ARC Review // Kingdom of Souls by Rena Barron

Author: Rena Barron
Date: 03 September 2019
Genre: Sci Fi & Fantasy
Publisher: HarperVoyager

Book review

Arrah is a daughter of powerful witchdoctors Arti from tribe Mulani and Oshe from Tribe Aatiri. Her mother has a high position in the Kingdom as Ka-Priestess and she doesn’t give much attention to her. Whenever both of them see each other, Arrah feels her mother disappointment in her as she still doesn’t possess magic. As a child of powerful witchdoctors, everyone expects her to be as talented as her parents. She waits patiently but when she turns seventeen and has a last chance to receive magic from Gods, she’s getting more scared that it will never happen.

Like each year, the five tribes of Heka gather for the Blood Moon Festival. That’s the time when Heka presents his gifts to the children of tribes. Unfortunately, even with the help of chieftain of Tribe Aatiri, her grandmother the magic slipped out from her hands. The day after Blood Moon Festival ends her grandmother test her in magic and she fails again. During the tests, her grandmother has a vision about emerald eyes of a demon who is connected to Arrah’s life. As much as it scares her, it also gives her hope. She starts to think a demon has a connection to her lack of magic.

Soon she comes back to her home in Tamar. At the same time as the news about missing kids spreads around the city. The kidnapper is very powerful and hard to find. With time, more and more kids are missing. Arrah is sure that it has to be connected to her grandmother’s vision so she tries to solve the mystery. She never expected the truth would be so hurtful and destroying. It ends the life she knew and changes into the nightmare.

My thoughts:

A book itself is very interesting and surprising. The heroine, even without magic, is the only one who can sacrifice her life to save the others. She put the kingdom, its people, her family and friends on a pedestal. Even if she is left alone with all the problems, she doesn’t lose her hope. She fails many times, but it doesn’t demotivate her to try again.

Arrah loses a lot and as much as she’s hurt she is still trying to rescue her kingdom. She is a kind of victim of this whole story. She sacrifices everything for her people and in the end, she wins nothing. Magic and her past take everything from her and leave her with nothing.

The only thing I didn’t like was that everything happened so fast. The scene just started and instead of developing it, author cut it and went on with another scene. I think it was also done on purpose so the story won’t bore the reader but I wanted to read more about a few aspects and I couldn’t.

I like that the author shows a realistic view of the religion in the book. People within the book believed in their gods and every legend about them. They would never even think most of them are just lies. The Gods turned out to differ from the description that was repeated by years around the kingdom. It is also a reason for all their problems. It shows that even Gods make mistakes that lead to unexpected turns of the events. Beliefs are very strong in people’s lives and they can lead them to being a good person or to being blinded with the belief and become the opposite.

The worst part of reading this book was having too high expectations before I even started. Even if the book was really good I couldn’t enjoy it as much as I would without expecting too much from it. The story was amazing and very interesting but as weird as it sounds I couldn’t feel that I am a part of the story. However, I can’t wait to read the next book of this series. The ending of the book was better than I was expecting and I think the second book can be even better than the first one.

I would like to thank NetGalley, HarperVoyager and Rena Barron for providing me a digital copy of this book. I was more than happy to read it and honestly review it.

Rate: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️