[author-post-rating][author-post-rating][author-post-rating][author-post-rating][author-post-rating][author-post-rating][author-post-rating][author-post-rating][author-post-rating][author-post-rating][author-post-rating][author-post-rating][author-post-rating][author-post-rating][author-post-rating][author-post-rating]
King Hall by Scarlett Dawn
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
KING HALL was a fun read, but an uneven one. It’s marketed as New Adult, with the main character’s age at 19, but it just reads like more high school drama. That’s okay, because there actually is drama, if slightly younger-skewing. This book is all about friendships, or lack of them. As a hybrid shifter girl who finds herself thrust into the “Queen” role of her tribe? species?, Lily has to keep her friends at a distance (so they don’t learn her not-shameful-at-all, has-no-effect-on-her-ability-to-reign, won’t-actually-get-her-killed-when-everyone-finds-out secret) while trying to keep them close as co-rulers and for a shifter’s need to touch.
This first book in the series serves mainly as a setup for the revolution to come. We do eventually see a battle, but this book shows us how the future Kings train, how they learn to work together as a team, and a glimpse into Mystical culture. And that culture is highly sexualized, so younger readers beware. There’s a lot of talk about it, though not much is on-screen, so to speak. The author is probably trying to be edgy by opening up the reader’s eyes to open sexuality and forever love, though it doesn’t always work.
This book ends on a cliffhanger, which I’m not a fan of. There’s plenty of story to tell for the next book, but the high death toll has me thinking that I already know what that story is going to be like. Lots of readers enjoy this book, and the setting and interesting character traits were a lot of fun. I finished the book, so I liked it enough to get to the end, but I don’t think I’ll be picking up the next.
Received as a free digital ebook via Netgalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.