I won an autographed copy of A River of Royal Blood by Amanda Joy at the Twin Cities Book Festival. I chose this book because the cover art appealed to me. So while I got a free autographed copy, I have no connection to the author and am not receiving anything for this review.
In the queendom of Myre humans rule fey, bloodkin, and their former rulers the khimaer, who have powerful magick and combine the features of different animals. When more than one princess is born they are rival heirs: after the youngest turns 17, one must kill the other to become queen. Eva, the younger daughter, turns 17 in two months.
Eva has a magick not seen for generations: magick of blood and marrow. It is so unknown she has not been able to find a teacher, until she chances upon an ancient fey named Baccha in the library and strikes a bargain. After an assassination attempt, Eva faces a new threat as her nameday draws near. With Baccha’s teaching and the help of a smoldering khimaera prince, can Eva survive attempts on her life, defeat her sister, and become queen?
A Grand Adventure in a Unique World
Let me start by saying: this book is awesome.
Eva can smell magick, and it warms my heart to show magick by a sense other than sight. It might be because a lot of my writing includes werewolves and Aliannons that have a psychic sense of smell so I lean in that direction. The khimaer remind me of the chimaera in Daughter of Smoke and Bone (which is also awesome) that have characteristics of different animal and humanoid, and different bloodlines. The story moves briskly—once it got started I couldn’t put it down.
I love this world. It is a fantasy without a whiff of overused Tolkien tropes. Based on Africa, the dark skinned characters don’t live in some distant desert realm and only show up as savages or part of some complicated political scheme. The king is dark skinned, and so is the main character and many others. I also liked the country being ruled by queens, and the story of how they became that way– and humans took over from the khimaer– is very intriguing. The history and relationships of the various races makes sense, although we only get a few glimpses of the past that lead this world here.
My quibbles might simply be because we have only 300 pages in this world. There were a lot of aspects of Myre we only got a glimpse of that I wanted to see in greater detail. The goth in me demands more of the bloodkin. Baccha, Eva’s immortal fey teacher, remains mysterious, although you see his thoughts toward the end. From a craft perspective that is his character. The romance between Eva and Akheto, the khimaer prince, left me hungering for more. However, it feels what is included is what fits the story.
Maybe we could see a little bit more of an explanation as to why Eva’s father had illusion magick and mother had sea magick, but both Eva and her sister have completely different magick. Is it random or through blood? I’m still incredulous a teenage princess can sneak out of a palace so easily without magick, but I guess the tunnel works. It seems odd that nobody thought of creating tracking magick in this world—I mean, I can see it being quite useful—or some sort of barrier she can’t cross.
My top disappointment is I don’t have the next volume in my hands. This book ends on a cliffhanger– what will Eva do next after discovering her truth? I will be eagerly awaiting the next book in the series.