The Demon King by Cinda Williams Chima (Seven Realms #1)
To start off, I’d heard many mixed things about this book in the series. I’d heard about the description, about the pacing, and really small details that I hoped wouldn’t add up to something larger than what I was looking forward to.
Nonetheless, The Demon King opens up in an intriguing fantasy world where the world has been divided into Seven Realms. And, it also gives quite the different insight on our two main characters: Han Alister, who is a reformed drug lord trying to survive and Princess Raisa ana’Marianna who has just returned to court after three years of living out in the clan with her father.
I liked our main characters a lot. I don’t think I’d choose a favorite among them because Han and Raisa both have admirable qualities to them that make them so similar, yet so different. Another thing that I really liked about this book: every character has a distinct purpose. And by every character I also mean the side characters. All these characters just go together so well that I have to admire Chima’s slow pacing.
I think my favorite part of the book is it’s world-building! The complex relationship between royalty-clan-wizards was shown extremely well. I don’t think there was a certain way to define it! You’d have to read the book to see for yourself!
The only reason I’m giving this a 3.5 star rating is because while I enjoyed the slow pacing in the beginning, it started to feel quite tedious in the middle. And with all of the character, world development, and political tension brewing up I don’t think that an actual plot has actually started. The Demon King feels like a huge “Guide to the Seven Realms” so it sets the stage of the next book quite well.
Thankfully, there was a lot of action towards the end so this book actually ended off with a bang!
I have a lot more books to read, so unfortunately, I’m not sure if I’ll even get to The Exiled Queen this month, which is the second book in the series and may be my favorite cover out of all of them!
Overall, The Demon King is a good first book in this series, it’s just that it has a lot of world-building, character introductions (trust me, there is a lot more than you think) and political tensions that were brewing.
Thanks for reading my review everyone, and hope you have a great day! Until the next one! :D