Royal Exile

Royal Exile: Book One of The Valisar Trilogy by Fiona McIntosh


My rating: 3 of 5 stars
This was my first fantasy and I’m having mixed feelings about it. Here is my quick summary of this book.

Loethar, a tribal leader from the steppes, is sweeping through the kingdoms of the Devona Set and whose final goal is the complete destruction of the royal family, the Valisars, of Penraven. He believes that he has accomplished this once the king and queen are dead, but the first son, Leonel, has been spirited out of the castle and is now searching for allies to help him regain this throne.

Watching Leonel and his companion, Gavriel, escape from the castle and their search for allies, is interesting. Leonel definitely has some growing up to do and I think that Ms. McIntosh provides us with some excellent descriptions of their surroundings as well as showing how Leonard changed, we hope for the better, due to his circumstances.

The deaths of the king and queen, as well as the battles leading to their deaths, are a little too graphic for me. There are several other scenes in this book that are too graphic for me, but they do flow with the story and this author’s style. I was left wondering why, after sparing the lives of the other royal families once they surrendered, Loethar was so intent of making sure that every member of the Valisar family was dead. I assume that that will become evident in the remaining books in this trilogy.

This book was pretty well written, although as I stated earlier, a little too graphic for me.

FTC Disclosure: I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.

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