Falling Kingdoms
Juvenile Fiction
Penguin
2013
Audiobook
401
The road to power... is paved with blood and magic.
Cleo is now a prisoner in her own palace, forced to be an ambassador for Mytica as the evil King Gaius lies to her people.
Magnus stands to eventually inherit the new kingdom but is still obsessed with his feelings for his adopted sister, Lucia.
Lucia is haunted by the outcome of the breathtaking display of magic that allowed her father to capture the kingdoms.
Jonas watched at the palace gates a troop of rebels behind him, waiting for him to tell them how he plans to overtake King Gaius.
After a bloody siege, Auranos has been defeated, its young queen orphaned and dethroned. The three kingdoms—Auranos, Limeros, and Paelsia—are now unwillingly united as one country called Mytica. But the allure of ancient, dangerous magic beckons still, and with it the chance to rule not just Mytica, but the whole world over...
At the heart of the fray are four brave young people grappling for that magic and the power it promises. For Cleo, the magic would enable her to reclaim her royal seat. In Jonas's hands, it frees his nation, and in Lucia's, it fulfills the ancient prophecy of her destiny. And if the magic were Magnus's, he would finally prove his worth in the eyes of his cruel and scheming father, King Gaius, who rules Mytica with a punishing hand.
When Gaius begins to build a road into the Forbidden Mountains to physically link all of Mytica, he sparks a long-smoking fire in the hearts of the people that will forever change the face of this land. For Gaius's road is paved with blood, and its construction will have cosmic consequences.
WrensReads Review:
Unpopular opinion alert:
So I absolutely loved this book?
I am not sure what all my friends read, but maybe they needed to go into the book knowing the characters and stories develop and maybe have someone else read it to them (aka audio book). The narrator, Fred Berman, wasn’t my absolute favorite narrator of all times, but it might have been him reading it that made me rate these books higher.
Let me explain.
When you are reading it to yourself, you are reading it slowly and in your own voice. I listen to audio books at a stupid fast rate and also, it breaks me of a habit I have had since I picked up my last book: reading the ending. I think hearing something being done instead of reading it in your own voice can dramatically change your opinion on something. Which is what I believe is happening here. If I would have just old-schooled this and read it myself, I probably would have given up a long time ago.
But I kind of loved it?
These KIDS are acting like KIDS because they are KIDS, even though they are KIDS with a lot of responsibilities and goals. Not to mention most of these kids are rich kids on top of being just a kid. So they are even worse than normal.
We have a captive princess who is being forced to marry the exact person who killed “the love of her life” (oh high school love), we have a rebel who has to team up with someone who he believes helped the murder of his brother along (get your head in the game Jonas), we have the prince who is trying to please his father and at the same time kind of wants him to die, and we have the most powerful being in the whole world in a sleep-like trance and falling in love with someone who is, in my opinion, rudely interrupting needed dream time!
These are all children guys. They make really stupid decisions. It keeps it interesting in my opinion.
I just find this series to be completely interesting. I love how many point of views it has, I love the majority of the characters and I can find myself being ruined at the end of this book because I know so many of these beloved characters are going to die. But alas, I keep reading.
Oh, and speaking of dying, and someone I wanted to die from book one chapter one finally did..
so that also might have helped me love this book so much more. Like a lot more. Like flipping finally.
WrensReads | Goodreads | Twitter | Instagram
Leave a Reply