Queens Kings and Monsters

This book was super interesting. So interesting that i read it in one spectacular day! I highly suggest you pick this one up as soon as you can!!

This book was an ARC from Netgalley and the publisher in exchange of an honest review.

5 Stars of encouragement because it's pretty AMAZING!

I love the cover, it's so beautiful.

Dear miss/mister. Teddy Baire, I hope that you're working on a sequel because that ending was not enough for me, I want more, I need more, more of Rana, the Black Jewel, Victor and all that crazy wonderful and amazing world that you've created. For a first book, I've to say that it was pretty good and interesting.
By the way, I don't know why but I felt that there should be a prequel to this one in order to understand some events and some characters' stories.
Anyway, this book starts with a 13 years old girl Rana with a mysterious story and who everybody in the kingdom is trying to find due to her odd magical power that even her has no clue about it. She is found and forced to be part of an adult harsh world, she encounter characters who either try to help her or to hurt her. 
Then , we have Victor Krill, the Sixth general in the army of the kingdom of Mari,  who has no magical power and was going to retreat from this position but then he is forced to the mission of finding Rana. He is also a character with a mysterious past. 
What I also love about this author is that she/he wasn't lazy because she/he even worked on the secondary characters by making them so much absorbing who made the story much more alive. 

This is a book with a teen girl as a main character that we follow her adventures but let's be honest,  it's absolutely not a book for teens due to some adult themes and scenes. In other words, there is abuse, rape, prostitution and a lot of violence and this is why I was so hesitant about giving this book 5 stars.
I can't say that I didn't like this book because I really loved it. Also  It kept me interested and that's what I'm always looking for in my readings. Anyway,  I really hope that this book will get the success that it deserves. I've to point that there were some spelling mistakes here and there, I don't know if the author was notified about them or not but it doesn't diminish from the quality of the book and that it's a good story.
I'm really waiting for the next book of this author and I hope and wish that it will a sequel to "QK&M".
 Just enjoy because It's pretty AMAZING!

Firstly I have to say that I loved the cover for this one, and the premise was intriguing. There were a few places however, where the execution failed. I think the primary issue was there were aspects of the worldbuilding and character backstories, that gave the impression that there should have been an earlier book or more development, which was a little jarring and left me feeling a little lost at place.
    That said it was an enjoyable enough read, and the plot and writing flowed well, and I did enjoy the characters. There were some darker themes, and while the main protagonist is a teen, this book could not and should not be pushed into the YA section.

Where to start?

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for my copy of this book. The opinions expressed in this review are my own.

The cover of the book was what caught my attention, however, I didn’t really like the art after actually looking at it. I believe covers are just as important as the stories execution because (while you shouldn’t judge a book by it’s cover) they can be the reason a person doesn’t give it a second glance. The summary of the book was what had me interested though.

As for the story itself... I had a hard time getting into this world myself. It was definitely missing something.

I really enjoyed this book I couldn’t put it down. There are definitely parts of this book that were very hard to read.. Rana is definitely an awesome girl I can’t wait to find out what happens to her next. I love victor I hope he gets to retire and I hope he never has to deal with the queen again. The powers people have in this book are cool I am so interested in the red crystals and what they mean. Overall I would definitely recommend this book but if assaults are something you can’t read then this book might not be for you.

I was attracted to this book due to the cover but I had a hard time getting into at first. It's a well written book

this had what I looked forward to in a fantasy novel, the characters were great and I loved the plot. It was a great read and I hope there is more in this universe.

Overall, the writing was very good. I found it just descriptive enough without going too far into massive amounts of exposition. However, I also felt that the world itself lacked cohesion between the different character perspectives.  Since there is such a separation between the character POVs, it would have been good to see some likeness in the world echoed between them. Things like the characters observing similar architecture or armor, or mention of the queen earlier with Rana. There was just too much of a disconnect, especially in the first 1/4 of the novel.

This one seemed to have ingredients that I'm into - magic, war, girl discovering she's more than what she believed, different kingdoms, found family... But nope, nope, nope, not for me. There were so many characters introduced that it was hard to keep them all straight, some parts had absolutely nothing to do with the overall plot and seemed like they were just in there for shock factor or for smutty appeal, and it was quite a rapey book. Seriously - you can't get through a chapter without some older guy making a pass at a younger girl, some cock or whore talk, or some actual rape.

There were also a lot of things that weren't explained - she goes by Rana and doesn't seem to remember much of what's happened to her but she also somehow knows that her real name is Fairline and that she's hiding because of bandits? I'm so confused. Also, what was up with the scene between the queen and Victor at the very beginning of the book? Was that supposed to mean something? Because we never saw her again and that incident was never brought up. Again - something there just for shock or smutty value. And what about Rana's friends living with the doctor?! Ahhh there are so many loose ends and unexplained things that I feel like my head is going to explode.

