Kingdom of Exiles by Maxym M. Martineau ♛ 5 Star Review

ARC provided by the publisher, Sourcebooks Casablanca, in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

I requested an ARC of this on NetGalley on a whim, simply because I was intrigued by the title and the stunning cover. I’m so glad that I was given the chance to read and review this, because this has made it onto my list of all-time favorite novels. I was completely blown away by this and I don’t think I’ll ever recover.

Magical animals, shadow assassins, and forbidden romance!! Where has this book been all my life?

“She was a Charmer, and I her unwilling assassin.”

This is being sold as “Fantastic Beasts meets Assassin’s Creed” and I honestly don’t know how that couldn’t intrigue you. It begins with a woman named Leena that was exiled from the magical Beast Charmers’ city for a crime that she didn’t commit, that’s having to illegally sell her beasts to get by. Noc runs a guild of assassins raised from the dead that can control shadows, and have been hired to kill Leena. Leena gets the drop on her would-be assassin and they strike up a deal that will keep her alive as long as she acquires them their own beasts.

Maxym Martineau’s writing was really easy to fall into and I enjoyed all of her enchanting descriptions. It hooked me from the very first page. But where she really excelled was her characters. I fell in love with every single one of them and can’t stop thinking about them even though I finished this book a couple of days ago. They were all extremely complex and fleshed out, and their unique quirks and personalities were just so heart-warming.

“No matter how hard you try, no matter how many battles you win, you will never survive me.”

But what really set Kingdom of Exiles apart is the romance. It’s a typical forbidden romance but the tension and slow burn were done so amazingly. And the steamy scenes? Yesss. I was LIVING for it and I seriously can’t recommend this book enough.

The only down-side of this entire novel was that it’s extremely predictable. It uses a lot of popular tropes so I knew almost everything that was going to happen. But the writing and content was so great, that the predictability didn’t matter. It didn’t hinder the story in any way for me.

The quotes above were taken from an ARC and are subject to change upon publication.

♛

Rating: ★★★★★

Overall, I loved every single word of this book and I will definitely be purchasing a finished copy. It was easily a 5 star read and it made it onto my favorites list. I was squealing so much while reading it and seriously couldn’t put it down. I’d highly recommend this to fans of the A Court of Thorns and Roses series or the Kate Daniels series!

What did you think of my incoherent babbling? And more importantly, are you going to be buying this book on June 25th? You need to. I want the second one in my life ASAP. Thanks for reading my review and have a lovely day everyone!

Sail.xx