Review: The Sleeping King: A Novel by: Cindy Dees, Bill Flippin

The Sleeping King: A Novel by: Cindy Dees, Bill Flippin

My Rating:


I received a free copy of The Sleeping King: A Novel from the publisher in return for an honest review.

"How am I supposed to master magic if he never taught me?" Will demanded.

"Because it is a simple and powerful truth that cannot be taught, cannot be proven, and cannot be measured. The most powerful magic is all around us. It is in the air we breathe, the earth we stand on, the water we drink, and the fire that warms us. It is always and forever, never waning, never fading. It is what you feel in your heart, what you know in the deepest part of your spirit, and what you believe in your wildest dreams. It is simple and pure like the scent of lady's breath."

The Sleeping King hit the spot for me and had everything that I enjoy in a fantasy novel. It was a bit slow to start with but that was down to all the world building and introducing the characters, which is to be expected in a book like this. It did take me a while to get all the characters down though and I even had to make a few notes to remind myself who was who for a while.

The story is both complex and completely captivating and I found myself drawn into a whole other world. The characters took a bit of getting to know but once I was familiar with them I was totally engrossed in their stories. Each character had their own story outside of the main story and this made them stand out and feel complete as a person.

The pacing once it picked up was nice and I was flying through the pages, I couldn't read fast enough. I was at around 90% and realised there wasn't enough left of the book to complete the story the way I was hoping, I knew there was a cliff hanger coming and I wasn't a happy bunny. However, the ending kind of summed the story up to a certain extent and it's left me dying to know what happens next.

There were a few things that I found irritating, didn't spoil the story though, and the more I came across it the more it irritated me. Lizardman girl, this annoyed me so much. Why not just Lizard girl? Lizardman girl just sounds silly. Also she talks like yoda, which really started to get on my nerves.

"Give it to you I did not. Your pocket I used to hide it from those cursed soldiers." She stared at him defiantly for a moment, then added, "Give it back!"
"I wish I could."
The lizardman girl jolted. "Sell it you did not?"

The dialogue was pretty decent throughout the book but at times I did notice that the character of Rosana started to slip into yoda style every so often and then go back to her usual dialect. It caused me to jump out of the story every time it happened, as did lizardman girls yoda talk. I realise this isn't a huge deal, it's just a little personal niggle as it brought me out of the story every time it happened.

All in all this was a great read and I'm really looking forwards to the next instalment. Highly recommended.


Reviews also posted to my blog: Scarlet's Web
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