The Gryphon King is an ambitious and immersive fantasy debut set in a world inspired by Southwest Asia—a region we see far too little of in fantasy. The cultural depth is stunning: from architecture and climate to food, clothing, and ceremony, the setting feels rich, lived-in, and refreshingly different.

Although this is a fantasy book, this is a brutal, political, and impressively realist story full of layered dynamics and shifting power. I also loved that queerness is seamlessly accepted in the world—no angst, no explanation, just a natural part of society. More of that in fantasy, please.

The protagonists, Nohra and Bataar, are adults (!!!) navigating their own high-stakes paths before their stories intersect in a slow burn that feels mature and deliberate. It was so refreshing to follow characters shaped by experience, and who have their own developed personalities and agendas while interacting with each other.

If I had one small note, it’s that I wanted more insight into their emotional worlds— it wasn’t always clear to me why the characters acted the way they did. But that’s a tiny issues I had in a debut this layered.

Thank you so much to Sara Omer for the ARC!

This review will be posted in the publication month on my socials, as requested.

The strength of this book lies in the worldbuilding and the complexity of both characters and plots.
There is Southwest Asian mythology, mythical creatures, and two main protagonists that are really interesting and well thought-out.

The book has an intriguing and breath-taking start, and I truly thought I would very much enjoy the tale of the conqueror and the warrior princess.

Sadly, something about the pacing and/or the prose took me out of the story quite fast, and even when things picked up toward the end, it has lost me already.

I wanted to love this, but I have to end up at 3/5 stars

Thank you @netgalley and @titanbooks for the eARC!

#TheGryphonKing #Netgalley #Bookstagram

"The Gryphon King" was intriguing. I am always looking for fantasy books who draw on the south west of Asia or central Asia, so I was excited.

The worldbuilding is nice. There is a great sense of environment (moutainous and steppes), with creatures like gryphon and pegasus (not gentle pegasus). The societies are also quite well thought and diverse, drawing a nice political map.

Unfortunately, there was something in the writing that threw me off. I didn't really want to come back to the world and found myself skimming a bit. The dissonnance between the language used and the world portrayed, as well as the type of plot and characters the story is carrying wasn't to my taste. Is it bad? No. But I need to be invested in a story to gave it my attention, and here, I couldn't, which is a shame.

I might come back to the book in a few weeks or months, because I really want to get lost in the story, with horses, gryphons and political struggle (despite my usual dislike of book centered around political intrigue). And Baatar, of course. I like him, somehwat, I didn't get far enough to really see any romance, so here's another reason to try again, in hopes of being in a better mindset for the book (and I will change my review if this time comes).

I really enjoyed the world building in The Gryphon King, but the pacing threw me off. The start of the book and the last 20% were intriguing and well-paced, but the middle meandered and lost my interest at several points.

That said, The Gryphon King was a unique read and obviously setting up the stage for a longer series, which I’ll absolutely read. I loved the queernorm world too.

THE GRYPHON KING is intricate in its political intrigue, delightful in its conflict and tension, brilliant in the complexity of characters, and a wonderfully mythic story of love and sacrifice.

For those into action-packed fantasy with great character banter and relationship tensions!

I really wanted to enjoy this more than I did.

The opening chapter was fantastic; strong pacing and a good sense of character as we meet Bataar and his companions, and the inciting incident introduces the world naturally.

Then it just...fell flat, for me, unfortunately. I think the writing lacked a bit of 'oomf' and it fell into a lot of telling rather than kicking off the action. The plot should've gripped me, but I just don't think the writer's voice was a match for me.

A case of 'it's not you, it's me' where the voice just didn't carry enough to sweep me away into the world.

A strong fantasy book, objectively, however.

*I received this book for free from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.*

Two things: a) I read an arc. So it’s possible all my issues with it will be fixed before the book is published. I’m pretty sure at least some of the lines that make me twitch are genuine typos and thus have a good chance of being smoothed away before release day.

b) I am unreasonably picky about prose. I think most readers will get along with Gryphon King just fine. I did not. If the quotes I quote don’t bother you, then you’re golden, because apart from the writing, I think Gryphon King is okay-shading-to-good: the characters aren’t bad, and the premise is very cool indeed!

