-Synopsis-

The kingdom of Cansere is on the brink of war. Young men are conscripted from their homes, and a royal decree from the queen has made healing the only legal form of craftlock. Nym, a healer and beekeeper, is the sole provider for her family of seven now that her younger brother has been sent to the war front. But when a letter comes from the queen, summoning Nym to the palace to heal Prince Renn, the kingdom’s ailing shut-in, Nym finds herself making the tumultuous journey from her family’s apiary to the capital city. Nym is determined to fail the queen’s mission and return to her younger siblings as soon as she can.

But escaping the castle’s hold isn’t as easy as failing a simple test. Prince Renn is cold and distant, and his illness is like nothing Nym has ever seen before, nothing she could ever imagine treating. In a moment of connection with Prince Renn, Nym manages to remedy the faintest symptom of his ailment—only to discover that no healer before has made such progress. Forced to become the prince’s official healer and a ward of the castle, and with her only hope of returning to her family hinging on the prince’s recovery, Nym must navigate the castle’s cruel and twisted court and uncover the haunting truth behind Prince Renn’s illness—even as she finds herself irrevocably drawn to him.

-Review-

*Trigger Warnings*: past sexual assault, pregnancy from SA, stillbirth, sexual harassment, (all of the previous never go into too much detail and is not highly focused on) physical illness, death of parents/siblings, vomit, blood, elitism, war violence, royal assassination, assassination attempt.

The Shattered King was a rather dark book compared to the other novels from Charlie I have read. Where The Paper Magician was more lighthearted with dark moments here and there, this book was mostly dark with spots of light scattered throughout. That being said, I was once again blown away with the writing, incredibly vulnerable characters and world building.

While I did listen to audiobook, the kindle edition came with a map of the two warring nations of Cansere and Sesta. Once again, I appreciate fantasy books having maps! Speaking of the audiobook, Natalie Naudus did a phenomenal job at narrating and acting out the story. She had just the right amount of emotion, and lack thereof, for any situation. She made the high intensity moments feel as heart pounding as they should. Very lovely voice as well!

This book follows the sole perspective of the magical healer Nym as she is summoned to the castle to use her abilities to heal the youngest Prince Renn. Knowing she has little choice in the matter, she has to leave her dependent siblings for an unknown amount of time. She carries an inner animosity towards the ruling family at forcing her hand, but is dutiful in her attempts at healing Prince Renn nonetheless. As time goes on and she feels closer to the Prince and his plights, she begins to gather there is much more to Renn’s sickness than meets the eye….

The majority of this story takes place within the castle understandably, as the Prince has been practically bed bound for quite some time. At first, the castle feels extremely claustrophobic even with its massive facade due to Nym’s intense feelings of being trapped. As the healing seems to be positively affecting Renn, more and more of the grounds and surrounding towns become more welcoming and open to the characters. I enjoyed this characteristic of the book, particularly as Nym’s own feelings began to open up to Renn himself. The fact there was an active war on the ever present brink, made the whole kingdom feel even larger and dangerous in the background.

Another interesting tidbit of lore, the religious system of the kingdom is quite polytheistic with different gods being worshipped for various things. Very Greek and/or Roman if you will. There are various colors associated with each god so people would wear that color depending on which god they were worshipping at that time. Nym being quite the observant one, would notice the colors of those around her which made the world feel so much more alive as well.

The magic in this book was quite interesting in of itself. For the most part, magical abilities (craftlock) have been outlawed in the kingdom of Cansere, except for healing. Interestingly, this outlaw does come to bite the royal family in the butt by the end of the story. The way in which healing is performed is basically through a spiritual entering of the healer into the patient’s lumis. This lumis is like a physical representation of the individual’s inner self if you will. Each person’s is different. For example, some lumi appear as a giant book, while another could look like a tree with baubles on it. When a person is sick or near death, certain parts of their lumis appear as disheveled and broken down, showing where the healing needs to take place. I had never experienced a magical system quite like this before so every time Nym dove into a lumis, I found it very interesting.

The romance between Nym and Renn was extremely slow paced. Nym wanted nothing to do with Renn at first due to her unfortunate circumstances and Renn began as acting like a spoiled royal. As the healing went on, both of them started lowering their walls around each other and opening up about their previous traumas and family. Eventually their differences of status put a bit of a damper on the relationship of which Nym struggled more so than Renn. They were both very respectable when it came to each others darker events of their pasts, making their relationship quite realistic and strong in my opinion. There is a moment in which things become a bit heated between them physically, but nothing sexual ever happens. Though the tension was very real.

All in all, this initial book in The Shattered King series blew me away. Just a warning this book does end on a pretty steep cliffhanger but luckily, the sequel The Half-Hearted Queen is available as well! Obviously I do plan on reading that as soon as I get the opportunity to.

I gave this book 4 stars mainly due to the pacing that would swap from a bit too slow to intensely fast in a matter of a page, which was a bit whiplashy but did not overshadow the aspects I loved.

I recommend this book if you are in the mood of a darker romantasy with no smut but plenty of violence and political intrigue associated with war.

-About the Author-

Charlie N. Holmberg is a Wall Street Journal and Amazon Charts bestselling author of fantasy and romance fiction, including the Paper Magician series, the Spellbreaker series, and the Whimbrel House series, and writes contemporary romance under C. N. Holmberg. She is published in over twenty languages and is a Goodreads Choice Award, ALA, and RITA finalist. Born in Salt Lake City, Charlie was raised a Trekkie alongside three sisters who also have boy names. A BYU alumna, she discovered in her thirties that she’s actually a cat person. She lives with her family in Utah.