Book Review: The Demon King

Title: The Demon King
Author: Cinda Williams Chima
Series: Seven Realms
Genre: Fantasy>High Fantasy/YA
Goodreads rating: 4.22
My rating: 4

One day Han Alister catches three young wizard setting fire to the sacred mountain of Hanalea. Han takes an amulet away from Micah Bayar, son of the High Wizard, to ensure the boy won’t use it against him. The amulet once belonged to the Demon King, who nearly destroyed the world a millennium ago. With a magical piece so powerful at stake, Han knows that the Bayars will stop at nothing to get it back.

Meanwhile, Princess Raisa ana’Marianna has her own battle to fight. She’s just returned to court after three years of riding and hunting with her father’s family. Raisa aspires to be like Hanalea, the legendary warrior queen who killed the Demon King and saved the world. But it seems that her mother has other plans for her—plans that include a suitor who goes against everything the Queendom stands for.

The Seven Realms will tremble when the lives of Han and Raisa collide in this stunning page-turner from best-selling author Cinda Williams Chima.

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Sometimes it's really nice to be able to read a series that is nice and complete.  This 4 book series is complete and ready for your reading binge.  

I really enjoyed this series.  Sometimes, amidst all the books I read, there are books that tend to stick with me.  I don't always know why I can give two different books the same rating but one of them I think about far longer than the other.  This is one of those series that has stuck with me.  It's been a while since I finished the series and I still occasionally think about it or when someone is asking for a fantasy series to read this one always pops into my head.  Maybe not the first one to pop in my head but it inevitably does.  

This series follows the POV's of two people.  Let's start with Han.  Han is basically a street rat/former street lord.  He is a wonderfully flawed main character with room to grow.  His flaws only humanize him and make you root for him even more.  

Princess Raisa(kind of an Aladdin dynamic going on here) is trapped in tricky world of politics between the wizards, the court and  the clans.  She knows she wants to emulate her ancestors but maneuvering through the murky waters of court life proves difficult.   She is headstrong and isn't brought down easy by those who would wish to control her.  

Han and Raisa's paths only cross briefly in this first book but never fear, in the following books we get a lot more Han and Raisa interaction.  

I want to touch briefly on the romance in this series.  The intimate interactions in this series are more mature than the previous books I have reviewed.  I want to be honest about this part because I don't want to recommend this series just to offend someone by the content.  While I think the author deals with the situations in a mature way I probably would put a 14 or older age recommendation on the series.

The books in this series are as follows:

The Demon King
The Exiled Queen
The Gray Wolf Throne
The Crimson Crown