Zitong Ren's Reviews > Dark Kingdom

My thanks to the author for a free eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Overall, this was a really fun, enjoyable, and short novella. It packed a lot of punch, took place in an immersive world within this new 'country' of sorts that wasn't explored in book 1 (to memory, it was been a while since I read the first book in this world), and featured well developed characters.

It involved lots of creative world building, and the overall concept of Fifth Kingdom was well handled. In the short span that we spent with these characters, mainly with Ria, I found that these were interesting individuals who were written well. That said, it would have perhaps been beneficial to have spent more time, especially at the end looking at the motivations of other characters outside Ria. I found that due to the reasonably fast paced nature of the ending, and the fact that this is a novella (meaning that it is fairly short), I do think I would have liked just that little bit more time for everything to settle in for me before it ended. However, I do understand that novella's are more typically meant to be short and punchy, in which this book absolutely achieved that aim.

I am quite impressed at how much plot did occur, where everything moved along at a comfortable pace. It's a welcome change to many fantasy-esque novels that tend to drag on for far too long. Certain elements during the middle segment became slightly repetitive, but due to how relatively short this was, it didn't have too much of an impact on my rating.

Ultimately, thoroughly enjoyable novella that packs quite a punch. 8/10