Thursday, July 31, 2014

Review: King Hall (Forever Evermore #1) by Scarlett Dawn

Firstly, thanks to Harlequin Australia for this NetGalley <3



Date Read: September 8 2013
Release Date: August 1st 2013
Publisher: Escape Publishing (Harlequin Australia)
Source: NetGalley
Genre: Paranormal
My rating: 

Synopsis:
"King Hall — where the Mysticals go to learn their craft, get their degrees, and transition into adulthood. And where four new Rulers will rise and meet their destinies. 

Lily Ruckler is adept at one thing: survival. Born a Mystical hybrid, her mere existence is forbidden, but her nightmare is only about to start. Fluke, happenstance, and a deep personal loss finds Lily deeply entrenched with those who would destroy her simply for existing — The Mystical Kings. Being named future Queen of the Shifters shoves Lily into the spotlight, making her one of the most visible Mysticals in the world. But with risk comes a certain solace — her burgeoning friendships with the other three Prodigies: a wicked Vampire, a wild-child Mage, and a playboy Elemental. Backed by their faith and trust, Lily begins to relax into her new life.

Then chaos erupts as the fragile peace between Commoners and Mysticals is broken, and suddenly Lily realises the greatest threat was never from within, and her fear takes on a new name: the revolution."

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I’m not sure how I feel about King Hall. Finishing this I knew I definitely wanted to know what happened in the next book but whilst reading I thought this book was shaky at times. You may notice the absence of my usual quotes from this review, well the few quotes I had managed to highlight didn’t really show what I’m saying.

Set in a world where humans are known as Commoners and the supernatural are known as Mysticals, protagonist Lily Ruckler is half-vampire and half-shape shifter. Being a hybrid is absolutely against the law so she has to keep her vampire side hidden. King Hall is the school where Mysticals learn to harness their power and eventually ascend into adulthood by embracing their power.

I liked Lily. She was strong, independent and just trying to make her way through high school whilst concealing the truth about her true being. She’s quite snarky and witty and I liked how she didn’t cower to anyone – not even the Rulers, the four kings who reigned over the Mysticals. Lily never let her boyfriend Dominic be a caveman where she was concerned, even though he was training to be the next king.

From this point on my review is going to be a bit weird, not following my usual structure because it’s really hard to talk about this book in a structured manner.

Firstly, Dominic, Pearl, Jake and Ezra are the four Mysticals of their respective races that are training to be the next set of Rulers. I liked their friendship but sometimes I felt that Dawn was trying too hard to make their friendship work. It was too easy, and at times I was sceptical at how they could be so understanding of each other. There wasn’t enough time for their friendship to really develop to such a trusting point and not have conflict between the characters that would test their trust with each other. They were also too different if that’s possible. I thought Dawn tried too hard to make them all unique and stand apart from another, so much so that I just didn’t believe it.

Secondly, for Lily to be named the future Queen of the Shifters I thought an unnecessary event occurred. This started at the beginning of the book and happened a LOT towards the end. This was where the book stood on the shakiest ground for me. I just felt like it was all so pointless – these characters whom I thought were so central to the story were discarded. Why bother in the first place? There were other ways such turning points could have come about but it just had to be this method to progress the plot. Yes dark times are coming and conflict is arising but don’t just mindlessly bring in a character who seemed important just to kill them off.

It just so happened that all the Rulers seem so perfect for each other – and I knew what Dawn was doing, she was trying to set the scene so they could end up together or something. This ties in with my previous two points about the relationships that formed too quickly and the unnecessary events. Too coincidental, it just happened to end up this way or something. No darnit NO.

Dawn definitely tried to build her world to show the Mysticals, their laws and political structures. I got a good glimpse into their various powers and the differences in the races through the trainee Rulers, however I felt that her writing definitely faltered. At times she showed but I also got a whole lot of tell in pretty slabs or thought monologues. Her style was sophisticated but I think it wasn’t expressed properly to really show me what I wanted.

I am definitely confused by this book. It was enjoyable though with its various fight scenes but I think it’s a real hit or miss for people.

3 comments:

  1. This definitely sounds like it might be a hit or miss for some people.The fact that the characters who are central to the story and end up being discarded really sounds like it might annoy me and the writing sounds a bit of a miss in the technical aspect, so I have a feeling that I might fit into the group of people who might have a "miss" experience with it.

    Nonetheless, thanks for sharing Jaz, and, as always, BRILLIANT, thorough review.

    ~ Zoe @ The Infinite To-Read Shelf

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    1. Zoe thank you for always giving such insightful and thoughtful comments. I'd definitely say you really have to be lenient with books to like this one. The more critical people would definitely see the flaws.

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  2. I am glad to have read King Hall. It is a story that will stay with me. I look forward to reading more from Scarlett Dawn, and I am glad to have been given the opportunity to have read it early.

    Marlene
    Informative URL for Landscaping Olympia WA information

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