Kings of Paradise Book Review

Welcome to the Indie Fantasy Club, where today, we’re doing a Kings of Paradise book review. This is the first book in the Ash and Sand trilogy by Richard Nell. It’s written in third person and the story follows two main POVs in third person, with a few other random POVs sprinkled throughout. So, without further ado, a new world awaits!

Summary

This book mostly follows two main characters from completely different parts of the world. Ruka is a genius who can remember everything, including his own birth, but he is born in a harsh frozen wasteland and life is rough. Their barbaric and primitive lifestyles are strictly governed by a religious faction of women priestesses. Ruka must learn how to survive in these harsh conditions alone and rise to fight for change. 

Our other main character is Kale, who is from a much warmer island climate to the North. He is the fourth son of a King, and therefore, somewhat dispensable. Add to the fact that he’s a stubborn kid and he ends up in the navy to learn some manners and respect. Kale learns what it takes to become a leader, all while discovering his own skills and potential which could one day save the kingdom. 

That’s all I can really say as a sneak peak, because there is just so much to unpack with this book. I literally don’t want to give anything away so you can experience the thrills of this story. 

I can’t wait any longer. Let’s do this INDIE review!

Immersion (Worldbuilding) 9/10

The immersion and worldbuilding EASILY gets a 9/10 from me. Hands down. No question. 

Don’t expect this author to hold your hand, especially with the Ruka POVs. You learn piece by piece about how the South is ruled by women, despite the men being so rugged and feral. You also get very little information about their gods until much later in the book, even though they are frequently referenced. But on top of that, just the descriptions and the scenes that Richard paints are so vibrant, I really felt like I needed an extra blanket while I was reading the chapters in the South. 

You also get a sense of just how expansive this world is with the fact that these two POVs don’t even know about each other. That’s how big the divide is. Kale’s POV from the island is also rich with culture and expectations and politics. As Kale travels around the kingdom and beyond, you really feel the depth of this world. 

It’s absolutely incredible. I absolutely love the Ash and Sand world. It might be one of my new favorites. 

Names (Characters) 10/10

The Names, the characters get an absolute 10/10. 

Imagine if you took Logen from the Joe Abercrombie books and combined him with Glokta. A berserker brute mixed with a genius intellect. Ruka is by far one of my new favorite characters of ALL TIME! I LOVED reading his chapters. The way he portrays Ruka’s internal conflict along with his drive for revenge, is SO satisfying. It’s everything I want from a villain? I don’t know if I can call Ruka a villain, maybe antagonist? Anti-hero? I dunno, it doesn’t matter. The point is, this character satisfied my primal urges as a reader. Sometimes I want the hero to take revenge or kill his enemies. Well, Ruka definitely doesn’t have an issue with that. I love him so much. 

Kale is a more traditional hero, so there’s plenty to love with him as well. Just learning his place in the world, leading by example, overcoming the perceptions and expectations placed upon him… it’s very satisfying on the other end of the spectrum. It hits all the best tropes of a young, budding hero. So I like Kale as well, for different reasons, but Ruka made this book for me. 

There’s also other really great characters like Dala, who gets introduced a little later, and even those characters had me hooked. I would be so pissed when he would switch POVs, because I would just get so invested, and then we’d have to follow the next person. His characters were just so well written that I never wanted to leave any of them, which I know is impossible. So that’s how you know you have a great character. 

All of their choices felt right and realistic for their unique experiences. These characters drove the plot forward, rather than being driven by the plot. I honestly cannot say enough good things about these people. If you’re a fan of Joe Abercrombie, you’ll have to give this book a try. 

Da Magic (Magic/Creatures) 7/10

Da Magic and creatures get a 7/10, but not for the reason you might think. 

I was getting nervous reading this book because I was like, I didn’t realize this was low fantasy. Now there are people with supernatural abilities throughout, but I wouldn’t necessarily call it magic. There also weren’t any magical creatures in the story. So I was thinking I was going to have to skip this section altogether. 

