some body swapping, just to add to the confusion!

That being said I did end up enjoying the book, it just took me much longer to read than anticipated and I am still confused about certain things. But then some elements stood out so much that I really loved them. Take caution when entering this, if you’re a fan of complex epic fantasy pick it up – I think you’ll really enjoy it.

DNF @68%

Usually, when a new release is compared to Brandon Sanderson, John Gwynne, and Patrick Rothfuss, you’d expect it to be good, right? Or at least decent.

I was promised this: Uniting the worldbuilding of a Brandon Sanderson with the storytelling verve of a Patrick Rothfuss, debut author Jenn Lyons delivers an entirely new and captivating fantasy epic. Prepare to meet the genre’s next star.

Instead, it was the worst book I’ve read in a long time.

1. Three bad narrators

The story begins with Kihrin in prison, guarded by a demon – Talon. And she gives him a rock. Now! It is not an ordinary rock, it is magical! Look at it as an audio recording device.

She “askes” him to tell her his story.

From that point onward, they take turns speaking to this stone, telling different parts of the same story about Kihrin, one from 1st person told by Kihrin himself, and the other one from 3rd person told by Talon from memories of everyone she ate. (I have to say that she is a rather bloodthirsty and hungry demon. Also, she seems quite obsessed with Kihrin).

There are a few comments on GoodReads saying that they found this type of narration confusing and unnecessarily complicated. I actually didn’t mind the two narrators and the fact that they spoke from different points of view didn’t bother me either.

What I had problems with was the THIRD narrator.

As if having two narrators was not enough, we were given another one – Thurvishar D’Lorus, who compiled this whole story and tried to add snarky remarks in the footnotes. Let me warn you, THERE ARE A LOT OF FOOTNOTES!

Thurvishar D’Lorus’s full account of the events that led up to the Burning of the Capital was written for His Majesty. Let me give an example of the footnote:

The footnote to the sentence “The vané’s eyes glowed” says “One presumes not literally”,
and to the sentence “Most folks assume it must be diamond. Hard as diamond anyway.”, there are TWO footnotes that say “It’s not diamond” and “Harder”.

Also, I find it hard to believe that His Majesty would need to be lectured on what demons are or given history lessons, especially when these remarks didn’t contribute to the story or to the general world building at all.

After dutifully reading all the footnotes for the first 30-40% of the books, I eventually gave up and completely skipped all of them.

2. Slow storyline development

I still have no idea what this book was all about. There was an orphan boy, yes. There was a prophecy that no-one cared to explain.

Kihrin sounded as lost as I was. He was constantly asking questions and didn’t receive any coherent answers.

3. Unlikable characters

There wasn’t a single character I liked. Definitely not Kihrin who in some scenes was portrayed as a good-hearted fellow and in the others as a snarky, haughty teenager with sassy attitudes. Maybe it was the author’s idea to give us a morally grey character, but I don’t think she quite figured out how to do that. We went from “oh, no, I can’t sleep with you” to literally sleeping with women twice his age.

And why is everyone so sexually obsessed?! In all Goodreads reviews, I read not a single person mentioned the amount of not-so-subtle sex references. Maybe you could justify a few of them, saying that Kihrin was raised in a brothel, surrounded by slaves, and these remarks were inevitable. But it didn’t sit well with me.

The Ruin of the King is an epic fantasy, that I didn't want to put down. I loved in that much that I've bought the special edition copy. 

The way the story is constructed, makes the story even more enjoyable to read.  We get to read what happening in two parts of Kihrin life. One part is the story of Kihrin before he as claimed as a royal prince. The second part is after his kidnapping. While we are reading Kihrin story we get notes. Someone else from Kihrin world is giving us their opinion or expanding on the story. This element was one of my favourite aspects of the book, I loved the comment especial when the commenter was commenting on themselves.

Kihrin is a such a great lead character, he is a morally grey character that is trying to do his best, in a corrupt empire. I really enjoyed Kihrin when he is standing up against people who are not used to it. 

The world of magic, dragons and gods fascinate me. I could just read about the myths and histories about the Empire on its own, as it so fascinating. 

