Book Review: Citadel of the Fallen

“A group of teenage students, while exploring deep within the rainforest, barely survive an encounter with a wild and surprisingly magical boar. In doing so, they discover that events that threaten to destroy their entire civilization have already been set into motion.”

Title: Citadel of the Fallen

Series: Rebirth of the Fallen – Book 1

Author: J.R. Konkol

Page Count: 274

Genre: Fantasy

Rating: 4.5/5.0

Date Read: June 22nd, 2022

This was a nice break from a rather thick read recently. It was very easy to get through. I thought the character development, world building and pace were all spot on for my style.

World Building 4.5/5
Pacing 4/5
Character Development 4.5/5

Initially I began reading Citadel of the Fallen because I received an eARC of book two from this series. It only made sense for me to read the first before digging into that one. So I went ahead and took the chance and bought it. I wasn’t disappointed and felt the purchase was more than worth it for the first book alone. If I continue to enjoy the series it will solidify that move even more.

I shared a few notes on the world build from highlighted lines in the first half of the book. I thought they were great examples of how the author was describing physical elements of the world as well as the politics/government. I thought these were done quickly but well which was a nice change of pace for me coming from authors recently that tend to spend half a page or more describing what a tree looks like. Don’t get me wrong, I can enjoy both styles equally but I need a break from one extreme to the other at times.

This very much had a feel of a Dungeons & Dragons world in it not unlike some of my favorite novels of my youth. But the major difference to me is the sense of urgency and risk in this one. The author is NOT afraid to kill characters off as the story progresses.

I plan to get to the second book in this series in July if all goes well.