I recommend you try The Ruin of Kings by Jenn Lyons. You'll laugh, you'll cry, be mad, be happy, and even take in sudden breaths out of shock. This book has everything including cute notes at the end of each chapter explaining things almost as a citation or defining who monsters or gods are. The notes at the end threw me off to begin with, but I got used to them and even looked forward to these little tidbits.

In addition to Kihrin, we also get to know a boy named Talon. He is a performer, but is owned; he's basically a slave but has a really great owner. He is trying to buy both his father and himself out of ownership. To do this, he also goes at night and steals. On one of his outings he steals something he really shouldn't have, and it ends up causing him more trouble than he could have guessed it ever would.

How these two stories come together I don't know yet, but am excited for the next book to find out.

The Ruin of Kings had the potential to be a great book but it didn't live up to the great premises. The whole story was interesting but the continuing change of POVs, as well as the two different timelines, confused me and I didn't fully enjoy the reading. There were also a lot of characters and it was difficult to remember them all. If it was less messy, maybe it could have been a very good book.

This was my first book by this author, It was pretty enjoyable. I would give this book a 3.5 star rating! It was a pretty Quick and easy read!

4.5 stars. If you can deal with the unconventional writing style, you will be in for a treat! The story follows Kihrin, a well-adjusted boy who discovers secrets about himself, his family and the gods that changes everything he thought he knew. I think this story is best going in blind so I won’t say anything more.

Ruin of Kings seems to upend a lot of tropes that you encounter with fantasy. Not saying that there aren’t any, just that they are dealt with in a way that felt fresh for the genre. The story moved quickly and the world building was top notch without the requisite clunky info dumping.

The only reason I didn’t give this 5 stars is because there is a confusion factor in the way this story is told. The story is told in dual POVs but there is also body switching, name switching, footnotes etc so at times I found myself having to circle back to make sure I had everything squared away. When it worked, it worked - it helped enrich the world immeasurably. And when it didn’t, it came off convoluted and unnecessary. But, I will say this - the way the story ended I don’t think the subsequent books will be written in this style. So no need to fear this will be ongoing. I would highly advise you listen to the audiobook (fantastic narrators) and strap in for a truly impressive story.

For a preview, this has me incredibly excited to read the full novel, though I will only be able to give a review for this preview and not the book in general until I do so as endings can make or break a story. The footnotes were extremely distracting and did not add to the story, only working to seemingly convince readers that the world is super developed.

I ended up feeling a little confused throughout this book with the back and forth between perspectives, but overall I enjoyed it. I'm hoping that the next will add some clarity and tie up some of the loose ends!

This was an interesting story, told from one perspective but on two different concurrent timelines. I didn't really like the way it jumped back and forth with the same character, I think that works better with two different characters as it seemed hard to follow at times.

The main character and character development in general was good. I got into them and was rooting for and against particular characters throughout.

The pacing was pretty good and the story kept pulling you along with entwined pieces of action and plot development. However, I was very disappointed with the ending. I felt that it was not really an ending at all. It didn't feel like much of anything from the main plot was reversed, developed fully, or brought to a conclusion. It's like this book just reveals the main plot, runs you through some subplot, which is fun reading mostly, but you don't get anywhere.

The prose and readability of the writing was good.

This is a 3.5 star book for me. The series has potential and may turn out to be great, but the lack of any type of closure hurt my opinion.

The Ruin of Kings puts the epic into the Epic Fantasy genre. I haven't read an epic fantasy in years and I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed this because of its difference. It is one huge novel and I was ready to immerse myself in Lyons world.

I am truly deeply in love with Kihrin and his disaster self. the key aspect I loved about this novel was its slow burn with a certain dark-haired Vane which I truly hope is the end game for Kihrin. I do wish we had seen more of Kihrin's bisexuality in The Ruin of Kings and although the boy doth protest too much I would have liked something slightly more concrete.

I am also worried about The Name of things (Book 2) as it seems we are being introduced to a whole new set of characters, and I believe I just want more of Kihrin so it is yet to be decided whether I delve into book 2 or not.

Overall a wonderful epic fantasy to break back into the genre. And I will hold out judgement for book 2

Found this book a little dense in the material and the world building. Normally I enjoy fantasy books such as this (such as Sanderson) but this one seemed very info heavy and hard to keep up with. I'm sure some fantasy readers would love this but it wasn't for me.

I generally read - old school i know - fantasy and SF, but saw this one on audio...hands down, the best book I have listened to (with multiple narrators) or read in a while. The story is presented in a past/present format with a main character and the points of view of (almost) everyone in his life. 5/5 stars.
I also read the advanced copy of the book which was compliments of NetGalley and the publisher. The reading copy I give 4.5/5 due to switching back and forth on storyline, which was a bit confusing without "hearing" a difference in tonality/age/etc.

Unfortunately, The Ruin of Kings wasn't for me. I wanted to like it: there are a lot of things to like about it. But it didn't do it for me. I'm sure others will enjoy much more than I did.

I didn't figured out that I'll get only the except of the story, so to be honest I wasn't really excited to start reading, since I won't have the whole thing. From what I read, it has a lot of potential, so I hope someday I'll be able to read through whole story.

