Kingdom of Souls (Kingdom of Souls, #1)

by Rena Barron

Explosive fantasy set in a West African world of magic and legend, where one girl must sacrifice her life, year by year, to gain the power necessary to live up to the expectations of the mother she has never been good enough for.

Perfect for fans of Sarah J Maas, Tomi Adeyemi and Black Panther

There’s magic in her blood.

Arrah is a young woman from a long line of the most powerful witch doctors in the land. But she fails at magic, fails to call upon the ancestors and can't even cast the simplest curse.

Shame and disappointment dog her.

When strange premonitions befall her family and children in the kingdom begin to disappear, Arrah undergoes the dangerous and scorned process of selling years of her life for magic. This borrowed power reveals a nightmarish betrayal and a danger beyond what she could have imagined. Now Arrah must find a way to master magic, or at least buy it, in order to save herself and everything she holds dear.

• ISBN13: 9780008302238
• Publish Date: 19 September 2019 (first published 3 September 2019)
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 1 April 2022
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
• Imprint: HarperVoyager
• Edition: Goldsboro Books Exclusive
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 442
• Language: English
• URL: http://harpercollins.co.uk
• Special: Numbered Signed Sprayed Edges

Reviews

[thepunktheory]

Full review on my blog coming soon!


Did somebody say magic? My head pops out of the earth like a gopher. Here we get a super fascinating African setting that was clearly inspired by tribes and their legends.
I love the concept of magic we get here and how it unfolds over the course of the book. Also, there will be another installment, and I can't wait to read more about this world.
Kingdom of Souls was a book I basically devoured. The story is super thrilling and there are so many twists and turns you won't see coming. Rena Barron keeps you on your toes all the way!
The main character Arrah is pretty cool and relatable. Her development is well-written and it was wonderful to watch her grow.
I could have done without the love story, though.
There's only one (slightly) negative point I need to mention. Sometimes the pacing felt a little off. Around the middle, we were moving rather slowly only to then get a very fast finish. Some room for improvement there, but it wasn't too bad.

[Amber (The Literary Phoenix)]

I really, really wanted to love Kingdom of Souls. I wanted to love it because I absolutely adore the African-inspired magical setting of Children of Blood and Bone and because Twitter is right – epic fantasy is far too whitewashed. But I can’t good conscience say that this was an amazing fantasy story or that it answers Children of Blood and Bone and that I love it because… I didn’t. I struggled through Kingdom of Souls. I appreciate the diversity and I want ALL of the different cultures in fantasy novels because to me… fantasy is fantasy and I want to devour it all. But I can’t in good conscience say “this book was amazing!” because… for me, it wasn’t.

I will admit that Kingdom of Souls had its moments.

The prologue itself was incredibly aesthetic. Arrah’s time in the tribal lands was unique and well written. In fact, there are a lot of good things going for the novel. I’ve been trying to think of the best way to explain it, and what I’ve come up with is that it’s like baking. Rena Barron has all the highest quality ingredients and they’re all there to make an amazing, tantalizing batch of cookies. But in baking, you must do things a certain way and in a certain order, or your cookies won’t come out quite right. Instead of following the recipe, Barron’s thrown all her ingredients in a bowl at the same time and is mixing them on high power. Batter’s splatting everywhere. There are too many chocolate chips. Things have gone awry. The end result will still taste good, but it won’t taste great.

It’s not about the characters, or the setting. The magic system she’s created is interesting and has consequences (yes!) but it’s also whimsical in its delivery. I’ve concluded that all the faults of this novel fall back to the writing style, and in turn, affect the pacing. Kingdom of Souls feels more like an early draft than a finished novel. There are too many extended asides to justify plot directions or character development. And there are far too many convenient events.

Take the pacing for example. It jumped all over the place. Sometimes it was incredibly slow and dragged on and on. Other times, months passed between chapters. Barron explained away these awkward transitions at one point by putting Arrah and her family in a city where time did whatever it wanted. There were many moments where I had finally gotten used to the pacing only to suddenly be in the middle of something and be unsure how I got there. I’d flip back and reread, certain I’d missed a page – but no. That’s just how the book works.

So that’s one minor example of convenience? Another would be the development of both Arti and Rudjek’s characters. Events happened to both of these characters that were supposedly instrumental to the plot, but from a (jaded) reader’s perspective, I didn’t buy it. To avoid spoilers, I can’t say precisely want it was about Rudjek that drove me crazy, but I’m never a fan of casually twisting characters’ fates for story advancement when there are many other more sensible (if less dramatic) paths. And Arti completely broke character at the end of the book and I believe Barron was trying to give her some sort of redemption moment, but it was so out of the blue and uncharacteristic that it simply didn’t work.

