Light up the darkness, Luce Della Pace.
Knight's Inferno and the Fallen King
by Kearney Woodson
Genre: Fantasy
About: Lucy is the daughter of Satan - or Samuel as he likes to go by. But although she's heir to the underworld, the King of Darkness has been usurped by his own clone. When he takes Lucy hostage, it falls on Salvatore, her dark knight, to save her.
Thoughts
This is book two of what looks to be a trilogy, and while I haven't read book one, I do think you can read this without too much confusion. The first chapter relates a lot of key background information, although I would say it does so in the classic telling us, not showing us way. I loved the first few opening lines - that's what made me download the book, but the rest of the chapter loses the quirkiness the opening promised. It reads far too much like a summary. I did need the information, but I wanted to be told it in a more interesting way. For example, the story starts with Lucy being trapped in hell, bruised and tortured, or rather that's how it should start because that's exciting and a great reason to turn the page - to find out what's going on. But the first half of the chapter is literally all backstory before we cut to Lucy's current predicament.
Unfortunately the opening chapter is reflective of the rest of the book. The story is action packed and has all the potential to be a great read, but it isn't told in an interesting way. I loved the quest elements, I loved the variety of characters Sal meets on his journey, and I thought the magic was cool and fitted in well with the story. But the story is simply being told to the reader. We're told what characters feel, conversations tell us of character plans, or of their history. There's just no atmosphere or mystery to anything because the reader isn't being asked to think. An example of this is Sal's interaction with Queen Beth. He lies to her about how he came across some magical items, and each time he lies we're told this. Queen Beth doesn't even believe him. She repeats over and over how she knows he's lying. To add tension to the scene, the reader should be trying to work out if the queen believes him - she is after all seducing him and this could have added a deceptive dynamic between them. But we never feel Sal's panic in lying and we always know exactly how Queen Beth views him.
Characters overall lack mystery. The bad guys are clearly the bad guys, and Sal repeats over and over again his mission to save Lucy. It's his entire purpose. With no other layers or points of mystery to any of the characters, the story falls flat.
So while I appreciate the imaginative world-building and I enjoyed the quest aspects of the story, I found myself too disengaged with the characters and that was because of the way their story was being told.
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