This is the third book about the Thief of Eddis that my partner and I have read together. The first was The Thief and then The Queen of Attolia. This book is quite different from the previous two in a lot of ways, but it was nice to read something a little different.
The book is from the point of view of Costas, a guard in Attolia assigned to the King. Only problem is that he hates the King, the popular belief is that the King is an idiot who doesn’t actually care about the Queen. He is seen as little more than an invasion of a neighboring country. So Costas punches the King before the book opens, and is worrying about his future. Thankfully, the King spares his life and instead makes him one of his personal guards. Costas now has to follow the King around everywhere. In doing so, he learns that the King is funny, smart, and appears to be purposefully hiding these because he doesn’t actually want to be King. He truly just wanted to marry the Queen and now he has so many more responsibilities and is dealing with homesickness.
Much of this comes to light when there’s an assassination attempt on the King. Thankfully, Gen (the King) is able to defend himself, but Costas realizes how adept he is through that. And nearly everyone realizes how much the King and Queen care about each other from their responses to the attack. Afterwards the guards don’t believe that he defended himself, so Costas baits Gen into fighting half the guards to prove himself. By the end, not only have the Attolians accepted Gen as their King, but he has fully embraced his role as head of the state.
Overall, I don’t think I would say that this was the best book in the series. Costas is a completely new narrator, and he takes some getting used to as a lot of it is him talking about his honor or whatever. And nothing much happens for a lot of it, it’s just the routine of being at court and the King’s lessons and whatever. I thought the assassination attempt would be more exciting, but Costas largely misses the action and just stands guard while Gen recovers.
There are some very funny moments though. And Gen manages to prove himself in various ways, including his god telling him to get off of a rooftop when he’s drunk. I also really love the relationship between the King and Queen, I wish it was highlighted earlier on. The Queen had Gen’s hand cut off, an incident that still gives him nightmares, but they deeply love each other now. We got snippets of this interaction, such as the Queen comforting the King after his injury and the King convincing her to pardon someone as she should have pardoned him, but I would have liked more.
All in all, I’m excited to continue with the series. I
really like the world and the characters, so I’m happy to hear about what is
coming next. There are hints that the series is building to something, and I
want to see what that entails for Gen and his kingdom.
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