The Ruin of Kings by Jenn Lyons is a mystifying epic fantasy novel set in a terrifying world where gods and demons walk alongside humans and other creatures. The worldbuilding of this series is massive but it didn’t really feel like it because I really relished the way the story was being unraveled and that helped to build upon the world. The bulk of the story is told through two different POVs while being compiled through a third POV who often leaves footnotes to clarify certain parts of the story but all of it follows one main central character. The story alternates between two time periods before finally converging on the “present”. I really enjoyed the suspense and mystique of this storytelling. If you like stories that highly rely on lies and deception, this is definitely the story for you. The story hardly ever gives the truth of any situation.

Kihrin is a bastard orphan that has grown up in a whorehouse with his blind “father” and a godmother/aunt who has helped raise him. He has been told the story of how he came to live with them but he always believed his father’s more believable story was the true one… until his eyes are opened to the truth. Once Kihrin’s origin is revealed, he moves in with the family who claims him but life in a palace is even more dangerous and deadly than Kihrin’s life on the street as a thief. The young Kihrin story is told through the eyes of a mind stealing/body stealing shapeshifter who portrays the story as to how Kihrin is in the predicament he is in.
Kihrin tells his part of the story in the second major POV and it is set in the more “present” time even though it is not. Kihrin is sold into slavery and at the auction he learns that he’s more popular than he thought. It’s not long after this event, he begins to learn about a prophecy and his role in it. In his journey, he begins to learn some hard lessons and train in order to become who he needs to be to fulfill the prophecy.

I was hooked on the story until a major revelation about the MC was revealed and I felt it was a bit of a letdown. I was kind of disappointed since the information seemed to come out of nowhere and hadn’t really seen page time until the revelation. After that I wasn’t as involved with the story as I was. The synopsis states: “There are the old stories. And then there’s what actually happens.” Because of that, the story does constantly talk about how the MC knew this story wrong but when he encounters the truth it is kind of a comparison game of what is truth and what has been embellished. This happens over and over again. Most of the time these stories aren’t even relayed until the truth of the story is being revealed.

Kihrin is 15 years old at the start of his story and The Ruin of Kings spans about five years of his life. It may seem like this is a young adult story but it is not. I personally don’t have a problem with a teen reading this but there are some heavy themes (sex, murder, rape, incest and cannibalism) and lots of killing. At times Kirhin is a selfish, spoiled brat and at other times he’s unselfish and rational. He goes from having a plan to just trying to stay alive. He does throw a lot of fits because the people in this novel have a hard time telling the truth or just plain telling the facts… in order for him to get any kind of answers. It is almost like he has to stay in the dark about everything…

The shapeshifter, Talon, is my favorite character of the series. She has no problem with eating people for their memories. She loves to shock people and she has no problem telling it like it is. I kept hoping for some kind of redeeming arc but there is no redeeming Talon. She’s pretty evil. Although, who knows… there are four more books planned in this series.

In the end, I did lose some interest just because all the deception was getting to be too much. And I kind of wish the prophecy was more detailed so I’m not sure quite what the setup is for the rest of the series but I will definitely check out the next book. I liked enough of the characters and I am intrigued by how the storytelling will differ from the storytelling of this book.

I wanted to like this book. I really did. I mean, look, there's a dragon on the cover. How can it go wrong. But it did for me. Maybe it was me, that I simply didn't get it.

I found this preview to be a little dense, but I did enjoy it. I would only recommend to high-fantasy readers who are likely to enjoy complex world building, but not for those who are new to the genre.

I'm not sure what to make of this book. It confused me a bit, the way it was written, from different character perspectives telling the story. I didn't really care for it, nor the ending.

First of all, I didn't realize this was an excerpt when I clicked the read now button and added this title to my NetGalley queue. This has taught me to be a lot more careful when reading email from NetGalley to make sure I'm not getting stuck with partial books that I am then obligated to read bits of and review. Secondly, since I'm so behind, I naturally missed the publication date of the complete book, and in an effort to catch up on my NetGalley reads, I purchased the audiobook. I've reached the point in the audiobook that corresponds with where the excerpt ends, so my review is based strictly on the excerpt portion of book.

Lyons has created a very dense, complex world, and thus has to spend a great deal of time providing the reader with details about that world so events make sense. I think she does this well, but I also think that this is a book that works better in print than on audio, so that the reader can more easily flip back to check names, places, and little details that are easily overlooked. This is not a book to speed read through. I have questions now that I probably wouldn't have if I had the print version and could flip back. Even the eBook version is not conducive to going back for details, so my initial recommendation is to grab the hard copy. One thing that Lyons does, which is a problem I have with a lot of epic fantasy novels, is create names that are nearly unpronounceable. I'm grateful for the audiobook if for no other reason than someone else gets to say the names. I'm sure I would still stumble over them if I switched to print now. I don't find it clever or cute or intelligent - I find it annoying and vexing, but it's a personal preference, so take that into account.

I'm rating this 4 stars because, while there are elements that annoy me (see above), even listening and being sometimes lost without the text in front of me, there's an interesting story here, with fascinating characters. I want to know more, so I will undoubtedly finish the audiobook. I may even buy a hard copy and switch over on the weekend, instead of just listening at work.

Thank you for this excerpt! Exciting and hard to put down - Cannot wait to read the finished book! The Ruin of Kings is an epic novel filled with great world-building and characters you can't help but root for!

I was really looking forward to this book, but just reading the excerpt i just couldn't see myself actually reading it. Maybe I'll give it a chance later.

I enjoyed this, however it is definitely a world and character building book leading to a series, not alot happens but the characters and there situations make it a worth while read I will definitely be continuing this series!