The King Slayer
Rating: 5/5
Buy or Borrow: Buy
Source: Copy courtesy of the publisher!
Former witch hunter Elizabeth Grey is hiding within the magically protected village of Harrow, evading the price put on her head by Lord Blackwell, the usurper king of Anglia. Their last encounter left Blackwell ruined, but his thirst for power grows stronger every day. He's readying for a war against those who would resist his rule--namely Elizabeth and the witches, wizards, pirates, and healers she now calls her friends.
Having lost her stigma, a magical source of protection and healing, Elizabeth's strength is tested both physically and emotionally. War always means sacrifice, and as the lines between good and evil blur once more, Elizabeth must decide just how far she'll go to save those she loves.
Okay so I read Witch Hunter not too long ago and I've been eagerly awaiting this sequel to see what happens next, WH made me feel all the feels but this was so much worse. SO MUCH. So many feels. I can't even. I read the majority of this in one sitting, I only stopped because it was like 4am and I needed to sleep and I had like 50 pages left or something. I couldn't put it down. The book picks up a couple of months later, and there's a council meeting to decide what to do with Elizabeth and my lord Gareth took the piss. I really disliked his character! Anyway, there's that and there's the whole 'we need to deal with Blackwell' thing. This book as a complete rollercoaster of emotions. It made you laugh, cry, it broke your heart, the camaraderie warmed your heart. You legit feel all the feels.
I liked seeing this new Elizabeth. She wasn't as strong as she was in book one, obviously without her stigma she doesn't heal super fast and she's lost some of her strength and at points she's struggling to deal with that because she feels like everyone placed her value on her stigma. Elizabeth has to learn to fight all over again with the help of Schuyler and Fifer. This added such an interesting dynamic with John. John now has her stigma and he's all super healing and super badass. He's more protective of Elizabeth and it was kind of sweet. There was an odd tension between them because of it all and it was really well done and created an interesting struggle with the romance, or obstacle rather. It was all fine and good until John started acting super shady, and you see his darker side and I wanted to slap him more than once. My adorable romance was being spoiled and my ship was sinking fast with no happy ending in sight! Honestly, I was glued to the book like NO....NO WHAT IS HAPPENING!? MAKE IT STOP!
The romance had kind of come together in the last book and it was all cute and adorable in this book I was expecting more of it but I think this added tension and this struggle with the romance added a nice layer to the story. It wasn't all smooth sailing and at points it was quite realistic. But then I can say that now because everything worked out fine, when I was reading I did briefly wonder if this was it, if the romance was done and I was unable to carry on reading a couple of times, having to put the book down to digest everything and calm down!
I completely loved the cast of characters in the first book and in this book we get to see more of them! I love Fifer's friendship with Elizabeth and her relationship with Schuyler. We didn't get to see much of Fifer actually, or George, but he was there at the end! I'd missed him! We get lots of Schuyler in this book and I love him, I genuinely do. He cracks me up. You can see his friendship with Elizabeth, he helps her train, he's there for her when everything goes wrong, he goes with her on her mission, he's so sweet to Fifer, and you kind of see his softer side in this book a little bit. Chime's back and I wanted to like her this book because I hated her last book, and I did kind of like her momentarily she was united with Elizabeth in trying to help John but then she was back to her regular self. I loved seeing Peter and Nicholas and ugh. So many feels.
We get some new characters in this book. Keagan who completely cracked me up, I loved her and I'm hoping to see more of her if the author writes more books! She was completely brilliant! She understood Elizabeth quite a bit I think and didn't immediately judge her badly for being a former Witch Hunter. We also get a lot of Malcolm. Now I know he's not a new character, but like...we didn't really see much of him in the first book and I had a certain image of him in my mind, I thought he was a bit useless and rubbish, and a complete idiot. In this book we see him a lot and I wasn't sure what to make of him after everything with Elizabeth. He had kind of had his illusions shattered regarding her and realised what kind of person he had been. It was interesting to see the two of them interact as their merry band go off on their little mission. I actually ended up quite liking him. He apologised to Elizabeth sincerely, and he wasn't the useless pansy I thought he was. Don't worry there's no love triangle or anything! There's just love troubles haha.
The King Slayer was a brilliant sequel and I'm so gutted there are only two books in the series. It's fast paced, with a vivid and authentic feeling setting, there's an epic battle scene, more magic, more romance, more action and more feels. This book is so easy to sit and read in one go because you don't want to put it down and it genuinely makes you feel all the feels. We see all of our favourite characters and get to see a few more and I think things ended well with everything wrapped up smoothly. This is definitely one of my favourite books and Virginia Boecker has become an auto-buy author of mine! I'm hoping she'll write more books for this series but for now I'll have to settle for novellas and re-reading!
