Genre: Children’s fiction, Fantasy
Description:
Temple novice Katia wants nothing more than to become a priest in the Temple of the Triple Gods. She tries hard to do the right thing, but she’s on her last chance to convince Elder Sevanya, the King’s Priest, that she can do the job. While she’s belatedly setting up the incense to prove she’s a competent acolyte, Katia overhears the king’s brother plotting to kill the king.
She steals the Kingstone to protect it and to deliver it to the true heir with a message: the killer is after him too.
Not knowing who to trust, Katia keeps her mission secret. Her theft of the precious stone puts a price on her head and she disguises herself as a boy to undertake the dangerous journey across sea and land to the true heir’s palace. Doing the right thing just got a lot harder.
Will the Triple Gods forgive her?
Review:
I was contacted by the author and received a copy of her book in exchange for an honest review.
Katia is doing what she always wanted to, training to become a priest in the Temple of the Triple Gods, but unfortunately it seems she is not very good at it! She accompanies Elder Sevenya and the King of her world back to her homeland Indigon and must prove that she’s worthy of becoming a priest or they will leave her there.
She overhears the king’s brother plotting to kill the King but it is too late to save him, so she takes the Kingstone, sacred relic that only the King can possess, to deliver it back to it’s rightful heir and stop the death plot against him.
In order to complete her task, she disguises herself as a boy and stows away on a ship where she meets the mysterious Mynott, who agrees reluctantly to help her with her quest.
I have to be honest I wasn’t that taken by the cover, (it kind of reminded me of some old fashioned books I had to read as a child in school back in the nineties), but this book is a real hidden gem.
It may be a fantasy novel but at it’s heart this story is about adventure. There were some good twists and turns, which kept me turning page after page.
Katia is great character, full of self doubt, a tendency to speak her mind (even when she shouldn’t), but she has a good heart and knows when to do the right thing.
There were some religious overtones, which may not be to everyone’s taste, but the author managed to not let them over power the story. Also I found the concept of the triple gods (the sun god, the moon god and the mountain god) intriguing but I would have liked to have known a bit more about the mythology surrounding them.
I also felt like I wanted to learn more about the fantastic world the author created. Were there more lands than just Eraton and Indigon? I would have loved have seen a map (I just want to point out here I didn’t see the final version, so I’m not sure if a map is included).
Rating 4/5.
Author bio:
Katherine’s had a variety of jobs, including egg-pickler, pic’n’mix sweet assistant, a pharmaceutical microbiologist, classroom assistant, and volunteer librarian.
She’s currently an author, with two ‘Granny Rainbow’ story collections and two novels- StarMark (May 2016) and Kingstone (June 2017) – published for children. She’s also published in a number of anthologies for adults, including Stories for Homes, A Seeming Glass, Something Rich and Strange, and was long listed and published in the Leicester Writes Short Story Prize 2017 anthology.
She enjoys visiting schools to share her love of creative writing with children and young people, and helps to run NIBS, a small creative writing group in her town.
Available to buy: Physical copies can be ordered from various chains in the UK – Waterstones, Foyles and Blackwells list it. via Amazon, also available from selected Barnes and Noble stores in the US, and via the publisher on their Book Peddler page. http://bbp.bedazzledink.com/ Also available as kindle or epub versions.
Reading guide available at : http://binkbooks.bedazzledink.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Kingstone-ReadingGuide.pdf
Blog: https://squidgesscribbles.blogspot.co.uk/
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