The King of Attolia...

[fajrdrako]

I loved The King of Attolia by Megan Whalen Turner, just as I loved the first two parts of the series, The Thief and The Queen of Attolia. Warning: for best impact, read these in order. It's so much fun to see the developing plots.

Of course I loved it: it's about one of my favourite themes, palace intrigue. Mostly I love Megan Whalen's writing style, which grabs my attention and keeps it, sentence by sentence. But I also love the plotlines, which are based on twists and surprises. And I love the characters, especially the hero, a master of lies and deceptions .

The setting is a fantasy world similar to that of ancient Greece, with a dollop of the Italian Renaissance thrown in.

The viewpoint character in The King of Attolia is a young soldier named Costis, a guard at the Queen's palace. Costis and always has been loyal to the queen, but he hates her upstart new husband. One night on the palace battlements Costis loses his temper and strikes the King.

The punishment of course should be death, but the King instead forces Costis to his personal service. So Costis finds himself caught in the middle of palace intrigue - complete with rebellious barons, pranksters mocking the king, foreign invasion plans, and a situation where nothing is what it first appears to be.

It is high praise of Megan Whalen Turner to say that the relationship between Costis and the King reminded me of that between Jerott Blyth and Lymond in the Dunnett novels.

I do hope Turner is working on another book in this series. I want more.