What do you think?
Rate this book
Path to Power: The Stolen Throne Trilogy, Book 1
Not yet published
Expected 20 Feb 26A queen without a throne, a sorcerer without magic, a usurper bent on genocide...
Emma thought she was just an ordinary woman. She had no idea that she’d been abducted by aliens to save her life; until they returned her memories. The Zargons watch, they study, they don’t interfere, until one of them did. One of them saved Emma’s life when they shouldn’t have, now they want her to save thousands more.
Emma’s stepmother is the mightiest sorcerer Dunia has ever seen. She used her power to steal Emma’s birthright, and now she’s using it for genocide. Only Emma can supplant Queen Lila, but she can’t do it alone. Her husband, Tom, has a potential he never knew; a potential to wield magic. Together, they must travel across the galaxy, find Tom’s magic, and save the homeland she never knew existed, until now.
Emma thought she was just an ordinary woman. She had no idea that she’d been abducted by aliens to save her life; until they returned her memories. The Zargons watch, they study, they don’t interfere, until one of them did. One of them saved Emma’s life when they shouldn’t have, now they want her to save thousands more.
Emma’s stepmother is the mightiest sorcerer Dunia has ever seen. She used her power to steal Emma’s birthright, and now she’s using it for genocide. Only Emma can supplant Queen Lila, but she can’t do it alone. Her husband, Tom, has a potential he never knew; a potential to wield magic. Together, they must travel across the galaxy, find Tom’s magic, and save the homeland she never knew existed, until now.
Kindle Edition
Expected publication February 20, 2026
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
November 20, 2025
I'm on Goodwin's ARC team, and received a free copy from her for the purposes of review.
I'll be blunt: this book is a hatchet job of The Queen of Vorn.
If you were head-over-heels in love with The Queen of Vorn, that's not a problem. The core plot is still there, and none of the core cast (i.e. Emma, Tom, Garrad) are changed. Frankly, most of these chapters have barely been rewritten from their previous versions. So if you really do connect with Goodwin's prose or the story she's telling, nothing I'm about to say should really affect you enjoyment of this new iteration of the story. This is still a Goodwin novel.
So, with that said ...
If you didn't like The Queen of Vorn or only mildly enjoyed it, you will probably hate The Path to Power. Goodwin didn't make any major changes outside of hacking out chapters and POVs to adjust the pacing. (Frankly, she didn't really fix the pacing, just speed things up a bit.) This reads like she gave herself just one long weekend to rewrite this book, made on the most obvious changes, then decided it was perfect after that.
For example, by hacking out chapters and whole POVs to streamline the book, Goodwin removed all the scenes that actually feature the goblin genocide that Emma and Tom are supposed to stop. She's replaced these with just two scenes of an alien watching TV and commenting upon the events on the screen, like an unfunny version of Mystery Science Theather 3000 (more on that in a moment). As a result, whereas the first book had Emma and Tom more or less wandering aimlessly through the story for two-thirds of the book to stop something awful that we were shown, now they do the same thing for half the book because ... well, Goodwin basically says, "Trust me, Bro, they have to."
And then we get to the problems that carry over from the previous version. The first half of this book is a series of character-building chapters that don't build a lot of character, so they end up feeling pointless. The worldbuilding is pretty bland: a lot of tropes taken from other fantasy (not inherently a bad thing, just Goodwin doesn't do anything new or interesting with those tropes), plus one cool idea about people from different planets having different magic (which ends up not being explored all that much, at least, not in this book). The back half of this book is a decent story about dealing with a group of hostile soldiers, but that's more of a side quest that gets in the way of the main plot then the story promised at the start of the novel.
The one way where I can really say that the book is better is a backhanded compliment. You see, Goodwin fixed the theme. The Queen of Vorn was a book that said "Genocide Bad" while simultaneously showing the victims of genocide to be universally monstrous and while having the main character explicitly compare the victims of genocide to rats. The Path to Power says "Genocide Bad" because, even if we're killing monsters now, we might kill people later. (I am not making this up. Emma concludes that she hates goblins but, if the goblins are dead, there will be nothing to stop humans from killing elves and dwarves.) Regardless of what anyone might thing of the theme itself, at least there's a coherent through line to it this time, whereas the one version was actively sabotaging itself.
Oh, and about the sci-fi elements that I see other people praising ... if someone were to do a cut of A Game of Thrones that spliced in footage of Rocket Racoon doing an unfunny rendition of Mystery Science Theater 300 to comment on the episodes, that would be about as sci-fi as this book. I really don't know why the aliens and their tech are here. They serve as Emma and Tom's Uber to the fantasy world, and that's it. Maybe Goodwin wants to do more with them in future books? If so, maybe this will be redeemed retroactively. It just feels so ... unnecessary and tacked on here.