I should also mention that there are chapters from the POV of supernatural beings. This is fine, but stylistically these chapters are jarring. They’re written in italics (again, fine) and without proper punctuation in dialogue. Not all the supernatural asides had dialogue, but the asides that did made me cringe because of the chosen style and definitely took me out of the world. Also, none of these chapters helped or advanced the story – early ones distracted – and could have been cut to help tighten the novel.

It was things like that which made me struggle through the book. I’m objective enough to see deep down there’s an excellent story here. Unfortunately, the unrealistic conveniences gave it a fan fiction feel, and the telling nature of world building and backstory made pacing inconsistent and felt like unnecessary threads that distracted from the story. Kingdom of Souls read to me like a middle draft… it’s definitely edited and generally good in its bones, but it really needed to be tightened up before publication because while there’s a dark fantasy in there, it’s covered in random flashbacks and moments where Barron decided not to follow through on the consequences of some of her in-story choices.

Just… generally… this isn’t the worst fantasy I’ve read and like I said in the intro paragraph, seeing other cultures represented in fantasy was great. I always have a difficult time giving diverse books a low rating because I want to support these authors in a world that seems dead set on putting them down. But taking aside the culture that inspired the fantasy (which was wonderful, honestly) and the characters’/author’s ethnicity, this book was a bit of a mess as far as style and technique goes. I am not inspired to pick up the next in the series.

But! It is a diverse fantasy and many people are enjoying it, so if you’re curious, it’s worth a read. I read a LOT of fantasy – it’s sort of my thing – so I’m particular about the rules of universes and what I like to see in these novels. Many of my pet peeves from Kingdom of Souls may not be apparent to a less frantic reader, so therefore, it’s worth a go.

It's been a while since I have read this book, but apparently, I forgot to write a review, so here a short overview of what I thought.

I really enjoyed the story overall, it has great characters, and there are some twists that I had not expected. I enjoyed seeing the main character struggle and the dynamic with her sister was really interesting. I also enjoyed that the story was focussed so much on the gods, which I normally don't like as much. However, the pacing does feel off at some points, hence the four stars.

[Amber]

I received Kingdom of Souls as a review copy from NetGalley and Edelweiss. Obviously, these are my honest thoughts and feelings about the book. I also posted this review on my book blog if you'd like to check it out!

I have so many thoughts on this one! I’m going to try to be as coherent as possible. And no, that doesn’t mean this was a five star read (not quite!) but it ended up being a very solid four star one!

I read this book in two days. Partly because I had to (deadlines!) and partly because by the mid-way point I was kind of hooked. After about fifty percent, the book starts to kick off and I just could not put it down. But I should probably start from the beginning first.

I will admit, I didn’t love Kingdom of Souls to begin with. My two main issues were Arrah, the main character, and the writing style that didn’t really lend itself to the rich world building.

Arrah started out incredibly whiny. She kept going on and on about how she really wanted magic, how she was never chosen, how she was always last… and it all got a bit grating. For the first ten percent of the book I was rolling my eyes at her and was kind of like just SHUT UP.

The writing style started off very simple, and it put me off a bit because it was mixed with very rich and well-thought-out world building. I wanted the writing style to match that. But instead we got quite a bit of “Arrah did this, and then met twenty other people whose names you’re not going to remember later”. I feel like this could have been polished more.

But that all got so much better.

Once we got to know Arrah a bit, her thoughts and emotions made so much sense. So she was seemingly whiny, but we learn that she’s actually descended from the most powerful witchdoctors there are, so it makes sense that Arrah really, really wants to live up to those expectations. On top of that, her mother is a Priestess (THE Priestess), and is super beautiful and powerful, and has people basically dropping at her feet. Plus, Arrah’s mother barely pays attention to her, and Arrah thinks that’s because she doesn’t have magic and she’s a disappointment.

My advice if you think Arrah is whiny and needs to stop? Keep reading, because as you get to know her more, her actions make so much sense. And it’s a little heartbreaking the more you think about it.

As for the writing style, it did improve. I think I got used to it as I also got used to the massive cast of characters (there are twenty gods alone, and then all the witchdoctors, and THEN all the people in Tamar without magic). Barron did a fantastic job of balancing everything, although I think it may have been slightly too much of a challenge for a debut author to tackle at first.

Massive points for the representation as well. This is is obviously West African inspired, and there are a few other cultures (mildly) represented in there as well. There’s also what I think is a non-binary god as a minor character (who might become more relevant in the sequel??) and a couple of other mentions of LGBTQ+ characters. Minor, but woven into the world quite well. I’m hoping for more of that from the sequel!

