Title: Kingsbane
Series: Empirium #2
Series Reviews: Furyborn
Author: Claire Legrand
Publication Date: May 21, 2019
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Format: Library Hardcover
In this sequel to the instant New York Times bestseller Furyborn, two queens, separated by a thousand years, connected by secrets and lies, must continue their fight amid deadly plots and unthinkable betrayals that will test their strength—and their hearts.
Rielle Dardenne has been anointed Sun Queen, but her trials are far from over. The Gate keeping the angels at bay is falling. To repair it, Rielle must collect the seven hidden castings of the saints. Meanwhile, to help her prince and love Audric protect Celdaria, Rielle must spy on the angel Corien—but his promises of freedom and power may prove too tempting to resist.
Centuries later, Eliana Ferracora grapples with her new reality: She is the Sun Queen, humanity’s long-awaited savior. But fear of corruption—fear of becoming another Rielle—keeps Eliana’s power dangerous and unpredictable. Hunted by all, racing against time to save her dying friend Navi, Eliana must decide how to wear a crown she never wanted—by embracing her mother’s power, or rejecting it forever.
I enjoyed Furyborn when I read it and knew for sure that I would be back for more stabbiness and some flirty, sarcastic scenes between the Wolf and the Dread, please and thank you.
Kingsbane is a perilous journey of self-discovery, through darkness and light, as Rielle and Eliana try to find their places in their changing world. Better yet: it ups the ante as far as war and magic and all the things that could go wrong.
The fantasy part of this is top-notch. Loved the adventure and stakes and risk and war. Yes, yes, yes.
My biggest qualm was that this felt more like a romance than a fantasy. Where I thought the characters could stand on their own in Furyborn, in Kingsbane, Rielle and Eliana are never alone. They always seem to be leaning on someone else rather than their own strength, and they almost don’t exist without their love interests, because so much of the book seems taken up by the romances, in all their various forms.
❧ At its heart, this is still a story of two queens: one who’s rising and one who’s falling. And the juxtaposition of the two is absolutely delicious.
I had my doubts about the switching timeline and points of view in Furyborn, but in Kingsbane, man, they really shine. The parallels between the two women are so poignant, and Legrand crafts the dual narrative perfectly to really highlight the different paths they’re taking. I was such a fan of this!
While Rielle embraces her power, Eliana rejects it. While Rielle views herself as a goddess among humans, Eliana views herself as a monster among men.
I mean, I guess hindsight is 20/20, but it seems so obvious to me how each woman ended up the way they did, despite first appearances. The really unique aspect, to me at least, was the way the greater society ends up shaping these women, because they don’t exist in a vacuum. Rielle is met with fear, in a world that’s descending into chaos. Eliana is greeted with hope, in a world that has nothing left but just that.
❧ Even though we already technically know what happens to Rielle in the end, watching her fall from glory is … well … glorious.
I like dark characters. It’s why I like dark fantasy. It starts with little cracks in the shell, a few questionable thoughts that she doesn’t give voice to. Little by little, though, it’s easy to see how she becomes the Blood Queen, and I so enjoyed watching the transformation. I mean, it’s a bit scary how easily she rationalizes everything she does.
In this book, Rielle becomes a compelling villain, because she rationalizes everything she does for the good of others. The scariest villains are those who think they’re the hero and use that as a motivation for their dark deeds.
I also now have “Dirty Deeds” stuck in my head, even though I changed it to dark, thank you very much. The jukebox in my head apparently cares not.
❧ We learn more about the history with Angels, and wow, I’m so conflicted now about who to root for.
It may come as no surprise to you, but humans kinda suck. Not that Angels are exactly killing with kindness, either. I really enjoyed the extra history we learn in this book! It adds more depth to everything and really changed my perspective on some things.
The world becomes much bigger in Kingsbane, much deeper and dire and full of all sorts of things, foreboding and otherwise.
But mostly foreboding, let’s be honest. And we wouldn’t have it any other way.
❧ The ending made me so mad that I wanted to throw the Kindle, and I’m undecided as to whether that’s good or bad. I feel betrayed.
The way it goes is, basically, now I’m required to read book three. Not because I want to (though, I do), but simply in order to make sense of the last 100 – 150 or so pages of Kingsbane. Which irks me to no end. I don’t mind cliffhangers during a series. I’ve actually come to expect them. But I don’t expect to be left so confused that I need another book just to explain what’s going on in the last 150 pages of a 600-page book. But I do. Because I am extremely confused and saw none of it coming. Not even a whiff of it.
Here’s where the confusion comes: I suspect I know what’s caused it, and my theory would make sense (sort of) with what happened towards the end of the book. So I can give it a little bit of a pass that maybe there was just a teensy bit of foreshadowing and that was sort of the point.
But even my theory doesn’t 100% explain it and I just don’t understand why these things happened to certain unimportant characters. It felt super random, and I didn’t understand any of the characters’ decisions or reasoning for their actions.
❧ I loved Eliana in the first book, but here? Not so much.