The long and short of it is, if you are a diehard Goodwin fan, this is still a Goodwin book. You'll have a good time. If you have never read a Goodwin book, I can't in good conscience recommend this to you. If you were paid for The Queen of Vorn and want to read this purely to see what Goodwin changed, then I recommend finding a library or a friend to (legally) lend it to you, because I can't say Goodwin has earned your money a second time over.
I'll be blunt: this book is a hatchet job of The Queen of Vorn.
If you were head-over-heels in love with The Queen of Vorn, that's not a problem. The core plot is still there, and none of the core cast (i.e. Emma, Tom, Garrad) are changed. Frankly, most of these chapters have barely been rewritten from their previous versions. So if you really do connect with Goodwin's prose or the story she's telling, nothing I'm about to say should really affect you enjoyment of this new iteration of the story. This is still a Goodwin novel.
So, with that said ...
If you didn't like The Queen of Vorn or only mildly enjoyed it, you will probably hate The Path to Power. Goodwin didn't make any major changes outside of hacking out chapters and POVs to adjust the pacing. (Frankly, she didn't really fix the pacing, just speed things up a bit.) This reads like she gave herself just one long weekend to rewrite this book, made on the most obvious changes, then decided it was perfect after that.
For example, by hacking out chapters and whole POVs to streamline the book, Goodwin removed all the scenes that actually feature the goblin genocide that Emma and Tom are supposed to stop. She's replaced these with just two scenes of an alien watching TV and commenting upon the events on the screen, like an unfunny version of Mystery Science Theather 3000 (more on that in a moment). As a result, whereas the first book had Emma and Tom more or less wandering aimlessly through the story for two-thirds of the book to stop something awful that we were shown, now they do the same thing for half the book because ... well, Goodwin basically says, "Trust me, Bro, they have to."
And then we get to the problems that carry over from the previous version. The first half of this book is a series of character-building chapters that don't build a lot of character, so they end up feeling pointless. The worldbuilding is pretty bland: a lot of tropes taken from other fantasy (not inherently a bad thing, just Goodwin doesn't do anything new or interesting with those tropes), plus one cool idea about people from different planets having different magic (which ends up not being explored all that much, at least, not in this book). The back half of this book is a decent story about dealing with a group of hostile soldiers, but that's more of a side quest that gets in the way of the main plot then the story promised at the start of the novel.
The one way where I can really say that the book is better is a backhanded compliment. You see, Goodwin fixed the theme. The Queen of Vorn was a book that said "Genocide Bad" while simultaneously showing the victims of genocide to be universally monstrous and while having the main character explicitly compare the victims of genocide to rats. The Path to Power says "Genocide Bad" because, even if we're killing monsters now, we might kill people later. (I am not making this up. Emma concludes that she hates goblins but, if the goblins are dead, there will be nothing to stop humans from killing elves and dwarves.) Regardless of what anyone might thing of the theme itself, at least there's a coherent through line to it this time, whereas the one version was actively sabotaging itself.
Oh, and about the sci-fi elements that I see other people praising ... if someone were to do a cut of A Game of Thrones that spliced in footage of Rocket Racoon doing an unfunny rendition of Mystery Science Theater 300 to comment on the episodes, that would be about as sci-fi as this book. I really don't know why the aliens and their tech are here. They serve as Emma and Tom's Uber to the fantasy world, and that's it. Maybe Goodwin wants to do more with them in future books? If so, maybe this will be redeemed retroactively. It just feels so ... unnecessary and tacked on here.
The long and short of it is, if you are a diehard Goodwin fan, this is still a Goodwin book. You'll have a good time. If you have never read a Goodwin book, I can't in good conscience recommend this to you. If you were paid for The Queen of Vorn and want to read this purely to see what Goodwin changed, then I recommend finding a library or a friend to (legally) lend it to you, because I can't say Goodwin has earned your money a second time over.
December 9, 2025
Not for me, but it might be for you. Small spoilers abound, but nothing about the bulk of the plot
I read this as an ARC, so it's possible some things might have changed from the version I received. I have also never read any of Charlotte's other works and know nothing about them, so some of my opinions and ideas could come from a place of genuine ignorance.
First of all, I'd like to say that I very much like the premise here, it's what drew me to the story in the first place, and in all honestly it holds up really well.
Minor spoilers next.
