Review: Falling Kingdoms

Falling Kingdoms by Morgan Rhodes
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I've been seeing this series on store and library shelves for a while, and after years of not touching it (and a few months of serious Sarah J. Maas withdrawal while I'm painfully waiting for Empire of Storms), I've finally read this first book.

It does remind me a bit of A Song of Ice and Fire in terms of the surprisingly high violence level and focus on in-universe politics, with a touch of magic thrown in for texture. The book follows four primary characters, three of them being royals from two of the three kingdoms that comprise this nicely-built story world and one being a young man from the kingdom between the others, spurred to action because another royal shamelessly murdered his brother. The last of these, Jonas, is the most interesting, so it disappoints me just a bit that he goes underutilized throughout much of the book, with the various royals getting more focus. Cleo doesn't seem to add much to the story, and as for Magnus, I'm a bit creeped out by his attraction to Lucia...but then Lucia, she proves pretty surprisingly interesting about halfway through the book, when a big plot twist makes itself known.

So, for sure, I'll be picking up the second book...but I'm hoping for more Jonas, man.

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