It's convoluted and complex and I love it. The premise is amazing and it's well-written! The characters aren't quite as three dimensional as I would have liked BUT they're still interesting! the backstories were a little cliche though. 

However, the point of views switching between 1st and 3rd person made things confusing and it was awful having to readjust. The beginning and middle were fantastic but the last fourth of the book occasionally felt forced and rushed. However, the final 30-40 pages were stunning!

EDIT: I finished my first re-read. I've fallen more in love with this series after having read the sequel and third book & wanted to see what little things I might have missed on the first read. The world-building is amazing, and now that I'm used to the switch between POVs & the timeline-jumping, I can say that both of those things work in the book's favor rather than against it. It makes the book feel like a puzzle where pieces are slowly being added to once-empty spaces in the middle of an otherwise complete section. Lyons is meticulous in how she sets things up and subtle in connecting things to make the most impact. I adore this series. Definitely one to pick up!

[The DRC I got seems to only have been a partial book, so these are just preliminary thoughts for the novel.]

This is the first book in Lyons's A Chorus of Dragons fantasy series.
THE RUIN OF KINGS is a very strong opening instalment - well-written, with interesting characters and an engaging plot.

Will definitely read the rest of the novel and series. Very promising start.

DNF. I couldn't connect with this book at all and found it really hard to get into. I had high hopes for this, which is a shame.

This was an epic fantasy that I really enjoyed. It captured me from page one and never let me go. It was a thrilling ride that I’m still thinking about long after I finished the last page.

Very much enjoyed reading this, so much so I bought a copy and look forward to reading again in the near future, when time and backlogs permit. As well as picking up the next book in the series.

Took me a while to get into the writing style but once I did it was a very enjoyable read.

I enjoy epic fantasy and this was definitely a start of an epic series.   I look forward to reading more titles in this series and being even more invested in the world Lyons created.

This book made me dream with fantasy! I extremely liked it, and cannot wait to continue with this saga. I like how the story is settled and how is told.

Ruin of the Kings by Jenn Lyons, I read this book in December 2018, sorry for posting a late review.

I was looking forward to this book which had so much advace publicity, I became disappointed after reading The Ruin of Kings. This debut novel from Jenn Lyons was the first of a series of world building novels that would center around dragons, magicians, princes and demons. Kihrin, is the thief raised in the slums of Quur, Lyon's seems to change Kihrin backstory in every chapter. Instead of the complex world building, for me the plot and character became a tangled web as I tryed to keep the plot line straight from chapter to chapter. There were to many confusing plots, characters with similar names. I finshed this book but I would not read the next of the series to The Ruin of Kings.
I have read may books published by Tor and have enjoy their fantasy fiction. I have high school readers who have grown to be fantasy fiction readers, who also love dystopian fiction.
Thank you NetGallery and to Tor Pulishing for providing this free copy for my opinion, I rate this book 3 stars.

The protagonist is Kihrin, the son of a minstrel who spends more time getting into mischief for his thievery and fighting than practicing his harp. After one of his heists, it looks as if Kihrin is about to profit from his work, when a demon manifests in the city and chases him through the streets of Quur. After being saved by the city watch, it is revealed to him—because of his physical attributes—that he is the lost heir of House D’Mon, one of the 12 Royal Houses of the Quur Empire. Claimed against his will into a life he doesn’t want, Kihrin learns quickly that being a noble is not as worthwhile as the tales and other people make it out to be. At the same time, Kihrin suspects that a few members of his new family might be up to no good. However, before he can escape, Kihrin is kidnapped and sold to the Black Brotherhood as a slave. Yet, this organization isn’t interested in keeping him as a slave, but wants to train him to be an assassin in order to fulfill his destiny in the war to come. Kihrin’s story is a twisted bildungsroman about a 15-year-old boy who is forced to grow up under arduous conditions in a hostile environment with people who refuse to reveal his identity to him. Kihrin develops into an adult whose complexity leaves him with more questions than answers; but, the other characters he meets and interacts with along the way give him hints to his (true) identity.

The Ruin of Kings is an ambitious start to a new epic fantasy series, which present the harsh realities surrounding royalty, magic and prophecies. Within these twisted tropes is a story about a young man who had all of his choices taken away from him, yet he strives to protect everything he cares about, even if destiny says otherwise. Jenn Lyon’s story contains complex characters and a world whose history and culture is as complex yet constant as ours. This novel is like the story it tells, simple at first, and then drops you into the story “in media res.”

"The Ruin of Kings" is a mostly good story but can be confusing at points. I think the story could have used a few changes in order for the reader to be able to make sense of everything.

Overall rating is closer to 3.5 than a 4.

I loved this book! My review is not based on this NetGalley excerpt, but from the FC I purchased for myself. 