The idea of aliens displaced on earth isnt new, but the way Charlotte has presented an old idea is fresh and interesting to me. Actually, one of my dissatisfactions with the book is that we dont spend more time with that side of things. The displacement is more a setting and fuel for the story, and though we revisit details of it at times during the story, I wouldnhave liked to spend a lot more time learninf about it - not just the prelude to this story, but the greater lore in general. To me that had pote tial to be the more interesting story, so I would say a prequel to this could be a good option for Charlotte to write in the future (assuming her other works aren't already prequels to this). Unfortunately I found I didn't enjoy Charlotte's writing very much, so I'll never find out either way as I won't read her other books. But I want to stress in that this is wholly a personal preference, not an indictment. It may well be that most other readers will enjoy her writing and it just happens to nor be to my taste. I won't go into too many details why as to do so would veer too far into spoiler territory. Suffice to say that for as much as I really like the premise and the lore potential, I disliked a number of story and characterization choices, and those issues make it hard for me to rate this higher than I have
For me it was difficult to finish, and for a while I considered not finishing at all, but I powered through to the end because it was only fair to do so after I asked for an ARC. And I'm glad I did, because despite the writing and story not suiting me personally, I can see where it might suit someone else, hence my tentative opinion that whilst it's not for me, it might be for you.
I read this as an ARC, so it's possible some things might have changed from the version I received. I have also never read any of Charlotte's other works and know nothing about them, so some of my opinions and ideas could come from a place of genuine ignorance.
First of all, I'd like to say that I very much like the premise here, it's what drew me to the story in the first place, and in all honestly it holds up really well.
Minor spoilers next.
The idea of aliens displaced on earth isnt new, but the way Charlotte has presented an old idea is fresh and interesting to me. Actually, one of my dissatisfactions with the book is that we dont spend more time with that side of things. The displacement is more a setting and fuel for the story, and though we revisit details of it at times during the story, I wouldnhave liked to spend a lot more time learninf about it - not just the prelude to this story, but the greater lore in general. To me that had pote tial to be the more interesting story, so I would say a prequel to this could be a good option for Charlotte to write in the future (assuming her other works aren't already prequels to this). Unfortunately I found I didn't enjoy Charlotte's writing very much, so I'll never find out either way as I won't read her other books. But I want to stress in that this is wholly a personal preference, not an indictment. It may well be that most other readers will enjoy her writing and it just happens to nor be to my taste. I won't go into too many details why as to do so would veer too far into spoiler territory. Suffice to say that for as much as I really like the premise and the lore potential, I disliked a number of story and characterization choices, and those issues make it hard for me to rate this higher than I have
For me it was difficult to finish, and for a while I considered not finishing at all, but I powered through to the end because it was only fair to do so after I asked for an ARC. And I'm glad I did, because despite the writing and story not suiting me personally, I can see where it might suit someone else, hence my tentative opinion that whilst it's not for me, it might be for you.
Review of advance copy received from Author
An Ambitious Indie Fantasy Debut with Heart and Huge Potential – Worth Your Time! ★★★★☆ (4/5)
I grabbed Path to Power as an ARC ahead of its February 20, 2026 relaunch, and as a fellow indie author and fantasy reader, I'm glad I did. Charlotte Goodwin has clearly poured tremendous effort into this series opener—it's an original blend of sci-fi observation (alien overseers monitoring a "magic field" planet) and classic epic fantasy, with abducted heirs, power-hungry queens, and a richly detailed world called Dunia. You can feel the passion on every page; this is authentic, human-crafted storytelling with no shortcuts, full of thoughtful world-building like aura-measuring tech and hand-drawn maps that pull you right in.
The story follows exiled heir Emma's return to reclaim her throne, alongside her Earth-raised companion Tom's awakening powers and a diverse group of companions navigating chases, alliances, and betrayals. The mid-to-late book really shines: thrilling escapes, heartfelt character moments, and escalating stakes that kept me turning pages. The magic system has that satisfying "hard" rule feel, and the geopolitical layers (from goblin wilds to elven enclaves) set up exciting trilogy payoff.
The opening chapters take some patience—the family dynamics and dual abduction/exile setup can feel a bit tangled at first, requiring close reading to sort the heirs and relationships. I also wanted more depth from some characters and especially the antagonist Queen Lila; her chilling strategy glimpses are intriguing, but a deeper perspective would make her even more compelling. These are common growing pains in an indie debut, and they don't overshadow the heart and ambition here.
Overall, Path to Power is a promising start from a dedicated indie author who's building something special. If you enjoy epic fantasy with sci-fi twists, moral complexity, and slow-burn growth, pick this up on launch—you'll be rooting for the sequels. Supporting indies like Charlotte keeps fresh voices alive. Solid 4 stars—excited to see where the trilogy goes!