Which is really a shame, because I wanted to. I always felt like she knew who she was. Despite whatever the public thought of her or what the rumors said, she knew where her loyalty lied and who she was at her core, and no one would take that from her. In Kingsbane, this was very much not the case.
Eliana spends the majority of the book alternating between thinking of herself as a scary monster undeserving to live and randomly breaking down in tears and crying it out.
Now, I’m all for crying when you need a good cry. She’s in a tough situation and struggling and worried about the people around her. So yeah, have a good cry or two. But, I mean, she was always crying or on the verge of crying. Where did the Dread of Orline go?! I want her back.
I wish I had thought to count the cry scenes like I did the sex scenes, but I hadn’t realized it would be so pervasive. So I didn’t. If I had to estimate, I’d say there were at least 20 separate scenes where Eliana cries. But even that’s a pretty conservative guess.
❧ I wasn’t a fan of the addition of more point-of-view characters for one chapter each.
What it came down to was I didn’t particularly think they were all that necessary. To me, it felt like more of a distraction than anything, because they were randomly placed and only occurred once for almost all of them.
Point-of-view characters in this book:
✿ Rielle
✿ Eliana
✿ Corien (2)
✿ Navi (1)
✿ Ludivine (1)
✿ Jessamyn (1)
✿ Harkan (1)
✿ Audric (1)
Did all of these new point-of-view characters add something in their one chapter that needed to be there and couldn’t be added from Rielle or Eliana’s perspectives? I didn’t think so, personally. Actually, there were several times where I felt that learning about something that happened in one of these chapters would actually mean more if the reader discovered it along with Eliana or Rielle.
❧ Why is there so much sex in my dark fantasy? Why are these people kissing each other instead of killing each other? Is that even a thing?!
Let’s not explore the fact that I prefer to read books about murder than sex. I mean, I’m sure a psychologist would have a field day with that one, but I’m poor and all my money goes into books, so therapy will have to wait.
The fact is there is a lot of sex in Kingsbane. Not terribly graphic (only one scene struck me as particularly so), but it was pervasive. So much so that I really started to question its YA rating.
I don’t mind romance, but I want my fantasy with a dash of romance, not the other way around. It’s a personal preference. With this book, though, I just didn’t understand the sex scenes or just how pervasive the romance was. They felt random and unnecessary, not particularly adding anything to the story or the characters.
The biggest problem I had with the sex scenes was how they were treated: as coping mechanisms. Any time Rielle or Eliana were faced with those dastardly emotions (like uncertainty or doubt), they immediately rushed to someone’s bed. And if their main squeezes weren’t around, any random character would do, regardless of their gender. There wasn’t a single sex scene that I can recall where it wasn’t inspired by the character’s inner conflict, and thus they use sex to escape their emotions for a while.
In fact, pretty much all of Rielle’s chapters felt like they either had a sex scene in them or she was thinking about sex. I started counting. Because I have no life. There also may have been more than what’s listed below and I skimmed over them, but hey, I tried. I didn’t, however, count every time a character thought about sex or how attractive another character was, because even I don’t have that kind of time.
Official sex scene count:
1 graphic
3 heavy petting
2 passing mentions of having had sex
3 vague
1 suggested (fade to black)
1 talk of a threesome
1 fade-to-black LGBTQ romp with an enemy
1 hinting at masturbation
1 attempted rape
1 with rapey vibes
TL;DR: This book is really about 70% romance and 30% dark fantasy.
If romance is your shtick, this would be great for you! As someone who loves dark fantasy, most likely in an unhealthy way, I was a bit disappointed.
I so want to read your review(!) but want to wait until I’ve finished it myself.
Oooh yes, finish it, and then we can talk! I’m eager to hear what you think. I read the reviews on Goodreads after I finished it, and it seems pretty divided, which made me laugh. One comment loves x and hates y and the next comment loves y and hates x. xD Can’t please everyone. 😛
Wonderful review! This series has been on my radar for a while, but after reading your review I’m not sure if it would be for me… Or at least the sequel, because romance and sex scenes definitely aren’t for me. xD
They’re really not for me so much, either, which is a shame because I love the fantasy aspect of the series. There were sex scenes in the first one, some graphic, but I didn’t feel the romance was as pervasive. I guess since it was setting up the romance instead of established pairings already. And it would be weird to say read the first knowing you probably won’t read the second. But I really liked the first one, and the hate-to-love will-they-won’t-they of Eliana and Simon was sooo fantastic in that. I will say that based on book two, I would predict that book three will be less heavy on the romance. Or I’m crossing my fingers, anyway, because I need to know how this ends!
So I read your review, and I’m so confused as to why there’s way more sex scenes in this one now. I think even when I was reading Furyborn and heard some of the sex scenes and hints of masturbation with (Rielle?) I believe, I was a little thrown off, but understood why it was happening I guess. I like that Rielle falls from glory in this book, which I was waiting to see. I personally don’t like reading books that are saturated in sex (not saying that this one is) but the added sex scenes may turn me off personally (no pun intended). We will see. Thank you so much for this thought out and well-written review, as usual <3 I always expect and get amazing reviews when I come on to your blog and I am always excited to read your posts!