The prose here is simple and direct, with word choice often striking a weirdly juvenile note. That’s not me saying this reads like YA, because it doesn’t; I’m saying that it’s a little odd to hear ‘the palace stunk’ from an adult author, because ‘stunk’ is not the word most adults would choose there. It’s not wrong. It’s just odd, jarring, and unfortunately, the writing is jarring a lot, to the point that I very quickly didn’t care about the story any more because the prose was bothering me so much. As if to compensate for the weirdly juvenile word choices, there were often moments that read as though the author had popped the normal word into a thesaurus and picked a synonym that doesn’t actually quite work.

the coolness of morning


Nohra and Safiya strode inside


whispers cresendoed to impassioned shouts


Wormy voices whispered that he ran [the district]


The other jarring thing, the much, much more prevalent one, is awkward or clunky phrasing.

Change came, and like waves breaking around her body, Nohra would have to keep wading forward, even if it was without [her friends].


What that sentence actually seems to be saying is that Nohra’s wading forward is like the waves breaking around her body – and that makes no sense. That’s not what the author is trying to say, but…that’s what they’ve said.

Before them spread a sea of patterned turbans and snowy beards, each man with a mouth he couldn’t keep shut for long.


‘A mouth he couldn’t keep shut for long’? Why would you phrase it like that?

Minister Lofri’s feathery eyebrows fluttered as he spoke


I’m sorry, his eyebrows what?

(Please enjoy the mental image of me spending several minutes trying to make my eyebrows flutter, in an effort to make this line make sense.)

Two more gryphons dove into the same horse.


They dove…inside the horse???

His mouth curled like a snake’s when the corners pulled up too high.


No it didn’t. His mouth did not curl like a snake’s mouth curls. You might have meant ‘his mouth curled like a snake’ – that would work! But it did not curl like a snake’s mouth curls. You know why? Because their mouths don’t curl.

(At certain angles a snake can open its mouth at you and be extremely cute! But its mouth is not curling.)

Bataar exited into the courtyard first. Inside the estate, suffocation had gripped him


You mean ‘house’. Inside the ‘house’. He hasn’t left the grounds, so he hasn’t left anybody’s ‘estate’, he’s just stepped outside!



The royal ornaments sparkled in light thrown from a tall window, signaling his station in the room of men. He was goddess-blessed, and they only wielded influence because he let them.


The ornaments only wield influence because he let them? And ‘signaling his station’ sounds so off. It’s not technically wrong! But you could say that so much better if you tried literally at all.

Speaking of ‘literally’, the dialogue is bizarrely modern – I know not every fantasy reader cares about this, but uh, if you do, it’s a problem here.

I’d literally rather practice sums or read Grandmother’s diary.”


“Yeah, yeah. Don’t get smart.”


For a fantasy that is all about war, the scenes of violence and/or gore are terrible. I’ve noticed before that if you don’t use sensory description for things like monsters, the description falls flat and they’re not scary. The same sort of thing happens here: the description is so minimal, or else odd, that the intended effect is not coming through. (And I say this as someone who is very sensitive to gore!)

Its body slammed so hard into one of the horses that bones broke and torn-open veins sprayed showers of red. Bataar had never seen something die as quickly as that horse’s soul spurted out of its body.


SPURTED? The soul SPURTED out of its body? Even if your minimal description didn’t leave me cold, this is just going to make me crack up during a scene you want me to take seriously.

SPURTED. Oh my gods.

Thick intestines like strings of sausages were strewn across the dirt


Listen: you’re not wrong! Sausages are made out of intestines! The intestines probably do actually look like sausages! But: sausages are not scary. Sausages are either neutral or outright cosy, depending on your reader’s preferences/experience with them. Food descriptors for gore do not work in text form, and I will explain why!

