Falling Kingdoms

Treacherous betrayals, secret alliances, unforeseen murders, and forbidden love—
The world of Mytica will hold you captive:

AURANOS - Privileged Princess Cleo is forced to confront violence for the first time in her life when a shocking murder sets her kingdom on a path to collapse.

LIMEROS - The king’s son, Magnus, must plan each footstep with shrewd, sharp guile if he is to earn his powerful father’s trust, while his sister, Lucia, discovers a terrifying secret about her heritage that will change everything.

PAELSIA - Rebellious Jonas lashes out against the forces of oppression that have kept his country cruelly impoverished—and finds himself the leader of a people’s revolution centuries in the making.

Witches, if found, are put to death, and Watchers, immortal beings who take the shape of hawks to visit the human world, have been almost entirely forgotten. A vicious power struggle quickly escalates to war, and these four young people collide against each other and the rise of elementia, the magic that can topple kingdoms and crown a ruler in the same day.

Author: Morgan Rhodes (Website, Facebook, Twitter)
Publisher: Razorbill
Buy online: Amazon
Book borrowed from the national library
(Actual) Rating: 3 of 5 stars


Honestly before diving into the story of Falling Kingdoms, I wasn't really looking forward to whether it'll be a pleasant read or not. At first, I truly doubted starting a new series because I might just get disappointed again. However, I'm currently craving for a fantasy read for the week. The realization has struck me that Falling Kingdoms has been one of the top 5 in my TBR list that I should be catching up on and experiencing it for myself what was all the hype about this book after its publication a few years ago.

Falling Kingdoms describes different perspective of characters from the three different lands: Auranos, Paelsia and Limeros. Paelsia and Limeros joined forces to bring the downfall of the most powerful, prosperous and full of riches in the land of Auranos. A vengeance that cause to lead a great war, destroying the peace that keeps the conflicting lands intact. Auranos will not back down without a fight as the king of Auranos stands firm to protect and not surrender everything to any of the unworthy.

First of all, Falling Kingdoms has truly captured my full attention, away from so much stress. The fantasy content is truly captivating, fast-paced story and easy to follow as it's organized. Vicious lords and kings to shed blood just to gain power and security towards their selfish ambition individually made everything more exciting to read with each heart-pounding scene. That's what I love about this book.

The characters are capable of showing more potential to do better but failed to display their different significant roles in the book. To mainly highlight, Lucia. I wonder why she's on the sideline when she's pretty much one of the characters that would bring about a very important prophecy, predicted by the witch sisters. Her character's development is being neglected, in my opinion. She has got one of the biggest roles in the book as mentioned from the beginning yet her perspective is unclear as the focus of the story has diverted to other matters. Irrelevant, I would say. Add to that, the senseless cause of the vengeance was because lord Aron (Auraninan) killed a Paelsian unintentionally but for protection for himself and his fellow Auranians. I find the matter could have been solved immediately without the act of violence but a fluid movements of self-dense.

Ultimately, Falling Kingsdoms makes the craving for fantasy satisfied to certain extent. Nonetheless, I still consider to continue reading the sequel as I'm genuinely curious how the events might turn out.