Review: Review for The Phantom King by Heather Killough-Walden
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 07 20, 2012
It is official. I am hooked on Heather Killough-Walden's books. This is the tenth book I've read by Ms. Walden. With every book in The Kings series comes a better and deeper story. The Phantom King is book two in the Big Bad Wolf spinoff series, The Kings. The Vampire King is the first book in the series. I have to say, while The Vampire King left me speechless, this book left me stunned.Summary: Siobhan Ashdown is a warlock. Warlocks are by no means the same as witches. The magic of a warlock is different. It is dark and evil. The Akyri demons feed off of warlock magic. This puts Siobhan in an enormous amount of danger, as she possesses a great amount of potential in magic. Thanatos, or Thane is the Phantom King, ruler of Purgatory. One of the souls that were supposed to stay in his realm escapes. When Thane goes to the world of the living to retrieve this soul, he finds that the soul has led him to Siobhan. Someone wanted to drain Siobhan of her magic, but got to her boyfriend Steven first. But little does Siobhan know what's in store when she meets Thane. "Thirteen Kings are severed by lust and greed, an ancient vampire and his rogue creation lay claim to what is not theirs, the whisperings of war begin to shake the foundation of the supernatural world, and primordial evil awakens from its slumber to slither across the land in this second installment in the Big Bad Wolf spinoff series, The Kings, by Heather Killough-Walden."What I Liked: I liked all of the characters! This is very rare, because while all characters have their flaws, I generally cannot get past those flaws. In this book, the characters are not perfect, but still attachable. Siobhan is very different from Evie, the heroine of The Vampire King. I like that Siobhan was a firecracker that wasn't afraid of a fight. She didn't back down or succumb to Thane's whims. And Thane. He's probably one of my favorite HKW heroes. He's not a werewolf, he's not a vampire, he's not an Akyri, he's not anything that anyone else is. He's himself. There's only one of him. I love that. It makes him unique. And he has awesome tattoos!I liked that we as readers get to continue to see more about the past characters in the Big Bad Wolf series. Like Dannai, and her twins! And there's a whole back story that is introduced, about Dannai and the twins. And we get to see a peek of Jason, The Warlock King, and what is to come for him and his queen. The Vampire King, Roman, also has some troubles heading toward him and Evie in the form of Ophelia. We also get to know more of the rest of the kings that are possibly to come in the series. I love this deeper tone the story is getting in to! This is definitely shaping up into a more intricate series than I thought I would be reading!I think the thing that I like the most about all of Ms. Walden's adult romance books (I'm not sure if her Chosen Soul series and October trilogy are adult) is that while these books are romance, there are few explicit scenes in the book. The book is more about the paranormal, supernatural world. While romance is a huge component to the series, I'm not grossed out by sex and hormones and whatnot. I like that. I read these series more for the paranormal story than the romance story. But I like the romance. It's easy to follow.What I Did Not Like: I didn't get much of a feel for Marius, the Akyri King and "bad guy". There wasn't much of the story that took place in his perspective, so we didn't really get to read about him. We knew he wanted Siobhan for her dark magic. But it wasn't like in The Strip, where we got a full disclosure about Gabriel. And, while this book is about Siobhan and Thane, most of it seemed to be about the deeper tone that I mentioned. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it took away from the original story.Would I Recommend It: YES! I know I said something along these lines about The Vampire King, but this is definitely one of my favorites of Ms. Walden's books. But I'll also say this again: Read the Big Bad Wolf series first. You'll understand more of this story. This is for an audience of mature teenagers and up.Rating: 5 stars. Thank you for the copy, Ms. Walden!