The Ruin of Kings is a long and multilayered book that you probably need a spreadsheet to keep track of all the things and layers and historical tidbits and characters in it. The story has quite a few layers. The first is that the entire thing is a transcript of the event sent to the ruler collected by a mage. The second is the mage's own comments as he goes through and gathers this information (lots of Nevernight reminiscent footnotes). The third layer is Talon and Kihrin sitting in prison, recounting Kihrin's story. The fourth and fifth layer is their recountings, Talon's from a third party POV about how Kihrin got to this point, Kihrin's a first person POV a little bit after Talon's about how he got to this point. The sixth layer happens after the retellings, once they are caught up to modern day. Kihrin's and Talon's story are told in alternating chapters, and it can get confusing switching from first person to third person but still being a story about the same person (Kihrin). Confusing? It happens.

In addition, the story is filled with layers of historical bits of all the characters, races, and gods that is hard to keep track of in between the switching of POVs and actual events in the book. AND there is the main plot of the book and a smaller one (but one that seems much more important) that we are given information for (but in bits and pieces. Things will be briefly mentioned in one chapter and then so much will happen and then they will come back to it many chapters later and expect you to remember everything). Honestly, it was a little bit of torture. But there is so much world-building and so many awesome characters, that I forgave this book its flaws. I really adore this series.

Unfortunately, this was not the book for me. I tried very hard to read it, but I had to DNF it. 

I don't feel like I can accurately review this book as I did not finish it. 

Thank you for allowing me the chance to read it.

A different take on fantasy. Dark and brutal. Love the multiple pov's and scope of the story. Not your average read.

I recommend you try The Ruin of Kings by Jenn Lyons. You'll laugh, you'll cry, be mad, be happy, and even take in sudden breaths out of shock. This book has everything including cute notes at the end of each chapter explaining things almost as a citation or defining who monsters or gods are. The notes at the end threw me off to begin with, but I got used to them and even looked forward to these little tidbits.

In addition to Kihrin, we also get to know a boy named Talon. He is a performer, but is owned; he's basically a slave but has a really great owner. He is trying to buy both his father and himself out of ownership. To do this, he also goes at night and steals. On one of his outings he steals something he really shouldn't have, and it ends up causing him more trouble than he could have guessed it ever would.

How these two stories come together I don't know yet, but am excited for the next book to find out.

The Ruin of Kings had the potential to be a great book but it didn't live up to the great premises. The whole story was interesting but the continuing change of POVs, as well as the two different timelines, confused me and I didn't fully enjoy the reading. There were also a lot of characters and it was difficult to remember them all. If it was less messy, maybe it could have been a very good book.

This was my first book by this author, It was pretty enjoyable. I would give this book a 3.5 star rating! It was a pretty Quick and easy read!

4.5 stars. If you can deal with the unconventional writing style, you will be in for a treat! The story follows Kihrin, a well-adjusted boy who discovers secrets about himself, his family and the gods that changes everything he thought he knew. I think this story is best going in blind so I won’t say anything more. 

Ruin of Kings seems to upend a lot of tropes that you encounter with fantasy. Not saying that there aren’t any, just that they are dealt with in a way that felt fresh for the genre. The story moved quickly and the world building was top notch without the requisite clunky info dumping. 

The only reason I didn’t give this 5 stars is because there is a confusion factor in the way this story is told. The story is told in dual POVs but there is also body switching, name switching, footnotes etc so at times I found myself having to circle back to make sure I had everything squared away. When it worked, it worked - it helped enrich the world immeasurably. And when it didn’t, it came off convoluted and unnecessary. But, I will say this - the way the story ended I don’t think the subsequent books will be written in this style. So no need to fear this will be ongoing. I would highly advise you listen to the audiobook (fantastic narrators) and strap in for a truly impressive story.

For a preview, this has me incredibly excited to read the full novel, though I will only be able to give a review for this preview and not the book in general until I do so as endings can make or break a story. The footnotes were extremely distracting and did not add to the story, only working to seemingly convince readers that the world is super developed.

I ended up feeling a little confused throughout this book with the back and forth between perspectives, but overall I enjoyed it.  I'm hoping that the next will add some clarity and tie up some of the loose ends!

This was an interesting story, told from one perspective but on two different concurrent timelines.  I didn't really like the way it jumped back and forth with the same character, I think that works better with two different characters as it seemed hard to follow at times.

The main character and character development in general was good.  I got into them and was rooting for and against particular characters throughout.

The pacing was pretty good and the story kept pulling you along with entwined pieces of action and plot development.  However, I was very disappointed with the ending.  I felt that it was not really an ending at all.  It didn't feel like much of anything from the main plot was reversed, developed fully, or brought to a conclusion.  It's like this book just reveals the main plot, runs you through some subplot, which is fun reading mostly, but you don't get anywhere.  

The prose and readability of the writing was good.  

This is a 3.5 star book for me.  The series has potential and may turn out to be great, but the lack of any type of closure hurt my opinion.