See, if I was standing where this character is standing, and saw gore, and my brain went ‘sausages’, I would probably be really grossed out! Possibly distressed! But I would be distressed at my own response to the gore, not the gore itself (in that moment). It’s like if you smell a burned human body, and it reminds you of cooked pork or something: you want to throw up because it is deeply disturbing that you could find that smell appetizing. The smell in and of itself is not horrifying: your own reaction to it is.

But if I am not standing there – if it is not my brain that thinks ‘sausages’ or ‘yummy pork’ or whatever – then there is no horror. The food descriptor just becomes…pretty dumb, actually. You want me to be icked out by sausages??? That’s. That’s not gonna happen, ma’am. I’m sorry. I’m just thinking about an English Breakfast now.

Oh, and the monsters don’t get described well either;

A clear membrane slid over the gryphon’s eyes. It looked like a huge lion, except for its beak and feathered back legs ending in taloned feet.


That is very plain, boring description, but also: the gryphon looks like a LION with a BEAK??? Are you sure? Are you sure that’s what you want me to picture? (And like, you can do what you want, obviously, it’s fantasy, but gryphons usually have the front half of eagles and the back half of lions and the mental image I have looks deeply weird with it the other way around.)(Also you might want to tell your cover artist that they got your gryphons wrong.)

This isn’t a prose issue, but: hi, your characters are stupid. In one early scene, our MMC orders his eagle to attack the hunting bird of a prince. The prince is upset. (The bird is fine. But like. I’d be upset too.) Possibly I am just being Very Autistic, but I have scrutinised this scene several times and I cannot work out why the hell the MMC did that. This prince is not an important person, exactly, but he is important to the MMC’s plans – and even if he wasn’t, what kind of idiot makes enemies when he doesn’t have to? You’re a terrible war-leader! Goodbye!

His two second-in-commands, who are his besties and clearly attracted to each other, also have this kind of banter, which I hate so much;

“Leave some women for the rest of us.”

“What woman wants you?” Shaza deadpanned.

“I can think of one.” He narrowed his eyes. “Or two.”

She shoved him. “Watch your tongue if you want to stay attached to it, louse.”


Ahh yes: the Badass Woman who is aggressive to the man she’s attracted to because gods forbid she display Feelings. Specifically, is aggressive to the man she’s attracted to who has done nothing wrong. What did he say that made him a louse? He said one woman ever might be attracted to him! MAYBE two women! That’s not a gross thing to say! If anything, it’s kind of funny, and very surprising, to hear a guy say only one or two women might be attracted to him! That’s very modest! It certainly isn’t rude.

I despise this kind of banter/dynamic. No. Go away.

I could go on – I could talk about how strange the timeskips are, in that they skip over some momentous events in the lives of each main character that we were set up to expect on-page (Nohra becoming a Harpy Knight, which her opening chapter made clear was the sole goal of her life; Bataar marrying Qaira whom he had no chemistry with when they were introduced); or the very strange way paragraphs keep going statement->not clearly related fact with no overt connection between them; or the wildly wrong use of the word hatpin – I could go on! But. I have gone on way too long already.

I really did want to love this. The premise is so cool. But I cannot enjoy it.

It was an intricate, beautifully crafted tale. I adore the world building, the world lore, and how things played out. All the political intrigues, how the characters dancing around each other with tensions running high... I simply had so much fun reading this book! Everyone is so hot too lol. I love how strong Nora is as a lead, followed by Bataar and Qaira and Darya and all of the other characters. I enjoyed this book so much and can't wait to read the next installment!

The Gryphon King by Sara Omer is a breath-taking and immersive epic fantasy that combines rich world-building, morally complex characters, and a slow-burning romance to create a story that is as thrilling as it is thought-provoking. The first instalment in a Southwest Asian-inspired trilogy, this novel is perfect for fans of Godkiller and Samantha Shannon, offering a fresh and vibrant take on the fantasy genre.