Aww thank you so much! You’ve just made me day. 😀 I’m assuming the ramp up in sex scenes was because the romances were sort of established in book one, so this is sort of the “meat” (not a euphemism, I swear) of their relationship? Although, I guess that’s not entirely true, considering all the random people they slept with whom they weren’t in relationships with. xD But the majority of it was the two couples established in the first book, so my prediction is that book three, it’ll be about the same level as Furyborn. No idea how accurate that guess is, but we’ll see! 😀 I usually tend to put down books with a lot of sex because it’s just not my thing. I find it boring and off-putting, normally. But I did love the fantasy aspects of the plot here, and Rielle’s fall from grace was worth putting up with the rest, in my opinion. But then, I’m entirely in love with dark/fallen characters, so I would say that. :3
Meat as a euphemism lol. I like it, even if it wasn’t meant to be one 😉 That definitely makes sense though. You wouldn’t want all the love making too early when it seems like they only just started to discover feelings for each other, or whatnot. But yeah, now you make me curious about the random sex. Nothing wrong with random sex, I just feel weird reading about it lol. I think I love dark characters too, because they aren’t just cookie cutter. They have an interesting background (if written well) and a lot of times I feel like I’d rather cheer for them than the good guys. Does that make me a bad guy? Who knows lol. <3
I think it would’ve made more sense if it was a random hook-up, because sure, that happens, especially in war. But this was sort of like … they hated each other but then randomly had sex because … I don’t even know. Because sex? I can’t say too much more, because I don’t want to spoil it, just in case you do decide to read it. 😉
Pffft, no, that makes you awesome. Only lame people like the good guys. Heroes are all the same. Villains are where it’s at. 😉 I feel like good characters tend to be kind of bland, because often, when there’s the good/bad dichotomy, the “good” characters ignore the fact that there’s a little good and bad in everyone. I hate that. Generally, even the worst villains are given a little bit of good. I’m not sure why that is, but I’ve noticed it does happen a lot. xD
So like hate sex? I’ve seen that too and sometimes it can be “hot” like on TV or whatever, but I still don’t understand how you can hate someone but still want to have sex with them. Like wouldn’t you want to have sex with someone you actually enjoy so you can enjoy them? Or is it more like you have sex with someone you hate because that’s the one time you can actually forget you hate them?
Ahh okay don’t spoil it lol. I’ll read it and I’m sure I’ll probably make mention of it and tag you in it with my thoughts. I don’t know why I’m focused on the random sex of it all though lol.
Yes I totally get it! And idk I feel like sometimes, the “bad guys” are only bad because the good guys don’t want to get their hands dirty. Like they will sacrifice their good image or any good thoughts about who they can be at all, to protect someone else from having to have that kind of blood on their hands. Not all bad guys, but the ones that feel conflicted or didn’t start off as bad. Ah you get me and I feel so much better!
No, it wasn’t even hate sex. Hate sex can be fun and kinda hot. I’m going to try to make this as non-spoilery as possible. This was … like, hate, hate, hate, 10-minute chat where they sort of called a truce but didn’t seem to really particularly connect, and then, sex! So I’m not sure what it was going for. Except, like I said, every time Eliana or Rielle felt any sort of nervousness or doubt, they slept with someone, and this followed that pattern, too. I hope that doesn’t count as a spoiler. xD I tried to keep it pretty vague lol.
But yeeees! Do make sure I see it. :3 I want to hear your thoughts when you read it. I tend to focus on random sex when it feels … well, random. I don’t pick up fantasy thinking there’s going to be so much sex, usually. I guess I’d expect that to be billed primarily under romance or to at least make more mention of the romance in the blurb to highlight that it’s a big part of it.
OMG THAT SOUNDS LIKE AIDAN. Sorry, I just finished Obsidio, so this is on my mind. But you described it perfectly. Have you read The Illuminae Files? I’m still trying to come down from a series hangover from it. If you haven’t read it, READ IT. Your description of the villain fits AIDAN perfectly, and it’s why I love him so.
Oh dear! I was planning to add this to me TBR but that romance to dark fantasy ratio is not a good sign for me. Anyway, thank you for the awesome review!
Glad you liked it! I was definitely a bit disappointed at so much romance, too, but hey, our loss is someone’s gain, right? I bet there are plenty of romance fans out there who are thrilled. xD
That’s true though.🤣 if someone asks me about this book, I’ll just lead them to your review.
Aww, well thank you. <3
I’ve heard great things about Furyborn, but Kingsbane doesn’t sound up my alley. I also prefer my fantasies with a dash of romance, not the other way around. The many one-chapter POVs doesn’t make sense, and no to a bunch of sex scenes. That does make the YA rating questionable. (Though I still wouldn’t want a bunch of sex scenes in a general fantasy book.)
Well, if you’ve not read Furyborn, I can’t say too much because spoilers, but there’s a really great hate-to-love start of a romance in that which I LOVED, and that’s why I was so interested in this, thinking the characters would follow that (they weren’t really “together” in Furyborn but I loved the dynamic). Unfortunately, it didn’t carry through the same in this book, or not for me anyway.