There is a lot going on in The Ruin of King, my best advice is to read it where you can't be distracted. This will mean you don't miss any of the goodness. 

My rating for The Ruin of Kings is 5 out of 5.

As with many fantasy books, this one has a sprawling and complex web of relationships. There’s a very helpful glossary, pronunciation guide and family tree included but it does contain some spoilers. I found myself making notes as I read just to keep track of who all the characters were and how they were related to each other. The ability of a few characters to soul-swap definitely added to the confusion. I was jarred out of the action a few times as I tried to unravel who was being talked about and their relationship to other characters. At one point, a character quips “you might want to draw up a chart” and it certainly wouldn’t be a bad idea.

However, once you’ve grasped the basic character relationships, the epic action and incredible world-building sweeps you away. The narrative is framed as a record of a conversation between two of the main characters, Kihrin and Talon, with hilarious and snarky footnotes by Thurvishar D’Lorus. The humour in this book was brilliant and exactly my favourite blend of sarcasm, irreverence and snarkiness. Part one of the story is told in a dual narrative with Kihrin relating the most recent events and Talon discussing Kihrin’s past. The timelines eventually converge at the beginning of part two.

The story opens with Kihrin imprisoned so the reader knows his plans go wrong which only increases the tension. The story quickly picked up pace thanks to the political machinations that underpinned most of the action. Issues such as slavery, racism, sexism, rape, and misogyny are all touched on and explored in a nuanced manner. It was definitely thought-provoking at times and I love the ability fantasy has to make you question contemporary society.

The protagonist Kihrin is brave, reckless and quick-witted. He’s fundamentally good and fair, with a backstory that is slowly revealed. I adored his character and can’t wait to read what happens to him next. There were so many fantastic characters, from the mimic Talon, to the cruel Darzin D’Mon, the complex Tyentso, and the confident Teraeth. Each one engaged my interest and ensured the storyline never dragged.

As you can tell from my rambling review, I thoroughly enjoyed this book and can’t wait to read the sequel. I’ve obviously pre-ordered the Goldsboro special edition and would urge you to buy one if you’re tempted as it’s limited to 500 copies. The only reason I’ve rated this four stars was because the complicated genealogy sometimes disrupted my enjoyment of the narrative.

Received ARC from Pan Macmillan and Netgalley for honest read and review.

This was such an enjoyable book,really fabulous characters and settings,even although it switched about a bit it was a really good read.

It was quite hard to follow the 2 Timelines for Kihrin,but it was very enjoyable.

It is quite a long book,but worth reading .

I was really excited for this book with all the big fantasy writers they put next to it. Although I enjoyed and I thought it was a good debut, I was not blown away with it.
The main issue for my 3 stars is the backstories. The book is written in an unconventional way, which made it rather complex than exciting.

The characters were interesting. There were magicians, princes, demons. I'm sure I would be much more hooked if it was a linear story told in a chronological order.

I think the writer has potential, imagination and the ingredients needed, mixed in a way that made it difficult for the reader. I hope next time she prefers another style, as I'd like to read from her.

Thanks a lot to NetGalley and the publisher for this complimentary copy in exchange for an honest review.

The Ruin of Kings is a debut fantasy novel from Jenn Lyons – and it’s really rather good. It core is the story of Kihrin, sometime orphan and occasional thief. It’s possible though that he has the capacity to be something more.

I have to say, I rather enjoyed the style of the text. The book is split into two narratives – one looking at Kihrin’s youth, and another more concerned with recent events. They come from two different narrators, each with a unique voice and prose style. This interleaving also means that explanations and context for one part of the story are provided in a drip feed fashion from the other. How did the later Kihrin get where they are? What were the choices which led them there, and what will they do next? The two stories reinforce each other, and I found I wanted to know as much about what had gone before as what was going to happen next.

The story takes place in a world with a richly imagined past of its own. There are gods, a rich tapestry of divinities which humanity pays homage to from its spired citadels. Largely they seem to stay quiet and out of the way, but their undeniable presence is a weight on the world. As is the presence of demons. They are, really, not very nice at all, with a penchant for large scale atrocity, stomping around the place, setting things on fire.

