In this “excellent fantasy debut, with engaging world-building and a good mix between action and character” (Brandon Sanders, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Stormlight Archive series), a story of secrets, rebellion, and murder are shattering the Hollows, where magic costs memory to use, and only the son of the kingdom’s despised traitor holds the truth. Michael is branded a traitor … Michael is branded a traitor as a child because of the murder of the king’s nine-year-old son, by his father David Kingman. Ten years later on Michael lives a hardscrabble life, with his sister Gwen, performing crimes with his friends against minor royals in a weak attempt at striking back at the world that rejects him and his family.
In a world where memory is the coin that pays for magic, Michael knows something is there in the hot white emptiness of his mind. So when the opportunity arrives to get folded back into court, via the most politically dangerous member of the kingdom’s royal council, Michael takes it, desperate to find a way back to his past. He discovers a royal family that is spiraling into a self-serving dictatorship as gun-wielding rebels clash magically trained militia.
What the truth holds is a set of shocking revelations that will completely change the Hollows, if Michael and his friends and family can survive long enough to see it. In a “symphony of loyalty, greed, family, and betrayal” (Tamora Pierce, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Tempests and Slaughter) this spellbinding novel “creates a solid foundation for (hopefully) a much longer narrative to come” (Kirkus Reviews).
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The Kingdom of Liars is edgy and clean and has a main character that makes the reader love him and hate him at the same moment. The story moves fast; it’s filled with danger and intrigue, and the ending? I wish I could tell you the ending!
I received this novel through a Goodreads giveaway.
~Quick Statistics~
Overall: 5/5 Stars
Plot: 5/5 Stars
Setting: 5/5 Stars
Characters: 5/5 Stars
Writing: 5/5 Stars
Memorability: 5/5 Stars
~Quick Review~
I would like to start off this review by saying that I was so excited when this novel came in through the mail, it was my first time winning a Goodreads giveaway and besides that, The Kingdom of Liars just looked like a good novel. I am very impressed with this book and have to say that it is one of my favorites. The world-building, character development, and diversity just made this such an amazing fantasy novel.
~Other Information~
Publisher: Gallery / Saga Press
Page Count: 596 pages
~Quick Synopsis (via Goodreads)~
Michael is branded a traitor as a child because of the murder of the king’s nine-year-old son, by his father David Kingman. Ten years later on Michael lives a hardscrabble life, with his sister Gwen, performing crimes with his friends against minor royals in a weak attempt at striking back at the world that rejects him and his family.
In a world where memory is the coin that pays for magic, Michael knows something is there in the hot white emptiness of his mind. So when the opportunity arrives to get folded back into court, via the most politically dangerous member of the kingdom’s royal council, Michael takes it, desperate to find a way back to his past. He discovers a royal family that is spiraling into a self-serving dictatorship as gun-wielding rebels clash against magically trained militia.
What the truth holds is a set of shocking revelations that will completely change the Hollows, if Michael and his friends and family can survive long enough to see it.
~Characters~
All of the characters in The Kingdom of Liars are important to the plot and therefore paying attention to them is key to understanding the mystery behind the entire novel. Michael Kingman is the son of David Kingman, who was convicted for killing the prince of Hollow, Davey Hollow. Michael’s family legacy is a humongous point in his life and his character development throughout the novel is based on his ties to his family legacy. The amount of character development for all of the characters in The Kingdom of Liars was fantastic. I was also very excited about the amount of diversity in the novel, as many of Michael’s friends are POC.
~Writing and Setting~
The Kingdom of Liars is very descriptive for almost every part of the story, which is good because as the background of the novel is mainly a mystery, minor details can change everything.
One of my favorite parts of the novel was the world-building. The story takes place in the kingdom of Hollow, which the Kingman family has inhabited for many generations. The kingdom of Hollow and its people are very important to Michael, as the Kingman family basically helped found it. As it is already confirmed that a sequel will be published in the coming years, I cannot wait to see where Nick Martell takes the kingdom of Hollow next.
~Plot~
I cannot say much for the sake of not spoiling the plot, but let me say that I never would have seen the ending coming. Throughout the novel, Michael questions whether his father is actually guilty of Davey Hollow’s murder. His curiosity and determination to discover the truth makes for an interesting mystery.
~Overall Review~
I honestly cannot wait for the sequel to The Kingdom of Liars to come out as it was one of my favorite novels. I will definitely be reading again, and I hope that if you decide to read this fantastic novel, you will enjoy it as much as I did.