Let me just show you about where magic shows up in this book. Right there. Aaaalll the way at the end. 

Now the magic that gets introduced is certainly interesting, but because it’s introduced so late, I just don’t feel like we get a good grasp of what it is and how it will impact the overall story. We do, we definitely know what will happen with the magic, but it is just very sudden. We don’t get as much of the slow build of acquiring small skills that lead to big, dramatic events. 

So although I don’t think this is a bad thing at all, this is why I ranked it a little lower. With that said, if this book didn’t have any magic at all, it STILL would have been one of my favorite books I’ve read. That’s how well it’s written in my opinion. 

But if you only like books with magic, then I understand if this might be somewhat of a deterrent. 

Infrastructure (Plot) 9/10

The set up, the building of tension, and the payoffs were SO incredible. I have to give the infrastructure and plot a 9/10. 

Everything moved so naturally, as a consequence of these characters’ decisions. I really don’t want to talk much about the plot because I really want you to experience it for yourself. But man, the way we see these characters progress from helpless to hero is incredible. I’m telling you, the payoffs are so satisfying, especially with Ruka, for me at least. And it does a great job leading into the next book, to the point where I almost just put everything on hold to finish this trilogy. The ending was a little rushed, in my opinion and covered a lot in a short period of time, but other than that, I really enjoyed it. 

Very well put together, very effortless to read. The pages just fly by. And to put it into perspective, I loved the Joe Abercrombie characters, but I didn’t necessarily love the plot, even though it made sense for the characters. But for Kings of Paradise, I really enjoyed the ending. 

Enjoyment 10/10

I could not put this book down, so it gets a solid 10/10. Again, it’s possible that this just caters to my unique palette for fantasy stories, but man I enjoyed this. 

Let me be clear when I say this. This wasn’t one of my favorite Indie books I’ve ever read… this was one of my favorite fantasy books I’ve ever read. Depending on how this series go, I’d say it could easily find its way into my top 10. 

They way Richard combined grimdark fantasy with epic, hero fantasy, was just so refreshing. Grim dark can just sometimes be so heavy and depressing, but Kings of Paradise gives you a break from that with the opposing perspective characters. You go from the trenches of a frozen wasteland where life sucks, to an island paradise with a young man trying to prove himself. It’s just such a wonderful contrast. 

That leaves the Kings of Paradise with an overall score of 9/10. I would highly recommend this book if you like grimdark, but with a little bit of hope sprinkled throughout. I will have the cover facing out when this goes on the shelf. 

Design

It’s a good thing design isn’t one of my ranking criteria, because it definitely leaves me wanting. The map is very basic and dark, and it doesn’t reach to the edges of the page. I don’t love that. Also the formatting as a whole was terrible. I personally don’t like sans serif fonts, and the chapter headings had no breaks or design at all. So it felt more like I was reading a manuscript than a finished product, just from a layout perspective. 

And then the cover itself… I don’t know, I just feel like it could be so much better. Either some symbolism between the warm sands and the icy tundra, or maybe Ruka covered in runes at the trial. Or even Ruka just staring out from the shores would be cool. I don’t know, I’m not really a designer, but this just didn’t really do it for me. If I were judging a book by its cover, I probably wouldn’t have picked this one up, which is a real tragedy. 

Enough of that little rant, let’s get this Kings of Paradise book review added to the shelf. COVER facing, even though the cover sucks. 

If you’ve read the Ash and Sand trilogy, let me know in the comments how the other two books stack up against the first. You can argue with me about this ranking, but honestly, there’s just nothing you can say to change my mind about this INDIE ranking. 

Are there any other Indie fantasy books you want me to review that you’d recommend? Let me know. As always, be sure to join the Club so you never miss an indie review!

Thanks for checking out this Kings of Paradise book review and I’ll see you in the next one.