Heir of Storms, a page-turning fantasy I recently finished, asks the question: In a world of kings and queens, what if winning the throne is more competition than heredity?
This premise hooked me, and I’m glad it did, because I really enjoyed Lauryn Hamilton Murray’s book (and already preordered the sequel). There’s the type of worldbuilding that explains a lot but leaves me intrigued to learn more, a compelling magic system, some romance (but no sex–this isn’t romantasy), and a multi-level contest with some twists and turns.
One element I found particularly intriguing was the pace of the book. Instead of throwing the competitors into an arena for most of the book, the competition takes place over 4 rounds with plenty of downtime (to heal, train, investigate mysteries, pursue love interests, etc). The result is that each sequential chapter felt different while leaving me wanting to know what happens next in the recently covered categories.
I recommend Heir of Storms! Have you read anything recently that you recommend?
Sometimes I wish I liked high fantasy because I know there are a lot of good book (movies, board games) out there. But I was never able to connect myself to a fantasy world.
But I do like low fantasy (fun fact, I just learned the difference between high and low fantasy recently), and I do highly recommend Two Suns at Sunset by Gene Doucette. It’s a first book in an a four book series (so far) about kind of a murder mystery in an alien world but it’s much more than that. It mixes futuristic reality with religious houses (that do science also) with kings and kingdoms in a separate area of the same world and the mystery in the books connect tall these together. While it’s a fantasy world building, I can relate to the characters and setting that are very human (like). I approached the book with caution because I was afraid its fantasy setting is going to push me away but I’m totally in and I devoured the three books one after the other. Fourth book came out not long ago and the fifth cannot come soon enough.
That’s an interesting differentiation! Thanks for the recommendation.