King of Thorns (The Broken Empire, #2)

by Mark Lawrence

The second book in the Broken Empire series, Lawrence takes his young anti-hero one step closer to his grand ambition.

To reach greatness you must step on bodies, and many brothers lie trodden in my wake. I’ve walked from pawn to player and I’ll win this game of ours, though the cost of it may drown the world in blood…

The land burns with the fires of a hundred battles as lords and petty kings fight for the Broken Empire. The long road to avenge the slaughter of his mother and brother has shown Prince Honorous Jorg Ancrath the hidden hands behind this endless war. He saw the game and vowed to sweep the board. First though he must gather his own pieces, learn the rules of play, and discover how to break them.

A six nation army, twenty thousand strong, marches toward Jorg's gates, led by a champion beloved of the people. Every decent man prays this shining hero will unite the empire and heal its wounds. Every omen says he will. Every good king knows to bend the knee in the face of overwhelming odds, if only to save their people and their lands. But King Jorg is not a good king.

Faced by an enemy many times his strength Jorg knows that he cannot win a fair fight. But playing fair was never part of Jorg’s game plan.

• ISBN13: 9780007439034
• Publish Date: 16 August 2012 (first published 1 August 2012)
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 21 November 2015
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
• Imprint: HarperVoyager
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 384
• Language: English
• URL: http://harpercollins.co.uk

Reviews

[moraa]

***FOR REASONS THAT HAVE RECENTLY COME TO LIGHT, I CANNOT CONTINUE TO SUPPORT THIS AUTHOR***

I've always seen 'no' as a challenge rather than an answer.

I intend to finish this series before I learn how to breathe again. Refreshing, finding surprises tucked away between these pages.

[cornerfolds]

Read more of my reviews at Cornerfolds.com!

Review to come!

[HekArtemis]

I enjoyed this more than Prince of Thorns. The addition of Katherines story was a nice touch, I really liked her and so of course it was difficult to read her parts. Miana was amazing, truly, and I was concerned about what was going to happen there - but I was surprised in a good way. I really liked the fact that this book showed us that Jorg is actually capable of making friends, he is not just a killer, he can play politics too. Which is kind of important when it comes to being royalty and all.

In most books that have multiple perspectives or timelines I find myself liking at least one more than others, and hating one more than others too. Meaning I dread certain perspectives or timelines. Mark does a good job of keeping both timelines and Katherines story interesting enough that I was annoyed every time the perspective/time shifted, but then immediately I would be happy with the shift because that's right its got this thing I really want to know about.

That memory box added a nice kind of mystery to the story that keeps you on your toes, wondering, wondering, trying to figure it all out. The only thing is that I don't really get how he didn't know what happened. Yes he took the memory of it, but he surely would have heard about it, from other people, he would have heard the story of it, so he surely would have known at least in part. I don't know, maybe it's explained in the final book, but I can't see how it can be explained.

No matter, I really enjoyed this one and I am looking forward to reading the next one tonight.

[ross91]

I tried. I really did. But this series is not for me.
I’m still interested in reading other books by Lawrence tho, especially Red sister.

[KitsuneBae]

There's plenty of beating around the bush... >, Lots of telling than showing... I just wanted for Jorg to be gorier. Le sigh.