[Click here to see my review of book 1: The Thief and book 2: The Queen of Attolia.]
After reading the first two books in this series, I could help eagerly awaiting my chance to read the third. Megan Whalen Turner has artfully managed to create a fantasy that is wholly believable on every front. Everything about it is simply well-done and I cannot commend the author enough at having done her job so thoroughly and making it all so utterly authentic.
The King of Attolia is seen primarily from the point of view of Costis, a young soldier who has moved himself high up in the Queen's Guard through both his talent and his utter devotion to the Queen. So, of course, he is overcome with outrage at her marriage to the Eddisian Thief who stole her away and then forced her to marry him. He unthinkingly takes it one step further when he decks the new king out of anger and nearly ends up being put to death by the very Queen he would give his heart and soul for.
The new king spares Costis and goes one step further in naming him as the lieutenant of his personal guard. Though shown mercy, the boy seethes under the attention of the king and believes this all to be an elaborate ploy of the weak king in doling out his frustration upon someone who can't fight back. However, as Costis spends more time around the king, he begins to see that Euginedes isn't quite so inept as he had formerly suspected, and maybe he has the makings of a king within him after all.
Once again, Megan Whalen Turner has blown me away in both her storytelling and her beautifully rounded out characters. I never seem to know what to expect in these books and yet each comes through in such a way that I wonder how I didn't see it coming in the first place.
Eugenides never fails to draw the reader's compassion or steal one's heart and Costis has also become the sort of character you can't help cheering for the whole way, even when you know he's the one in the wrong. Attolia made quite the impression on me as well, becoming even more of a person in this novel than the last; not so much an impressive figurehead as a strong and very wounded woman.
Turner's storytelling is once again superb and I cannot praise this series enough. It is quickly becoming a favorite of mine. It just keeps getting better and better
Rating: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥
"They think I lied on your instructions. That Teleus and I killed the assassins in the garden and let you take the credit."
"Oh, that," said the king with a shrug. "That isn't your honor, Costis. That's the public perception of your honor. It has nothing to do with anything important, except perhaps for manipulating fools who mistake honor for its bright, shiny trappings. You can always change the perception of fools."
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