By the way, there’s a SHIP. I haven’t had a good ship in YA books for so, so long. I never get invested any more because, to be honest, I’m probably a bit old for that (*gasp* I can’t believe I just said that either). But Arrah and Rudjek read more like adults to be honest, and I think that’s why I ended up rooting for them. I’m really worried about where they’re going to go in the sequel, after what happened at the end there. Is this going to be another Shadow and Bone situation for the shippers?

While we’re talking about relationships, I’m going to quickly mention Arrah and Efia. I was a little let down by how this relationship was handled, purely because I feel like a lot more time should have been spent on it. I would have been a lot more emotionally involved if I had seen them interact more, especially if they had had more cute moments. Instead they only had one, and then it was quickly onto the next thing. I understand why Barron had to speed things up, but this relationship was kind of crucial to the entire second half of the book, ya know? So more of that would have been good so I could have become more invested at the end.

There’s also a twist that I didn’t see coming. I won’t say where it was or anything about it, but I did think it played out really well and I’m quite impressed that Barron tricked me like that.

Overall, Kingdom of Souls is one I would recommend! It’s not a new favourite of mine, but it definitely stands out against the rest of the YA fantasy I have been reading this year.

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[katie]

Review will be posted September 5 at http://kaitplusbooks.com!

[tweetybugshouse]

This story follows the story of a daughter of two strong magical families. She can see magic floating through the air always out of reach. When her last chance arrives to gain magic it passes her by. She chooses to do the unthinkable to gain magic and uncovers some series secrets that her mother has kept hidden.

I rated this a 3 and it mostly because i think the author has an amazing story to tell but their was lot to unpack in this story. The first half of the book is very strong, the descriptions of the magic floating around, the family relationship, the love interest all well flushed out and strong. When we moved along in the story and more events started to happen their was less time spent on the details and it became more of a this is what happens and then this. I felt that the story would of been stronger if book one was shorter and more developed and some of the events should been carried over to the next book.

I am interested in seeing what happens with the ending we were given but i probably have to re read the last few chapters to really get what happened and where we are in the story by the time the next book comes out. It a very interesting story that is very involved and needed more developing.

[layawaydragon]

I received this book for free from in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.I am abso-fucking-lutely honored to have been chosen for the Kingdom of Souls tour. My fellow YA Fantasy fans, rejoice in knowing the hype is real AND DESERVED.

Today, you'll find my review, some favorite quotes, and a giveaway to enter. With no spoilers! So, let's get to it!

About the Kingdom of Souls:

IMHO: Kingdom of Souls

Content Warning: Includes bullying, children kidnapping, human sacrificing, rape by deception, toxic mothering, tales of torture, PTSD, and typical violent fighting.

• DEVOURED IT LIKE NO-FACE AND I NEEDS MOOOOOOORE.


• Did not feel like the almost 500 pages it is.


• Arrah is great. Realistic teen, understandable, doing her best for what she thinks is best with her baggage.


• The romance is super cute, bantering and awkwardness from friends to lovers. 


• Love how meaning of  words like charlatans and gendars has transformed in this world


• Love, LOVE the letters between chapters from the orishas. They might be my favorite part.


• Most fantasies, hell most novels, adhere to unwritten societal conventions and Kingdom of Souls just goes, "hold my beer".


• Villains are people too. Didn't think I'd be rooting for a *REDACTED*s death or sympathizing with a *REDACTED*.  Or that *REDACTED*


• More


• Compliments


• That


• Cannot


• Be


• Made


• Without


• Spoilers


• Was not expecting much of anything that happened, TBH. No idea where it's going, but Imma be there!


• Major like woah, cliffhanger ending. But it's a natural and understandable breaking point so I'm not mad at it.

The only unperfect thing about my first reading of Kingdom of Souls, was my adult brain and fatigue re: teen repeatedly lamenting angstily. This was over completely understandable things, while I would probably curl up in a ball and die unlike Arrah. SO, it's not  really fair to complain about it, but dragged they did.

Kingdom of Souls is perfect for every YA fantasy fan, especially those looking for something beyond the typical Eurocentric swords and wands. It’s like Tahir’s A Torch Against The Night series meets Nix's Old Kingdom.

favorite Quotes:

To not only see magic, to tame it, to bend it, to be magical?

 

It's a smell of home, and a smell laced with bad memories.

 

"You look like you've just seen the end of the world."

"Old news," I sigh, waving my hand, "I saw that months ago."

 

--a memory that sputters like torchlight at the first drops of rain, trying desperately to shake itself loose from some unseen chains.

 

But for there to be peace, there must be death.

 

About the Author:

Giveaway:

Prize: Win a Kingdom of Souls VIP swag bag: a copy of Kingdom of Souls by Rena Barron + swag (US Only)
Starts: 4th September 2019
Ends: 18th September 2019
Embed Code: a Rafflecopter giveaway

Tour Schedule:

This review was originally posted on The Layaway Dragon