Fallen Prince

Fallen Trilogy #1

by Tess Williams

She’s the perfect princess, he’s the resident bad boy, they’ve always had each other. Their loyalty is about to be tested.

When the peaceful kingdom of Shaundakul is betrayed by its allies, Princess Ellia Solidor and her protector, Cyric Dracla, are taken into slavery to the kingdom of Akadia. Their only goal is to stay safe, and stay together. But in this new land that values power over everything, all Ellia can see is the captivity of her people, while Cyric sees a chance to finally become the great warrior he was never allowed to be. Temptation becomes betrayal, and Ellia must travel to the legendary Isle of Yanartas to gain the ability to defeat the dark power her best friend has become.

Genres: Dragons

ebook

First published January 18, 2012

About the author

Died May 2, 2014.

Reviews

[Shauna · Rating 3 out of 5]

"I had spent the past day telling myself that I wasn’t going to see him here. I had spent the past months telling myself that he would never truly fight for Akadia, that by the time I came to save my people I could save him too. But here he was and as I stared at him I knew that I should have always known it would end up like this."

Ellia Solidor is the perfect princess. Cyric Dracla is the son of an exile though what his father was exiled for, we're never told and resident bad boy. Not the most likely of companions, but the good girl/bad boy dynamic is tried and true, and whatever else Cyric is, he has always been Ellia's protector.

When their kingdom is betrayed by its allies, Ellia and Cyric are captured and taken as refugees to the kingdom of Akadia. Their primary goal is stay safe, stay together they're seperated almost immediately, that one was never going to work out outside of that, they find that their goals are very different.

Ellia wants more than anything to free her people of captivity. Cyric wants to grab with both hands the opportunity to become the warrior he was never allowed to be in Shaundakul.
Now, he can see that as prejudice because of who his father was, but I think it's clear pretty quickly that Cyric is not someone you want to trust with too much power. If I had a euro for every time a Dumbledore quote entered my head in realtion to Cyric...I'd probably have at least a fiver.

Anyway, temptation becomes betrayal. It's all very exciting.

Following this, the two part for their respective journeys, with alternating POV every few chapters. I was disappointed in the lack of actual face-off time, which I been really looking forward to. In fact, the ending felt a bit abrupt to me. Still, I wasn't expecting to enjoy this one as much as I did. It's the first I've read of the free Smashwords ebooks I've picked up under their 'read an ebook' promotion- an offer they have going through to March 10th, so Fallen Prince is definitely one I'd recommend- if only to have a nice light fantasy there waiting for the right fancy to take you.

[Hafiza · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book.
My favorite genre- Historical Fantasy with romance.
Ellia is a Princess whose Kingdom has been invaded by neighboring Alkadia (a map of all the Kingdoms would have been nice). She and the soldier assigned to protect her, Cyric, survive.
They are taken prisoner and the adventure begins.
Ellis starts out naive, helpless and dependent but grows some back bone as the story progresses.
Cyric's descent into badness is fascinating.
I loved the romantic tension between them.
I immediately downloaded Book 2.
Both only 0.99 cents on Kindle.

Highly recommended for fans of Lillith St Crow's "Hedgewitch Queen" series, and lovers of YA Epic Fantasy/Romance.

[Alec · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best books i have read.

[Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

While this one was not as good as her "Ember" book. I did love it. Fantasy makes me so happy, and I am so glad that I found Tess Williams.

[♥ Sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this, but I couldn't get past the sexism. Oh, and the "epic romance" mentioned in the description? Totally non-existent.

[Heather · Rating 1 out of 5]

Did not get far at all. 6% into the book and there were already four editing errors. Kinda big ones that I’m surprised never got fixed. The writing just felt lazy to me.
The book promised a resident bad boy and the perfect princess. That line is what made me pick up the book. Unfortunately, I won’t be finishing it.

[Takiyah Dudley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good read

This was surprisingly as interesting as I hoped. The storyline is common occurrence but the storytelling keeps you engaged. Sorry the read.

[bel · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a frustrating book for me to review. On one hand, I really like the premise. I liked the world created within this book. It was vivid, and complete. The idea of granted animals was well executed. But this book had major flaws with the way it was written. Frankly, of the two characters I preferred reading Cyric. He was the character you watch make mistake after mistake and you just want to sit him down and give him a hug and set him on the straight and narrow. He, however, was a bit of an odd read. Very simplistic observations and that sort of thing. But a sweet, action-packed hero (?) to follow around. Ellia, however, I didn't understand. She had potential to be such a fabulous character! But she was just... not a three dimensional character. She wasn't the spunky princess, the take charge princess, or even the victimised princess she could have been. She wasn't very emotional about her whole kingdom's destruction, she didn't ever seem particularly passionate... The whole idea behind her character was nice, but I just didn't see her as a leader of a rebellion or that sort of kickass girl. She seemed a little... juvenile? That being said, she had her moments of gusto and gut. The officers around Cyril actually shone as really being thought out and powerful (especially Tobias). The Minstrel (a friend Ellia makes upon her journey) might have been my favorite character as, again, he had that vivaciousness this book really needed. I had a hard time really liking the people of Yanartas as, again, they seemed a bit like props used to illustrate Ellia's awesomeness, without really fulfilling all the hype created about the uber-important mystical people of Yanartas.

But all in all, this book was fine. It was nice. The story was cute, I was rooting for the characters, groaning as I saw poor Cyric make mistake after mistake. But it felt like something that you wrote a few years ago. And you go back, and you say, this is fine. But why didn't I phrase this this way? And what did I have against adjectives? And then you edit it a little, and BAM, you have something FANTASTIC. But here, the story was nice... it just didn't have the polish and sharpness that could have made it truly great. Because the plot is pretty awesome. Just... Where was the big picture. Was this just a book about village-sized countries playing around? Where was the real, gripping evil? The tugging on the heartstrings and grand scale threat of terror and destruction? That's what makes a fantasy book about war and trial gripping! It just... wasn't at its full potential. But still, a good, very PG friendly (any/all references are subtle, nothing particularly graphic), light read. Has the potential to really be top notch, if the main characters were written with more fire in them.

I recommend if you want a good fantasy read, and are interested in seeing some magic, seeing some new exciting beasts, and disappearing into another world for a brief while. I wouldn't reread, but the first run through was fun and light.

Also, what's the deal with chimeras? Who thinks that chimeras are cooler than dragons? Dragons are AWESOME.

[MaryKate · Rating 2 out of 5]

Pretty good

This book was pretty good. There were several times that I almost gave up on it because of the pacing and slow characters development. However, in the end the story was decent. The thing that bugged me the most was the grammar errors, and I don't usually complain about iffy grammar! (There were SO MANY times the author wrote something like this. "I narrowed and turned Cyric’s arm over").....It just really irritated me that this problem kept popping up.

[Rose · Rating 4 out of 5]

A nice fantasy. It has all the necessary characters to keep the story interesting. I occasionally have issues with the sentence structure or terminology used but I think that is more in keeping with the more authentic language of the time than anything else.

[Juliana · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was boring to read. In the middle, it got a little better. But by the end, it was back to exremely boring.