What a read! I’ll admit it was a little hard for me to get into it for the first few chapters, but once the Everlasting Waltz and Michael’s research at the library began, I was sucked in and eagerly reading as quickly as I could! There are so many interlinked mysteries to uncover in The Kingdom of Liars, but what I really loved in the final reveal sequence was the memories of Michael’s own childhood, and the SHOCKING surprise villain, not only the truth of the same political intrigues that were the focus of most of the book. The ending adds so much complexity, and as someone who has a tendency to suss out the plot twists a lot of the time, I loved that I didn’t see this all coming. Finally, I just wanted to mention that Michael as a character feels a bit like a blank space for much of the story, without too much defining character beyond his loyalty to family and his obsession with the Kingman legacy — but what seemed a bit two-dimensional in his character construction becomes a brilliant counterpoint to his reassumed identity once everything is laid out. Absolutely loved it and I can’t wait to read the next one!
I’m extremely impressed by this book, I was sucked in since the first page, and it honestly didn’t let up on the suspense or action. It’s a really well built and described fantasy world that you get pulled into! The characters were extremely engaging and told the story well, the authors writing style is definitely one I enjoyed.
Some things that people might be annoyed about are the extreme bits of dialogue, there’s a lot of scenes that are strictly talking, I don’t mind it. It’s more of a tell sequence than a show, but they’re done extremely well and pull you right in.
Another thing that might be a con is the length of the book, it’s a little over 600 pages, so for some people that might be a lot, i however like big books, especially if I like the world its set, it’s more time spent in that fantasy world.
Really well done novel!
Super unique story/plot with magic intermingled with memory and political intrigue.
The Kingdom of Liars is the first novel in a new series, The Legacy of the Mercenary Kings by Nick Martell. It’s an epic fantasy series, full of political intrigue, past wrongs, plots of revenge, and so much more.
What sort of life would one have, when their father is branded and killed for being a traitor? That is the fate that Michael faces. His family used to be an essential part of the Kingdom. But now? They’re considered worse than scum.
Michael is on a course to find the truth of what happened that night so long ago. Along the way, he’s going to fight for his and his family’s name. But doing so means he has to dive into a world of politics and magic. A world that does not play nicely, as Michael knows all too well.
“But the problem is, the older you become, the more you discover that memories change on their own. Some fade away, some stories change slightly, and some memories are so drastically different a decade after they occurred that no one can be quite sure what the truth is.”
The Kingdom of Liars is one of those slow-burning fantasies. While it starts off on the slower side, by the end it is a world full of dramatic and intense moments. It easily became a world I couldn’t look away from, and I am already anxiously looking forward to the next in the series.
Politics and magic. One of my favorite combinations in a novel. I knew from the moment I saw those keywords in the description, that I would love reading The Kingdom of Liars. I wasn’t wrong. This novel delivered on all of the promises it made, while throwing in a few surprising twists along the way.
I’ll confess that The Kingdom of Liars did have a bit of a slow start. It took me a while to get into the world and to appreciate the characters involved. But once it hits around the halfway mark (though perhaps even sooner than that) it turns into something so much more. So if you find yourself struggling with this read, I urge you to keep going just a little bit more.
The payoff will be worth it. This rapidly became a complex world, full of scheming, politics, threats, magic, and so much more. All of these elements seem to revolve around Michael and his family – the Kingman family. The intrigue of the past would have been enough to keep me going, but the character development (and secondary characters) was the icing on the cake. At least, for me.
The magical system is admittedly another highlight for, albeit one that I feel needs to be explored more. Here’s hoping that later novels will dive into that a bit more because I have so many questions!
On the whole, I found myself really enjoying The Kingdom of Liars. While it may have taken me a few chapters to really get into things, I really did become hooked by the end. So much so that I was actually sad to see it end. On the bright side, that just means I get to look forward to the next novel all the more, though that will probably be a bit of a wait.
Do not be discouraged by the length of this novel. Murder, Treason, Magic, Revenge and a hero who comes into his own. This epic novel has it all. This is an excellent story about family and the need to be true to oneself and one’s loved ones.
I will admit that when I first saw this book I was worried that it would move slowly and drag. Well, I was wrong. I was totally engrossed in the saga of the Kingman family. The characters are well thought out and have complex desires. The plot was engaging and flowed very well. There were unexpected twists and even a few surprise motives.
I hope that there will be a follow up novel in the future. I am curious to see what will happen with the Kingman family and I would love to see who will ultimately gain the crown to the Hollows.
