This review is part of the blog tour hosted by The Write Reads. Thank you to Dave and Dave for the opportunity to read this book!
More book tours? Yes, and even more after this. Even though I said when I began blogging I wouldn’t do book tours, it seems the majority of my review slots in Q1 are for book tours. And to be honest? I don’t regret it. It’s a great opportunity to discover new books, new authors, and maybe even new genres. While I always thought of myself as a fantasy reader, I only read a handful of adult fantasy in the last few years. So when Dave asked if I wanted to read Kingshold, I thought it was the perfect opportunity to dive back into the genre.
Usually, a fantasy society has a clear hierarchy. So the premise of abolishing a kingdom and turn it into a democracy interested me. I never thought about what kind of process it would be like, regardless of foreign politics. This is what got me interested and I think Wolliscroft has done an excellent job in describing the transition.
One thing I learned is that fight scenes bore me, just like sex scenes. I just don’t care that much about sword fighting anymore. And that’s completely personal. The fights themselves are realistic and well written — kudos to Wolliscroft, because that’s a hard feat — but I skipped most of it. I’m mostly glad this is not the kind of book that pits one of the main characters against thirty minions and miraculously wins the fight. I like those kinds of fights even less.
The book has good points, many of them, but also bad points. It’s not the writing, not the characters, not the plot itself, but I do think it could use better editing. The pacing feels off, some word choices are questionable and don’t fit with the rest of the voice, and some plot mechanisms feel lazy. The foundation of the story is good, the polish is good. But there’s something in between that needs a little work.
Some big events happen in the beginning and no one seems to be affected, or care so little about the event. The king and queen are beheaded, and while we see that it’s the talk of the town, there’s no unrest, no riots, our main cast watches from a distance. An event like that has so little impact, but it’s what triggers the transition. Why does it feel so unimportant?
I give Kingshold three stars. While the writing wasn’t bad, there were definitely some things that irked me. I let my rating depend on the ending, which was satisfying although some parts felt off.
