Tuesday 16 February 2016

Review on Demon Princess






 After her father and brother go missing, Adriana reluctantly takes up the the throne as the Demon King until their return. However, Adriana finds herself mysteriously teleporting into the midst of a group of humans she has never met before, and finds that she has become the summon beast of Aldric, a young and arrogant mage in training. Adriana must find a way to break the bond between them and escape back to the Demon Kingdom. But with Aldric having the power to control her every move, its going to be more difficult for Adriana than she thought.


This book immediately caught my interest and I was really excited to read it! The story is told through a first person narrative by Adriana, who we quickly find out is a demon princess who must take up the throne in the absence of her father and brother. I initially disliked Adriana, as she acted like a typical princess and was used to having guards and servants and not doing much for herself. However, once she became Aldric's summon beast I started to sympathise with her, and the majority of my dislike for her was replaced by my dislike for Aldric. I immediately disliked Aldric, and this dislike for him grew as the story went on. Although he believes that Adriana is a human, he treats her like she is an animal. He initially does not provide a bed for her and expects her to eat off the floor, and only starts treating her a little better once he discovers the extent of her powers as she then becomes useful to him.

I loved how the roles we have come to expect from demons and humans were switched round completely with Aldric and Adriana, as we come to sympathise with Adriana and are rooting for her to find a way to break her bond with Aldric, yet we dislike Aldric, who in most stories would be the type of character who would fit the description of the hero. I thought this was an interesting twist and made the story more original.

I loved the rest of the characters in the book, especially Keldrin, Aldric's room mate at the academy. He is the only person who treats Adriana like a human from the start, and provides her with food and a bed. I thought he was a really sweet character, and I loved how unselfish he was, as he was the only character who entered Barren Land without the motive of gaining something for himself. I also liked Razen, as he was quite mysterious and I loved how sneaky he was in his tactics of trying to prove that Adriana was a demon. However I did feel as if Xander was lacking as a character, and I felt that I knew very little about him. As he was the only member of the company trying to help Adriana who was not a mage, I felt that he had a lot more potential as a character and I hope that his character is developed more in future books in the series.

The thing that slightly ruined this book for me was the romance. Although I did love Keldrin and knew a romance between him and Adriana was inevitable, I am never a fan of love at first sight, and I felt that Keldrin telling Adriana that he loved her even though they had known each other for two months was far too soon. As Adriana had been keeping a huge secret from him for all that time, I felt that him immediately forgiving her and declaring his love for her wasn't believable at all, making the romance feel too forced. I also felt that the “forbidden love” aspect was all a little too cliché, as I feel as if forbidden love between a supernatural creature and a human is drastically overdone in fantasy novels, and although I did initially enjoy their relationship growing, I felt that the last couple of chapters forced it to happen too quickly. As this book is quite short I felt that their relationship seemed rushed at the end, as if the author was trying to prove that they were in love just so that she could create a tragic ending.

However I did enjoy the majority of this book, and as there are still many unanswered questions at the end I would love to continue reading this series!

Demon Princess is now available to purchase!




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