The story begins with Bataar Rhah, a legendary warrior chosen by the gods to rule the continent of the Red Steppe. Known for his improbable victories and fearsome reputation, Bataar sets his sights on the wealthy and powerful kingdom of Dumakra, whose princesses rule the skies on the backs of winged, man-eating horses. When rumours of Bataar’s advance reach Dumakra, Nohra Zultama, one of the kingdom’s formidable warrior princesses, prepares to face him. However, as betrayal and deceit unravel her father’s court, Nohra finds herself caught in a web of political intrigue and personal conflict.

One of the standout features of The Gryphon King is its richly imagined world-building. Omer draws inspiration from the diverse Turkic cultures of Southwest Asia, creating a setting that feels both familiar and refreshingly original. The Red Steppe and Dumakra are vividly brought to life, with their unique customs, landscapes, and mythologies adding depth and texture to the narrative. The inclusion of djinn, ghouls, and other mythical creatures further enriches the world, making it a place readers will want to explore.

The characters are equally compelling, with Nohra and Bataar standing out as complex and multifaceted protagonists. Nohra is a fierce and determined warrior, but her vulnerability and internal struggles make her relatable and human. Bataar, on the other hand, is a charismatic and enigmatic figure, whose motivations and actions are often morally ambiguous. The dynamic between Nohra and Bataar is electric, filled with tension and mutual respect, while her growing closeness to Bataar’s wife, Qaira, adds another layer of complexity to the story.

The plot is fast-paced and full of twists and turns, keeping readers on the edge of their seats from start to finish. The stakes are high, with the fate of entire kingdoms hanging in the balance, and the tension builds steadily as Nohra and Bataar are forced to confront not only each other but also the rising tide of ancient evils threatening their world. The themes of power, loyalty, and the cost of vengeance are explored with nuance and depth, making this more than just a fantasy adventure.

Thematically, The Gryphon King delves into the complexities of leadership and the moral dilemmas that come with wielding power. The novel also explores the bonds of family and the lengths to which people will go to protect those they love. These themes are woven seamlessly into the narrative, adding emotional weight and resonance to the story.

If there is a minor critique, it is that some readers may find the slow-burning romance and political intrigue to be a bit dense at times. However, this is a small quibble in an otherwise masterfully crafted novel.

The Gryphon King is a stunning debut that will appeal to fans of epic fantasy and richly detailed world-building. Sara Omer has created a story that is as thought-provoking as it is entertaining, offering readers a chance to lose themselves in a world of myth, magic, and moral complexity.

A richly imagined and emotionally resonant epic fantasy, The Gryphon King is a must-read for fans of morally ambiguous characters, intricate world-building, and slow-burning romance.

Thank you to NetGalley and Titan Books for the chance to read this!

I know without a doubt, this is going to be one of my favorite reads of the year (and this year is shaping up to be a very well-read year).

Told through two points of view, The Gryphon King manages to show the vast differences in circumstances when one protagonist decides to invade another protagonist's country. Tying them slowly together is Qaira, a healer who takes care to hide her sharp edges and shows her soft parts first and foremost, an extremely effective disarming technique.

Nohra is a warrior princess, a Harpy Knight meant to defend her father and brothers. Her love is to her pegasus, then her scythe-sword, which she earned at too young an age. She's not isolated from other women either, closest to her sister Shaza, and protective of her younger sisters. Still, when her country is invaded and her father killed, she leaps at the chance to spend more time with Qaira, the chief wife of her conqueror.

Bataar is a conqueror, a man who as a child saw the younger brother of a friend killed before him by a gryphon, his spirit destroyed. He must make up the fact that he was born alive, and follow what he sees as the only way he can do so: by becoming so great a ruler that his realm will stretch from one side to the other. He's also deeply in love with his wife Qaira, his helpmate and the person he relies on most when dealing with politics of his newer, expanded kingdom.

But they're not alone. Nohra's spoiled brother Nasser, vast civil unrest, Nohra's despised aunt who may be the helpmate Nohra and her sisters need to overthrow Bataar, and the growing abilities of Nohra's best friend who very much *does not want to talk about it*.

There's Qaira to tie Bataar and Nohra together, but a Harpy Knight must defend the kingdom from all-- inside and out. And Nohra's Bleeding Edge is needed...