Book: The Death King

Author: Penelope Barsetti

Thank you NetGalley and Dreamscape Media for an advanced audio copy.

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The Death King was a pleasant surprise for me. Dark romances and fantasy are genres that I have a hard time with and I found myself very invested in this story. 

When Calista was fifteen The Death King named Talon came to her town on a dragon and killed everyone. Her father was one of the casualties. Her life is spared and she is sent to a mine to live out the rest of her life.

The general in charge of the mine was a piece of trash. This is where the trigger warnings for this book will begin because he was raping Calista for years. Calista finds a black diamond which should win her freedom but he won’t let her go. Talon comes riding in on his dragon and when Calista tries to escape she learns she has the gift to communicate with dragons. 

I did not care for Talon most of the time but he did have his moments while he was with Calista. I had to keep reminding myself what he was capable of because it felt like Calista was often forgetting he was responsible for her entire town burning. 

Imitation is the best form of flattery is what I kept telling myself here because so much in this book was similar to other books in the genre. What hooked me was the last few chapters and the ending. For most of this book I didn’t think I would continue the series, but then the way this ended I knew I would be back for book two.

Final score: 3/5