Thursday, January 9, 2025

Review: Donna Grant's "THE UNCROWNED KING"

 

THE UNCROWNED KING
Fantasy Romance

 

 

 

AUTHOR:
Donna Grant

RELEASE DATE:
January 14, 2025

PUBLISHER:
DL Grant, LLC

ISBN/ ASIN NUMBER :
B0D9FTXP2N

RATING:
3

AUTHOR LINK:
https://donnagrant.com/

 

 

Kora wants to rescue Derek from Meina’s evil machinations. However, she must partner with another enemy to achieve her goal. She also finds allies, and acceptance, with the Dragon Kings and their mates. When they finally locate Derek, she willingly faces death to help retrieve his stolen memories. Will Kora’s love be enough to reach Derek? Can they defeat Meina? And what about her questionable partnership with Villette?

Derek wakes with no recollection of his past. All he knows is what Meina tells him, yet he is hesitant to believe the Star Person. Derek cannot forget the faceless woman who has been haunting his dreams. Derek believes the Dragon Kings and the hellhound is responsible for all his losses. However, something about the hellhound feels familiar. Will Derek regain his missing memories? Or will it be too late? And who can Derek trust?

I am still not enamored with the hellhound- angle. I hoped that my opinion would change with the second part. Perhaps, if Kora morphed/shape-changed into a canine form like the Dragon Kings did, I would have liked her better. Hellhounds are not really my favorite kind of supernatural creatures. That could be my hangup. Derek and Kora are okay – they never really changed my feelings and thoughts about them from the first book. Neither really grabbed me or invested me.

THE UNCROWNED KING is the final book in Donna Grant’s fantasy-romance series, THE BASTARD DUOLOGY. The story picks up immediately where the first book leaves off. So, it is necessary to read THE BASTARD KING before venturing into this one.

I have a couple of nitpicks, things that just did not work for me. The first one is that there were too many characters mentioned. This boggled down the pacing. They had no real purpose in and with the plot. I feel for new readers it would be too overwhelming and confusing.

Another nitpick of mine is the repetitious retelling of the Dragon Kings’ plight on Earth as dialogue. Long time readers and fans of the DARK KINGS/DRAGON KINGS series already know the tale. I feel the author can get away with “and so they/he/she explained what happened on earth between Dragon Kings, the humans” etc. I skip over those parts because it feels long-winded, and it jars me out of the story’s momentum.

There is one aspect that I really liked. It is small, but it piqued my curiosity and interest. The tomte. I have never heard of this species/creature before. Learning about new species is always fun for me.


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