Review: Kingdom of Souls

Kingdom of Souls by Rena Barron
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

4 stars.

TL;DR:
Characters: Complex, rich, dark (this sounds like a coffee blend but it also describes all of our characters!)
Writing: Beautiful, but some pacing issues in the middle
Plot: Fantastic, good mix of heavy action and character-driven, gets a little overly complicated at the end

Kingdom of Souls started a little slow for me but quickly picked up and after I made it through about 25%, I spent the rest of the next few days with my nose glued to my phone (where I read my books).

Arrah's bloodline is full of witchdoctor magic, but it doesn't seem like it will ever come to Arrah. Despite her desperation, she thinks that she would never trade years of her life for magic, like a charlatan. Things change, however, when children begin disappearing and rumors of a Demon King rising being swirling. So much more happens but I can't tell you any more than that!

The pros:
-the worldbuilding
-the complex family relationships of Arrah's family
-the characters
-the beautiful writing

The cons:
-the plot really lagged in the middle after about the halfway point where we discover the mystery of the missing children
-the time/pacing of this middle part happened in a weird place where time operates differently which really messed with my mind/the pacing of the novel/the plot
-the ending revealed a much larger plot point (the series plotline) which I didn't like. I've seen it done too many times before and it brought down the originality of the novel

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