I started out writing this review at 2 stars but I just decreased it to 1 star because the confusion really is that enraging. And also, what is up with fantasy writers thinking that the way to increase the appeal of their books is to make young girls into sex objects? Can we please retire that trope? I can sympathize with a young girl that's been separated from her family and plunged into a world of creepers without the addition of men that want to "break her in." Yuck.

Ok. I'll stop now. I clearly didn't like this one. The end.

This sounded really good from the synopsis, but I found my initial interest quickly waning, it started off well, but I just found myself quickly losing it with the story and the constant misogyny/old men being into young girls,  references of sexual assault and rape, not for me at all.

Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for a free copy for an honest opinion

Unfortunately this book just wasn’t for me.

The synopsis suggested that this book would be one that I would enjoy being a dark adult fantasy.
I thought the basic storyline was interesting with a kingdom being fought over & a young girl trying to find her way in the world. I also loved the cover.

I enjoy dark fantasy & do not shy away from violence or unpleasant behaviour if these things are a part of the plot / character development. The problem I had with this book is that a lot of these elements seemed to be included for ‘shock value’ and didn’t really feel important to the story.

Thanks to NetGalley and Carlos Woods for an advanced copy of this book in return for an honest review.

First off I have to say that I loved everything about this book from the cover to the story itself. Secondly, I need more. We start by seeing a young girl escape what appears to be a raid on her home but as we find out there's so much more to her story. We follow young Rana through-out several adventures from getting taken in by a whore house, sold off as a maid and potential whore to the magistrate's son, rescued by a mercenary group, and a twist at the end where we get a glimpse of the power that she didn't even know she had. Along the way, we meet many interesting characters like General Victor Krill, Dessi, Uncle Jasper, Oscar, and many others. I'm curious about the relationship between Victor and his queen as it's only briefly touched on before the sex scene between them and it's occasionally mentioned that the queen has a hold over him. I'm hoping that we get to see more of Victor's story in the second book, or even better maybe a prequel story to explain it. I loved that this story had a bit of a steampunk vibe with the airships and a few other elements. I thought the story was well written and flowed quite nicely even with the multiple POV. I can't wait to see what happens to Rana and all of the other characters in the next book.

Thank you to Netgalley, the publisher and author for providing an ARC. 

I am a sucker for dark fantasy books, however this one was not for me.

The fantasy world held promise but the world building could use improvement. The characters were great, however didn't really connect with me. The writing style was good but not enticing.

A dark adult fantasy novel 

The book follwos two main characters, a young girl named Rana who has to deal with the new situation she is thrown into, and Vincent a man trying to retire from a job he hates. Rana finds herself far from home with no way to get back. She is taken in by a brothel owner and trained to be a maid for nobles but she is not satisfied with that path, so she finds someone to teach her how to defend herself.
Victor is tasked with travelling to a far away kingdom to negotiate the aid in a waging war. He runs into some problems during his travels. The king then sends him out again to find a mysterious girl.

There was a war ever-present in the story and everybody was talking about it but aside from the constant mantioning we see little and know little about the war. I don't even know who was fighting who. Some of the details confused me,

*spoiler ahead*

because I kept thinking that the abduction of the princess was going to become relevant, or that the murderer who escaped was going to come back. There were a lot of loose ends which I hope are going to be cleared up in the next novel?

There were a lot of things I liked about this novel and a lot of things I disliked.
I had a hard time getting used to the two main characters but after a while I really liked them. Rana reminded me of a young Celena Sardothien (from the Throne of glass series) and although I could not understand some of the decisions she made I really liked her in the end. I loved the sortyline of Victor as the detective, uncovering the thruth about the murder on the ship although it did not feel relevant to the plot at all. 

My biggest dislike in the story were the black jewels mercenaries. I get that they were supposed to be Ranas found family but asside from Dessi I hated them all. Especially Oscar. He is supposed to be a father figure for her and she likes him but all he does to her is force her to do things she doesn't want to and being mean to her. Another big problem I had was the sheer abundance of side characters. I could not keep track of all of them and got a little confused sometimes. 
All in all there were four out of about 24 chracters I really liked. 

The writing style sometimes feels a little hastened and the story could have used a lot more details and to really flesh out the adventures of the two main chatacters. But on the other hand the hastened writing creates an urgency and a fast pace. 

All in all I enjoyed the story but it feels more like a series of short stories or events strung togehter than a connected story. A sort of overture before the real adventure begins.