Review: Lives of Kings

Lives of Kings by Lucy Leiderman

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

After being pleasantly surprised by the first book in this series, I was very eager to see where book 2 would take us. This set of books is a really enjoyable mix of epic storytelling, paranormal romance, YA drama, and urban fantasy. Oh, and you get some bonus reincarnation/historical elements thrown in to round out the series.

Gwen and her past-life/current-life group of magic infused teenagers are still poised to do battle against the “Magicians.” While they begin this book on the run, they soon realize that there will be no progress with either their magic or their memories if they stay in hiding. It actually takes some scary witch doctor magic to convince them of what they probably already suspected. While we spend about half the book with Gwen and her friends, the rest of the time is spent learning Kian’s backstory, motivation, and generally getting over the fact that he appeared to betray them all. Me, being a hopeless romantic, was hoping for Gwen and Kian all the way. I was eager to forgive him all his past sins and was quick to accept whatever motivation led him to end up with the magicians.

This book also gave us a deeper look into the powers and responsibility that each of these teenagers has accepted. Tensions rise and some people are not able to handle either the pressure or the responsibility. While this is a bit of romance, it is mostly made up of the friendship or kinship that these gifted individuals share. The massive events of this book left us with a little bit of a cliffhanger in the form of “how will they deal with this new set of challenges?!?” but otherwise it was a very satisfying action/adventure tale. The good guys are making progress, the bad guys are taking hits, and I’m still rooting for lots of love and relationships to spring out of these extraordinary circumstances.




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