Crown of the Sundered Empire

I like J.C. Kang???s writing immensely! He has a knack of drawing you into the story immediately. As soon as I read the prologue and he mentions Avarax the dragon, I was hooked.

I always like the fact that at the beginning of the book, J. C. Kang gives us a cast of characters. I always find this useful. However, you never really need it as the characters are all distinctive and well imagined.

During the promotion for Crown of a Sundered Empire, I recently read in an interview with J. C. Kang that Crown of a Sundered Empire is his most accomplished work, and whilst I have very little to compare it to, it is very easy to tell that the story is a well-crafted piece of work. It is so slick in it???s writing, and it simply oozes charm.

Initially, the story revolves around an invasion of the village of Lorium by the Bovyans of the Teleri Empire, whose main motivations for invading the countries that they invade is due to their horrific ideals in relation to obtaining the next generation of soldiers. This is pretty awful, however, whilst sexual violence is referred to several times, it never occurs. However, that does not diminish the horror of the invasion.

In the midst of this, is Tomas, a young streetwise fisher boy who attempts to rescue the girl that he is smitten by. However, he is punished by the Bovyans who remove his eye as recompense.

However, Crown of a Sundered Empire revolves around five points of view, which includes the half-elf super-spy, Jie.

I love Jie, the half-elven spy. I met her first in Songs of Insurrection, and she stole the show in that book, and similarly, in Crown of a Sundered Empire, she steals the limelight each time the story centres on her.

When Jie enters the story, you know that there is going to be heaps of intrigue, and guess what Crown of the Sundered Empire is filled with the stuff. Even the subplots have subplots. But J.C. Kang is such a skilled writer that he keeps a tight leash on them all and then carefully draws them together at the end.

As I mentioned earlier, I had previously read Songs of Insurrection, so this aided me at times with Crown of a Sundered Empire as several times throughout the book, J. C. Kang puts in little easter eggs to other books, which I recognised. I don???t think it impacts on the story if you haven???t read any of the other books, but I did like these little references to the other books in the series.

There are a number of other storylines in the book, that include arranged marriages, the theft of priceless artefacts and infiltrating spies.

If you cannot guess, I enjoyed this book and there are many good things about J.C. Kang???s writings. One of these is his ability to write strong female characters. In fact, when it comes to characters, the female characters stand out more than the male characters and for me they appear to be the main driving force in his stories.

Additionally, I like the fact that he does not coddle the reader in his stories. He simply throws the reader in at the deep end and he expects that whilst the reader may find the introduction to the world and the environment a little confusing, he trusts that the reader will catch up and stick with it. If you do, you are richly rewarded with a satisfying tale of daring dos that and an intriguing plot.

If you like your books to be full of political intrigue, then Crown of a Sundered Empire is definitely a book for you.