Review : Legacy of Kings by Eleanor Herman

Summary (from Goodreads) 

Title : Legacy of Kings (Blood of Gods and Royals #1)
Author : Eleanor Herman
Publication Date :  August 25th 2015
Publisher : Harlequin Teen
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Imagine a time when the gods turn a blind eye to the agony of men, when the last of the hellions roam the plains and evil stirs beyond the edges of the map. A time when cities burn, and in their ashes, empires rise.

Alexander, Macedonia’s sixteen-year-old heir, is on the brink of discovering his fated role in conquering the known world but finds himself drawn to newcomer Katerina, who must navigate the dark secrets of court life while hiding her own mission: kill the Queen. But Kat’s first love, Jacob, will go to unthinkable lengths to win her, even if it means competing for her heart with Hephaestion, a murderer sheltered by the prince. And far across the sea, Zofia, a Persian princess and Alexander’s unmet fiancée, wants to alter her destiny by seeking the famed and deadly Spirit Eaters.

Weaving fantasy with the salacious and fascinating details of real history, New York Times bestselling author Eleanor Herman reimagines the greatest emperor the world has ever known: Alexander the Great, in the first book of the Blood of Gods and Royals series. 

Personal Thoughts

I saw pictures of Eleanor Herman at BEA rocking her Ancient Greek attire and thought that she seemed like a really cool author. I promptly looked into the summary of her debut Legacy of Kings and basically wept with joy because it sounded so epic. While the setting and the history themselves were rock solid, I struggled with quite a few elements in Legacy of Kings.

My first issue: the multiple POVs. I'm generally not a fan of multiple POVs, but I've enjoyed a few in the past. In Legacy of Kings, there were way too many POVs, approximately 5 or 6, which took away from my enjoyment. The problem with having so many character point of views is that I had a hard time keeping up with the characters. We meet one character in one chapter and then have to wait 5 more to meet them all over again. This ultimately led me to not really connecting with any of the characters. I did like Katerina quite a bit, but because we spent so little time with her over the course of the book, I just didn't find her to be very memorable. I firmly believe this book would have been so much tighter and so much more awesome if the book were only told through Kat and Alexander's voices and it would not have taken anything away from the plot at all. I will admit that I was quite fascinated by the villains in the book, like I usually with many fantasy books. They had that creepy and twisted minds thing going on for them and I was just waiting for them to bring a storm into the lives of the other characters.  What I did enjoy in Legacy of Kings, however, was the world building. Eleanor Herman used history and incorporated it together with her own ideas to craft this phenomenal setting that was engaging from start to finish. That being said, the book was incredibly slow in the story department. I was waiting for something to happen, but the book wasn't eventful at all. It also didn't help that I was able to guess most of the twists that the author had in store for readers.

Overall, Legacy of Kings was a rather disappointing novel. I think I had too high hopes for this book and together with the multiple characters and the shaky plot, it lead to me feeling rather bored while reading. For now, I'm not sure if I'll be picking up the sequel, but if I hear good things about it, I might because this is a series that has the potential to be really good.

Rating 

Cover : 4/5
Plot : 2/5
Characters : 3/5
Writing : 4/5

**Overall Rating : 2.5/5**

Thank you to NetGalley and Harlequin Teen for the e-ARC of Legacy of Kings.