Prince Ewald the Brave (Madeley)
(Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.)
This book was purchased as part of an Author's Secret Santa book exchange. I selected "Fantasy" and labeled my own book as such, even though mine contains both fantasy and science-fiction stories. A third author purchased my book, and this author purchased someone else's. First off, I was a little confused that the top of my Kindle screen lists this book at part of "The Gift-Knight Trilogy" while Good Reads lists Madeley's earlier books as that trilogy. This is a standalone book. A sequel could be written to it, but there's no underlying plot line that would make a trilogy out of it, other than the characters within it.
There is a cartoonish illustration on the cover, leading me to believe that this might be a light-hearted fantasy tale, especially when combined with the title, which sounds like it goes with a young person's story. Not in the slighest. The main character isn't really the prince, but the King who might as well be Genghis Khan and Hitler. Basically, he's not a nice person, and possibly a little nuts. He rules the way the family has ruled for generations, and despite this, his kids are normal, loving and not at all dysfunctional. This, of course, is the Queen's doing, which makes one wonder why the King allows it. You know the story will be about his downfall, how it will happen and who will bring it about. The question is if the kingdom will continue, in what form and who will be in charge of it. (And regardless of whatever schemes were being put into place, I noted that the last chapter was entitled "Duel".
Oddly, in one section of the book, one territory that was given to a noble to run as he see fit breaks away. The people were giving more freedom. They used that freedom to kick out the noble, and his own family was part of his downfall. The King has no use for the man and strips him of his now-empty title (but lets his live). I would say this foreshadows events later in the book, but it doesn't seem to be written in that matter. Also, it seems to be saying that if you give the people more freedom, they'll rise up against you. Except that the King was incredibly controlling, and people finally rose up.
There's a lot of history and geography and other details thrown in different parts of the book, but at times this was a distraction, but I never really got a sense of the kingdom, the bordering territories, or the far off land that the King wanted to make a deal with, and then forgot about. (I think this section was just to get the King somewhere else during the narrative.)
The kings three kids appear to be young. Prince Ewald is the oldest and well-educated, but he's never fought in the army. One would think that the King would make sure that any heir of his when he reached the proper age, would have first-hand military training, even if an entire squad of protection at all times. What I'm saying is that the character seems young, just barely "of age". This is important because of the younger sister who sneaks off into the night and runs an underground club as its Matron. As a rebelous teen of means, this isn't outrageous -- one could seen a modern-day 16- or 17-year-old daughter of whichever power couple with insane wealth pulling this kind of stunt. But then when she's disowned, she gets married, which in itself, in this kind of setting wouldn't be unusal either, but she gets married to another girl about her own age. Apparently, the mother had a secret slush fund going to a non-existant family which the two young woman become the head of. Neither having a means of supporting themselves, they'll continue to live off the people.
I may have liked this book had it focused on fewer events and developed the characters a little more. There's little growth in any of them. They are who they are. And reading the final chapter, I wondered if the writer had issues with his own father that his was trying to work out here (which, if he did, he had my sympathies for that).
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