The first volume in legendary master and New York Times bestselling author Raymond E. Feist’s epic heroic fantasy series, The Firemane Saga—an electrifying tale of two young men whose choices will determine a world’s destiny.

For centuries, the five greatest kingdoms of North and South Tembria, twin continents on the world of Garn, have coexisted in peace. But the balance of power is destroyed when four of the kingdoms violate an ancient covenant and betray the fifth: Ithrace, the Kingdom of Flames, ruled by Steveren Langene, known as “the Firemane” for his brilliant red hair. As war engulfs the world, Ithrace is destroyed and the Greater Realms of Tembria are thrust into a dangerous struggle for supremacy.
As a Free Lord, Baron Daylon Dumarch owes allegiance to no king. When an abandoned infant is found hidden in Daylon’s pavilion, he realizes that the child must be the missing heir of the slain Steveren. The boy is valuable—and vulnerable. A cunning and patient man, Daylon decides to keep the baby’s existence secret, and sends him to be raised on the Island of Coaltachin, home of the so-called Kingdom of Night, where the powerful and lethal Nocusara, the “Hidden Warriors,” legendary assassins and spies, are trained.

Years later, another orphan of mysterious provenance, a young man named Declan, earns his Masters rank as a weapons smith. Blessed with intelligence and skill, he unlocks the secret to forging King’s Steel, the apex of a weapon maker’s trade known by very few. Yet this precious knowledge is also deadly, and Declan is forced to leave his home to safeguard his life. Landing in Lord Daylon’s provinces, he hopes to start anew.

Soon, the two young men—an unknowing rightful heir to a throne and a brilliantly talented young swordsmith—will discover that their fates, and that of Garn, are entwined. The legendary, long-ago War of Betrayal has never truly ended . . . and they must discover the secret of who truly threatens their world.

Over the past number of years I have spent reading SFF books I have told myself on numerous occasions to start reading The Riftwar Saga by Raymond E. Feist but unfortunately I never quite got round to it. But a few months ago I read an article that mentioned a new book by Raymond E. Feist was going to be released and it was set in a new world and this book was King of Ashes, right there and then I knew I had to read it. Thankfully luck was on my side as a couple of months later HarperCollins emailed me asking if I wanted an ARC copy of it so I jumped at the opportunity, thank you HarperCollins for giving me this opportunity to read and review King of Ashes.

Going into this book as you can imagine I was very excited about reading it due to it being my first Raymond E. Feist book, what I found was not only a great book but a writing style that showed depth.

Many authors have done books with multiple POV’s and when this is done I sometimes find that certain chapters get drawn out to much and you start to lose what makes that chapter great. For me King of Ashes didn’t do this once because when it had a long drawn out scene you knew what the author wanted to focus on and it stuck with you. One scene I will forever remember is when a character is going through the step by step process of forging a sword, the depth Raymond E. Feist went into about the process was astounding and it showed how much research he has done on the subject without ever going into to much detail.

At its heart King of Ashes is a book dedicated towards the set up of something on a grander scale and it has a lot of development and character building. At this point you might be saying to yourself that it sounds like a quite a slow paced and possibly boring book, this is definitely not the case with King of Ashes. Raymond E. Feist truly shows us his skill as an experienced author from this respect as he manages to slowly build his world and characters towards his greater goal while still keeping you hooked due to the portrayal of his characters and the in depth world they live in. It doesn’t have a great deal of action scenes but when it does they are extremely well done and they completely drawn you.

For as much as I loved King of Ashes I did have one small gripe with it and that was the prologue. During the prologue Raymond E. Feist has certain characters speak in a different manner as if they were from a different era and then he switches to a more modern style from first chapter. This slightly drew my out of the world as I wasn’t expecting this to happen due time period this supposed to have elapsed.

King of Ashes is a fantastic book that all fans of fantasy should read whether they are new or existing readers of Raymond E. Feist’s work. With this book being most dedicated to set up I am really excited to see what Raymond E. Feist has planned for future books in the series and I hope to some day read his previous works as this book has made me all the more determined to do so.