Royal Deception Book I
By Denae Christine
Ok, so I actually enjoyed this book—really, I did. Despite my 3 out of 5 star rating, there were things I really, really liked in this novel.
I’m a huge anime nerd so when I read in the description that the characters could shift their bodies into weapons I wasn’t all like, “Oh my God, that’s the most creative thing ever!” Because I’d seen it before in Soul Eater and a bit in Bleach—though in a different sense for that anime. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t written well here. I’d heard of it before—as I’ve heard of many concepts in fantasy—but it was still enjoyable and crazy awesome. Author, Denae Christine, definitely gets points for stirring my imagination.
I thought the main character was cool. He was a typical prince, a little bratty but in a way that was to be expected from the kind of life that he lived. I thought he was a little insensitive at times but he was young and a bit naïve so I was willing to ignore it.
The book was creative, it was adventurous, and it was full of characters with unique and original names. I love reading interesting names so I was very pleased to find myself scribbling down and highlighting some of the characters, particularly Claur.
The action was good, I could keep up with every scene and it wasn’t hard to imagine what was going on in the writing. I thought the description and detail was good too, there was just enough and even more than I needed in some instances—but that’s not a complaint—Christine did a great job at bringing her world to life and painting a picture of her characters and the lives they lived. I would be very pleased to see this come to life in a movie or a TV show, because I thought the idea was really cool and the concept was entertaining enough to attract audiences of all ages and interests.
Things like betrayal, deception, and assassination of royalty are all what people die to see on the TV screen these days. I could easily imagine flicking through the channels and seeing Royal Deception on … so then why did I give it three stars?
Let me explain.
First…the way the book started was a complete turn-off for me. There were so many names dropped, locations mentioned, magic, folk, just a plain old info-dump of what the book was about and who was involved. There was SO much to take in I shut the book and gave myself a rest for a few days. When I came back I found that it wasn’t so bad. The story wasn’t full of info-dumps, most of the dumping and explaining was done all at once in the first few pages. But once I got past that the reading smoothed out.
Now, I mentioned before that the action was good but I felt like Symon was removed from a lot of it. When I was reading I was like, this is awesome! But looking back, all he really did was hop from one hideout to the next … and then the book ended. I think the pacing should have been a little better. It seemed like the story dragged in places but sped through the end.
My last complaint. This book was original in its own way but it depended very heavily on typical and cliché themes. I can’t really count that against Christine, with a book titled Royal Deception you could guess what it’s going to be about. Betrayal amongst royals, assassinating an heir, who can you trust? It was a little too typical to me BUT I think the shifters and the creativity brought in through their discrimination and turmoil somewhat made up for that.
Royal Deception isn’t a bad book by ANY means. I have my complaints but that’s just my personal opinion. I wouldn’t be surprised to see it become a best seller some day and I’d recommend it to any reader looking for something out of the box and full of adventure. I did enjoy it and I think others will too.