The NeverKing

1. Author:

James Abbott

2. Name of the book:

The Never King

3. Editorial:

Pan Macmillian

4. Number of pages:

498 pages

5. Publication date:

2017

6. My Grade:

3

7. Summary:

It all started with a flashback of a battle between a town and some warriors, but later on we find out that the soldiers, that belong to a group called The Solar Court, are from the same reign and therefore believed to be traitors of the nations as they have committed murder of half of the village.

We then found ourselves five years later on a prison called Hell’s keep, and who leads this chapter is a spymaster called Landril, who is send there to find someone from the past and who will soon find something more important. After a few days, he finds the person who he has been looking for and it’s named in this prison by Hell’s King. This character true name is Xavir Argemont, the captain of The Solar Court, the only one who was not sentenced to death but to be there for the rest of his life and be remembered by the shame of being a traitor. . When the encounter between this two characters takes place, Landril tells Xavir that they were set on a tramp by the new king called Mandronius, and that he was sent there to set him free by the wolf queen Lupara. After his first refusal, he then agrees to go with him as he wants to clean the names of his brothers, the rest of The Solar Court, but he realizes that they can’t escape by themselves so he decides to involve the other boss of another band inside the prison, named Valderon. And so they escape together by a semi smart plan as Landril infiltrates himself as a guard, and since he’s a Spymaster it should be quite easy. When they start the runaway plan they are maybe 40 between the two bands and Landril and when they finally make it out, they are only eleven. But once they are out they have to face the last task, to trespass the magic border, which Xavir succeed by telling or letting the witches know what he wants to do, which is to seek revenge and justice to him and to his sword brothers.At this point of the book we are introduced to a new character Elysia, a young witch that belongs to the sisterhood and she’s kind of an underdog as she feels she doesn’t belong there and the way to learn in the sisterhood isn’t the right way for her, but luckily she has Brigitta, one of the teachers that always teach her by exploring and doing something else. A little later on they somehow end up listening to a secret meeting in which is revealed that the sisterhood is going to side with the King, who is the antagonist of the story, but there are a few witches from the sisterhood that doesn’t understand why they should take part on the war If they have always been acting only to help and beneficiate the people in general, not one band. The next day they find that sister dead. And so Brigitta and Elysia decide to runaway. Next thing we know is that Xavir and the rest are guided by Landril to find were Lupara is located and see what plan she has. And on the other hand are the running sisters that encounter some sort of demon in a village in which they also find some weird writings from a language that does not belong to that part of the world.Then after both of the groups have some battles, thanks to Lupara they meet, as she and Brigitta know each other. And with the first meeting Brigitta reveals something that it’s kind of predictable, that Xavir is Elysia’s father. Then the group goes on into the adventure of finding the ones that betrayed Cesius, the previous king. They find the first enemy Commander Hanivir and Xavir executes him, but latter on they find some rest of experiments with humans that also involve the language that we saw before when Brigitta and Elysia found the demon, or maybe better called creature from another world. The group then knows or comes to terms that there is a bigger fight than only vengeance so they all seek new clans to join the fight and having the castle of the commander as a headquarters. And from there Xavir, Elysia and Brigitta go into the capital where the king is located while Landril, Valderon and Lupara are going to find more recruiters. Inside the castle Elysia fins some outrageous experiments made by the king and she ask Xavir if they can go and investigate and so they do, but in doing so, a battle takes place and while Xavir is trying to kill the king, they realize that the life of the king is attached to the monsters that are the result of all those experiments and when Xavir kills him, all those experimented people die to, because they are attached to the king’s life. But unfortunately, Xavir dies. But still the fight isn’t over yet, the rest of the team wants to find and fight the dark witches that helped the king with the experiments. And so the boo ends here.

8. Full opinion: Well I loved et at the beginning, the story was going really fast, the characters were interesting but after the first hundred pages, it got boring, not because it wasn’t interesting, the story was in fact really enjoyable and somehow original, but the lack of maps, the lack of fast speed moments, and sometimes the dialogue it was really forced between characters, or at least to me. For example Briggita at the beginning is like amazing, but from the middle of the book until the very end she turns into this women who is not as tough as the presentation made her look like, and the moment when we “find out” for surprise, because let’s face it, that was the most expected thing of the entire book from the beginning. The only character that for me saved the book was Landril the Spymaster, he was fun, curious, not very trained in battle, he showed fear, but also, he was willing to go to a prison in order to protect the world. It seemed like he was flawed but at the same time those characteristic made him different from the rest. That is just my opinion.Even though I didn’t like it, it takes huge courage to build up a story, to create a new world and its characters, and maybe I did not enjoyed it as I expected but still I will give it a 5 over 10.

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