The Harp of Kings by Juliet Marillier

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Category: Adult
Genre: Historical Fantasy
Content: Strong Language, an attempted rape


 
Eighteen-year-old Liobhan is a powerful singer and an expert whistle player. Her brother has a voice to melt the hardest heart, and a rare talent on the harp. But Liobhan's burning ambition is to join the elite warrior band on Swan Island. She and her brother find themselves joining a mission while still candidates. Their unusual blend of skills makes them ideal for this particular job, which requires going undercover as traveling minstrels.

Their mission: to find and retrieve a precious harp, an ancient symbol of kingship, which has gone mysteriously missing. Faced with plotting courtiers and tight-lipped druids, an insightful storyteller, and a boorish Crown Prince, Liobhan soon realizes an Otherworld power may be meddling in the affairs of the kingdom.

This book is set in the same world as the Blackthorn and Grim series, but I did not realize it was going to be about the children of Blackthorn and Grim. That was a sweet surprise! I instantly liked the characters Liobhan and Brocc. Dau took a little while longer to grow on me, but that was as it was supposed to be. In the end Dau ended up being my favorite character. He really grew as a character and I'm looking forward to reading more about him.

I was excited to read a book featuring bards and bardic magic. There aren't a whole lot of them. I also love Marillier's take on the "other world" and its creatures. Most of the books I've read by her follow a similar pattern, and this one was no exception. There is always at least one broken character who has to overcome trauma from the past. Sometimes that trauma is very hard to read about. And there is usually at least one character that has secrets to uncover, sometimes secrets they do not know themselves. This is a formula that I obviously enjoy a great deal because I keep coming back for more.

I liked that the book ends with the main story wrapped up, but it leaves smaller threads that can be expanded upon in the next two books, and I'm looking forward to reading them.

Thanks to NetGalley, Berkley Publishing Group, and Goodreads for providing me with ARCs of this book.