Thank you to NetGalley and Harlequin Teen for providing me with an egalley of this book to read and give my honest review. The opinions expressed here are my own.
An Alexander the Great fiction book? Count me in! I love a good retelling and especially of the older historical fiction kind. I will admit, I didn't know much about Alexander the Great prior to this story so this was a good one for me to learn from.
First off, the characters! Rich and fleshed out. I enjoyed the relationships. As with most fantasy, there are a lot of characters. Each one important to the plot in their own way. And their development was spot on. I'm a sucker for more than one POV and especially when it's done right. Each character with a complexity that kept me wanting to learn more. Their back stories were great.
The writing was rich and flowed really well. The world building was vibrant and really made me feel like I was right there in the story. The author wove in many sub-plot integral to the story line. The pacing was good. I never felt like I didn't want to pick this book back up to see what would happen next.
Overall a very enjoyable read and I'm looking forward to going back to the prequels and reading the next one in the series.

Legacy of Kings is a combination of historical fiction and mythology and fantasy, all bundled together to equal one amazing book. The story is based around a young Alexander the Great, with the addition of a few other major characters, and some interesting secondary ones as well. This was a long book, 428 pages, but well worth the time it takes to read it. I enjoyed it very much and as it is part of a series, Blood of Gods and Royals, I look forward to reading the next book in the series to see where the story goes.

5/5 stars.

Legacy of Kings by Eleanor Herman

I love it when a book combines fantasy with historical fiction, especially ancient history. A look at a Young Alexander the Great was very intriguing to me, and I was eager to sink my teeth into this story. It's a lush, vivid world with so much worldbuilding, so many characters, and beautiful storytelling. There's very little romance, but that's ok! Can't wait for the sequel.

Inspired by Alexander the Great, Legacy of Kings is an epic fantasy adventure that kept me interested from beginning to end. As with any fiction book inspired by history, there was some bending of facts, but as a non-historian I was having too much fun to question it very much. It was a bit slow in parts, but overall, I look forward to reading the next books in the series.

I requested this one back in the day as I had every intention of reading it. However, its been years and I still haven't gotten around to it and while I feel guilty at not reviewing a book I think that I need to admit to myself that I won't be reading this one anytime soon....if at all.

WHY DID I LISTEN TO LEGACY OF KINGS BY ELEANOR HERMAN?
Legacy Of Kings by Eleanor Herman is a book I initially tried to read via eARC. I should preface by saying that I really feel no big difficulty or difference between reading via my Kindle and reading a physical book. Both are valid ways to get the story across and both are formats I enjoy reading. Anyways, I was having SUCH A DIFFICULT time getting through this. Not that it was bad, per se, just my attention kept wandering and I couldn’t stay focused. So, I put it on hold for… years… until I came across Legacy Of Kings on Scribd via audiobook and decided — hey this would be a good chance to FINALLY finish this book.

WHAT’S THE STORY HERE?
Eleanor Herman’s foray into young adult fiction, Legacy Of Kings, is an exploration of the origins of Alexander the Great. Of course, there are four point of view characters. There’s Alexander, obviously. There is this girl named Katerina who started from the bottom now she here. Well, actually, she’s now at court, Alexander has the hots for her, and she has the hots for ANOTHER point of view character. Jacob is that other character and he will have to compete for Katerina’s heart. Meanwhile across the sea in Persia, is Zofia, this princess who is betrothed to Alexander. Given that this is Ancient times, of course they have not met, LOL. Zofia is all about changing her destiny and searching out the Spirit Eaters. So, yeah, there’s a lot going on. Also, Katerina wants to Alexander’s mom because she has something negative to do with Katerina’s mom. And well, that about covers the plot.

HOW DID I LIKE LEGACY OF KINGS?
Okay, so this book D R A G S. I mean, I wanted to like it more. I’ve read adult non fiction by Herman and enjoyed it. She wrote Sex With Kings and Sex With Queens which are basically all about the real life affairs of royal figures from the past. So, you know, here for it. Alas, this book kind of lacked that salaciousness. Yes, I know it is written for young adults and not adults. Still, I don’t know. I was bored in both forms. There were some parts that were intriguing. I liked reading the point of view of Katerina — she’s very interesting and the secrets she uncovers, whoo boy. Otherwise, eh, so bored. Although there’s a scene with Zofia that is very difficult to listen to. Talk about heart rending.

HOW’S THE NARRATION?
Ya know, I really can’t tell if it was the narration or the book that was off putting. I mean, I liked the narration fine. There was not a part where I was like please just pluck my ears off, I cannot take this anymore. Anyways, the audiobook is narrated by Graham Halstead and Jennifer Grace. It’s 16 hour and 34 minutes long. Ultimately, there is nothing all that wrong with Legacy Of Kings, it just was not really the book for me in any sort of format — but hey I gave it the old college try! You might be more into it than I was, however.

I've finally read this book! Yay! And... oh, how I wish I liked it more. It wasn't bad, but it was sooooo slow. Between the multiple points of view and the world/word building, it felt like forever before things finally got interesting. At least the writing was okay!

Ancient history has always been my favourite, and this book speaks to my Homer-loving, mythology-crazed, history-obsessed soul. It's the perfect mix of history and fantasy, and I wish it would spark an entire genre of ancient epics told in a modern way.

The historical details are vivid, the characters are compelling, and the villain is terrifying. This book is basically everything I didn't know I was craving in a book, and I can merely hope the sequel is just as good.

Sadly I DNFed this book. These are my reasons:

- The pacing was too slow. And because the events happening in the novel weren't so entertaining or like interesting for me, I just couldn't keep up.
- At one point, there were too many POVs I was confused. I know it's a big cast and there is a lot of content, but it sometimes loses the attention of the reader to be changing to so many points of views in a single book.

I never had a chance to review this before it expired. I'm sorry!

A great read. It's a mingling of history, intrigue, romance, murder and magic.