In between the divinities and the demonic sits humanity. Much of the action takes place in a thriving metropolis, at the heart of an empire. The Emperor has the power – and indeed the duty – to banish demons when they appear. He’s surrounded by noble houses, each of which control vast mercantile interests – and magic. Oh yes, there’s magic here too, ranging from the repair of minor wounds, through speed and strength, to the sort of world ending meteor throwing which makes you sit up and take notice. We see both sides of this city over the course of the text; the flea-bitten slums, where every breath is a gift and a curse, where you’re one bad deal away from a knife in the back (or the front) are filled with a vicious energy, a richly imagined tapestry of chaos, violence, and personalised authority.
The halls of the nobility are hardly any better – albeit possibly cleaner. The houses are in a constant whirl of politics, where the price for a mis-step is being poisoned, imprisoned, or quietly murdered. Much like their counterparts in the lower echelons, the leaders of these houses are hardened, ruthless, and not at all averse to getting a little blood on their hands to get a result. The swirling tides of deals and backstabbery is marvellously realised. You can smell the blood in the water with every word these slick politicians drop – and that they can back up their words with superior firepower only makes it better.

The characterisation is top notch, especially of Kihrin, in both his past and present incarnations. Watching a cynical but eager youth grow into a more measured man is a delight. That he is convincingly careworn and scarred helps highlight the contrast with his younger self as they converge throughout the volume. The text builds Kihrin up and tears him down in equal measure – but at every step he feels conflicted, feels hurt, feels emotional, feels raw, feels…human. Some of the other characters are perhaps a little less nuanced (though in fairness to them, they may also be demons), but most of the supporting cast have backstory which makes us feel alongside them, and makes them feel real.

The world is a lavish one and between KIhrin and his cohort, we have players enough to make it feel real. But what about the story? Well, it ticks the tension up gradually, simmering the reader in the world and the characters for a while, marinating their questions and concerns. Once it gets going though, once you’re invested, it’s near-impossible to put down. The physical stakes are high, yes – life, death, empire, the end of the world. But they’re also personal – family, love, trust, betrayal are key themes. This is a book which isn’t pulling any punches. Actually, it’s probably using brass knuckles and coming at you with an attitude.

This is smart fantasy. It’s clever. It wants you to think about what you’re reading, about character, about consequences. And it wants to show off world-shattering events, and do so with some cool magic and a world which vividly displays a wealth of imagination.
It’s good stuff, is the short version. A great debut, and a series (and an author) to watch. Give it a try.

Put simply, great characters, great plot, great story structure. Would highly recommend. I especially liked the different time periods and POVs learning about the same person. Full review to be posted on The Fantasy Inn later.

Well butter my biscuit, WE HAVE ONE HECK OF A GOOD BOOK!

When this book was being shouted out among the mountaintops that it was for fans of Joe Abercrombie, I had to slow down my breathing because I am a Abercrombie FAN GIRL and let me just say, they weren't joking. This is an embodiment of Abercrombie's luscious writing.

This is the first installment in a new epic fantasy series called A Chorus of Dragons.
The plot mainly focuses on Khirin's, our main characters, life and it switches between past and present, young teenage Khirin and Khirin as a man. I loved this! I'm going to sidestep going into too much of the plot. to avoid spoilage. Suffice to say, I'm intrigued of what I've seen so far. Just know that Lyon's talent as a writer is one of the shining aspects of this novel. Her ability to develop landscapes & nations with distinctive cultures is impressive. She is seamlessly able to tie together situations & characters with smooth descriptions & clever dialogue.

She has created a beautiful world loosely based on medieval times. At first, it's not entirely clear what the major storyline will be. It's also not clear who the good guys and bad guys are -- kind of like real life. If this sounds like A Game of Thrones, well, yes -- the series are very different, but they do share some elements: morally complex protagonists and no easy answers.

Recommended for people who like there fantasy with some sugar and spice.