Book Review: The Crown Conspiracy (Theft of Swords Part One)

This series was originally self published independently, but than they were bound up in three omnibus versions, two books a piece.  The Crown Conspiracy is the first book in the series, Ryria Revelations, and also the first book in the bind-up Theft of Swords.  I'll be doing each book separately because they're rather long (I think about 300 pages each).

The description is taken from goodreads:

In the first episode, the reader is introduced to Royce Melborn, a skilled thief, and his mercenary partner, Hadrian Blackwater, who make a profitable living carrying out dangerous assignments for conspiring nobles until they become the unwitting scapegoats in the murder of the king. Sentenced to death, they have only one way out...and so begins this epic tale of treachery and adventure, sword fighting and magic, myth and legend.

One word: Captivating.  I read this book in small increments, a few pages every day, so that I could read many other books simultaneously.  Let me assure you that settling down to dig in a little deeper to this story was the best part of every day.  It was like sitting down for a wonderful feast made up of all my favorite foods and I never got fat from eating more than I needed.  Yeah, it was really, really good.

 

I could write praises for this book for hours.  HOURS people, and I'm not exaggerating.  While I was considering what to write in this review I had to stop myself from OVERLY praising this book.  I want to give an honest review that says more than just "this book was awesome.  so very, very awesome." although that would be completely honest, too.

 

The pace.  For the first chapter it's slow.  And then, immediately, it picks up.  It's not a whirlwind adventure, but it's fast paced, funny, and full of action.  I think the fact that it takes the characters time to get from one place to another, and that the time doesn't seem too long, makes the story that much better.  A large portion of the middle is them travelling, but unlike many authors, Sullivan manages to get the pace exactly right.  It may not be one-hundred percent accurate, but who cares?  It keeps you entertained and the story believable at the same time.

 

The characters really take the cake, though.  Right from the start I knew I was in love with Royce and Hadrian.  I didn't read more than a few sentences of their dialogue before I knew the author was, too.  They're so perfectly written you can tell they've been sitting around in Sullivan's head for a long time and that, when they came out, the transferred to the page as if they'd always been there.  In addition to our heroes there are Alric- the prince- and Myron- a monk.  At first Alric is a little hard to like, but that's on purpose.  His character is also a little shaky early on, but as soon as the story really starts moving along, that stops.  Myron, too, is amazing.  He's so sweet and reminded me of an autistic kid (in a good way, I promise).  He was, by far, my favorite, and his story made me start to cry (really cry, not just on the inside, which is a feat for any book or show or movie, because I don't tend to cry).  There's also Arista, who, while not a main character, is central to the story, and instantly likeable, if not a little too "weak" for my liking.

 

The world is fully realized and without having to go into deep explanations of the mechanics I felt fully immersed.  It's a wonderfully built world for epic fantasy fans to fall in love with.  There is a magic system, lightly touched upon, but more important is the religious system.  I feel like that's often left out of epic and high fantasy and I was impressed by it's usage in the book.

 

It's no surprise, then, that I'm giving this book 5 stars.  I just LOVE it so much and am dying to begin the next one immediately.  If you haven't picked this book up, I really recommend it.  Even if you aren't a big fan of fantasy, the story is so compelling I think anyone could like it.  And a bonus?  It's clean!  There are some suggestions and one of the characters is a prostitute, but if you're not a fan of the sexual stuff that's becoming common in the popular epic fantasy of today (I'm looking at you, GoT) you'll like this one even more.