Book Reviews

The King Trials by D.L. Sims

2.5/5 stars

Summary: The King Trials follows Kett (the former prince of Elthare), Grant (a man skilled in combat with telekinesis abilities), Andalen (a highly trained archer with dreams of becoming queen), and Ikar (a great hunter and tracker) as they enter the King Trials to win the crown after the passing of Elthare's king. But when an unexpected war breaks out, the trials are postponed and the contestants join the ranks. At the end of the Ten Day battle, only a few champions will remain to claim the throne.

What I liked:

I enjoyed the characters and their various backstories, especially Andalen's character. I connected most with her character because of her high ambitions and refusal to conform to the norms of what society expects from her as a woman. I also appreciate the LGBTQ+ representation in this story and how it's woven in without being the main focus.

I particularly enjoyed the fact that many of the competitors in the trials are lifelong friends and, in some cases, ex-lovers. This created some interesting character dynamics as they competed against each other for the crown.

The story was quite fast-paced, which I liked—to an extent (will dive into that later).

Another element that stood out early on was the world-building, specifically with their magic system and various cultures/people.

What I didn't like:

Although both the character development and world-building were intriguing, I wish we could've seen more of both. The story started off strong, but after the initial chapters with each character, it seemed like a lot of key moments between characters were skipped over instead of explored. I would've loved to see more exploration of those "quieter" moments so that as the reader I can get the opportunity to know them better before the war breaks out, but since those moments were skipped or cut short, it made it a little more difficult to connect closely with the characters, especially in the later chapters. I ended up feeling detached from the characters halfway through the story since their development seemed to drop off. Part of this was also due to the very fast pacing. It seemed the interactions between characters were stripped to a minimum for the sake of the main plot, rather than taking the time here and there to truly explore the potential subplots.

As for the world-building, it started off promising. There was a lot of potential here to include more detail to immerse the reader into the world, but that extra step wasn't taken. I didn't mind that too much, but the main thing that drew me out of the world was the political side with the war. There was almost no build-up or foreshadowing for the war, and even though it's described in the book's summary, it truly did come out of nowhere to the point where it felt like a completely separate storyline, especially with how late into the game the war came into play. The timing of the war—along with how it suddenly shifted all of the characters' goals—disrupted the strong story structure that had originally been going well when the plot focused only on the King Trials.

Overall:

Despite the character development and world-building not being explored as much as I'd prefer it to be, the storyline itself was still captivating and fast-paced enough for me to finish this book in two days. Although I didn't fully fall in love with The King Trials, I didn't hate it, either. Overall, it was still an enjoyable read.