The Kingdom of Liars is set in the Kingdom of Hollow, on a world with two moons, one of which is disintegrating. Its chunks sometimes fall and wreak havoc on Hollow. The setting feels like a medieval society with a castle and city states, except there are guns, unusual in epic fantasy. Michael Kingman comes from a family that was once renowned and close to the Royals, until his father was arrested and executed for the murder of the King’s 9 year-old son, ten years earlier. Michael’s family has fallen and he survives through scamming minor nobles. He is missing a lot of early memories, and the story mainly revolves around Michael trying to find out whether his father is innocent or guilty. There are many interesting characters in this corrupt and unstable Kingdom. The magic system is fascinating. Using magic can wipe out your own memories, especially if done without training, and the magic of some involves wiping out the memories of others. It makes for interesting plot twists and unreliable narrators. I really liked this book. The last half of the book just flew by. I will be looking out for the next one in the series.
The book starts with the main character being sentenced to death for treason and then recounts the events that led to that point. Michael Kingman is a son of a man convicted for killing a prince and his life leads him to be convicted for killing the king. Michael is the hero of the book, so the reader can’t help hoping that the events that seem inevitably to lead him to his doom might be something else after all. With ‘kingdom of liars’ in the title, I presumed an unreliable narrator and a slow unravelling of the truth. That wasn’t what I got.
This was a good book, but also an odd one with something constantly slightly off. Even though the frame of the story, Michael’s quest to prove his father’s innocence and inevitable doom, was given at the beginning, that’s not the sole direction the book took. For the first half there was another story happening too, a rebellion against the king, competing for attention with the main story with not enough room given to either story-line. The latter mainly consisted of events that distracted Michael from his quest and added nothing to the main story or had an impact on it. On the latter half of the book that story-line was discarded, which improved the plot considerably.
In addition to two plots, there were two sets of secondary characters that were identical to one another. There were two poor, mistreated boys with little brothers that Michael felt responsible for. Their actions had no impact on the plot, but they served to distract Michael, i.e. added to the word count. Then there were two women who knew Michael of old, but of whom he had no recollection. Their identities were withheld to the last moment, giving the reader a notion that they would be important for Michael’s life and the main plot, but that didn’t turn out to be the case. And then there were two women from law enforcement/military who were interchangeable too and had no meaningful impact on the plot.
I don’t know why the editor of the book allowed two parallel plots with two sets of characters to happen. Even if the rebel plot were a setting for the next book, it could’ve been handled as background noise with the focus more sharply on the main plot. There was enough going on with that one to fill a book.
Michael wasn’t an entirely likeable character. He was selfish and childish, and he didn’t much care who he hurt with his quest for truth — until after the fact. Then he rushed in to make things better, putting the main plot on hold and/or in jeopardy. His memory was faulty due to magic, but when he did regain his memories, they didn’t offer any sort of revelation that their absence had hinted at. He wasn’t the agent of his story. He was pushed around by events outside his control, required a deus ex machina salvation, and didn’t manage to achieve what he set out to do in the beginning, thus robbing the book from a proper conclusion. That was left for the next book, but with the rebellion and the sudden turn in his life orchestrated outside the plot, there would’ve been enough material for that even without postponing it too.
There’s a lot happening to the secondary characters behind the scenes that mainly come off as ‘what the hell’. Trey, a poor slum dweller, is auctioning himself off to become a soldier at one point and the next he is in the inner circle of the prince, only to become a rebel. How did that happen? No one even questions it. The mercenary Dark has an issue with his father, but when they finally face, they don’t even recognise one another. Was it all in Michael’s head? Michael’s older brother is being allowed to marry into the most important family in the country, and no one bats an eye, even though Michael has to support himself as a thief and is constantly being harrassed for his past. The princess is missing and then she’s not, but isn’t anyone important for the plot despite all the buid-up, and then she’s absent again. A lot more thought should’ve gone into all these characters. Now they seem like spur-of-the-moment inventions.
The world is fairly interesting, but its special features are mainly props. The use of magic causes memory loss that accumulates, but none of the main characters suffer from it. It’s used as a plot device, as Michael sets out to find the king’s memories, i.e. his journal that might tell the truth about his father, but in the end that doesn’t happen. Every magic wielder remembers Michael even if he doesn’t remember them. And then there’s the broken moon that has pieces falling from it, but that doesn’t drive the plot either, so I wasn’t entirely sure what its point was, other than distraction.
This was a good book, but not a great one, as the author clearly didn’t know what kind of book he was writing until the end. With a sharper focus it would’ve been a much better book and a more enjoyable read. I hope the next one will fix that.
I received a copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.