Reviewed by Marc E. Weimann, indie author and fantasy reader
(Verified ARC reader – full read completed December 2025)
I grabbed Path to Power as an ARC ahead of its February 20, 2026 relaunch, and as a fellow indie author and fantasy reader, I'm glad I did. Charlotte Goodwin has clearly poured tremendous effort into this series opener—it's an original blend of sci-fi observation (alien overseers monitoring a "magic field" planet) and classic epic fantasy, with abducted heirs, power-hungry queens, and a richly detailed world called Dunia. You can feel the passion on every page; this is authentic, human-crafted storytelling with no shortcuts, full of thoughtful world-building like aura-measuring tech and hand-drawn maps that pull you right in.
The story follows exiled heir Emma's return to reclaim her throne, alongside her Earth-raised companion Tom's awakening powers and a diverse group of companions navigating chases, alliances, and betrayals. The mid-to-late book really shines: thrilling escapes, heartfelt character moments, and escalating stakes that kept me turning pages. The magic system has that satisfying "hard" rule feel, and the geopolitical layers (from goblin wilds to elven enclaves) set up exciting trilogy payoff.
The opening chapters take some patience—the family dynamics and dual abduction/exile setup can feel a bit tangled at first, requiring close reading to sort the heirs and relationships. I also wanted more depth from some characters and especially the antagonist Queen Lila; her chilling strategy glimpses are intriguing, but a deeper perspective would make her even more compelling. These are common growing pains in an indie debut, and they don't overshadow the heart and ambition here.
Overall, Path to Power is a promising start from a dedicated indie author who's building something special. If you enjoy epic fantasy with sci-fi twists, moral complexity, and slow-burn growth, pick this up on launch—you'll be rooting for the sequels. Supporting indies like Charlotte keeps fresh voices alive. Solid 4 stars—excited to see where the trilogy goes!
Reviewed by Marc E. Weimann, indie author and fantasy reader
(Verified ARC reader – full read completed December 2025)
November 20, 2025
I have had the pleasure of receiving an ARC of ‘Path to Power’ by Charlotte Goodwin.
If you’re looking for a book with goblins, dwarves, elves and humans, plus aliens thrown in for good measure, then this book is for you!
We start off the story with the aliens, which of course makes you think this is going to be an aliens in spaceships type of book, but you’d be so wrong.
We discover an alien race is observing multiple planets, Earth being one and Dunia being another.
The story line is predominantly set on Dunia (think Earth without technology) following Emma and her husband Tom as they try to defeat the evil queen Lila and install Emma the true queen in her rightful place. But, she needs the help of her husband a powerful sorcerer who has yet to awaken his magical powers and learn how to use them.
Charlotte masterfully weaves a tale of Emma’s journey with lots of action, including battling goblins and soldiers along the way.
Does Toms magic awaken? Does he learn how to use it? Does Emma sit on the throne? You’ll have to read ‘Path to Power’ to find out!
If you’re looking for a book with goblins, dwarves, elves and humans, plus aliens thrown in for good measure, then this book is for you!
We start off the story with the aliens, which of course makes you think this is going to be an aliens in spaceships type of book, but you’d be so wrong.
We discover an alien race is observing multiple planets, Earth being one and Dunia being another.
The story line is predominantly set on Dunia (think Earth without technology) following Emma and her husband Tom as they try to defeat the evil queen Lila and install Emma the true queen in her rightful place. But, she needs the help of her husband a powerful sorcerer who has yet to awaken his magical powers and learn how to use them.
Charlotte masterfully weaves a tale of Emma’s journey with lots of action, including battling goblins and soldiers along the way.
Does Toms magic awaken? Does he learn how to use it? Does Emma sit on the throne? You’ll have to read ‘Path to Power’ to find out!
December 2, 2025
I don’t think I can accurately put into words how relaxing it is to read a fantasy book that isn’t cliche. I voluntarily read and reviewed ‘path to power’ by Charlotte Goodwin. As a fan of LOTR, the familiar themes and jargon aren’t lost on me. Now to the book; Path to power is so well written I actually forgot it was a novel at one point and now I fear I may have chosen sides in this war 😁. The twists and turns are appropriate and perfectly timed. Yes, I had a few shocking revelations and moments but they tied neatly into the plot and they all made sense. I also love the fact that there are mentions of the real world albeit under a different name. It gave me magical vibes and also the characters are as diverse as they are lovable. This isn’t a book that can be adequately described, you have to experience it for yourself 🫱🏾🫲🏽. I would have rated a 5 star read but for two things; I was kinda disappointed the author didn’t invent her own specieand I am waiting on the other books in the series. I didn’t exactly like the last page too.
November 16, 2025
I was fortunately given access to an Advanced Reader Copy. It was gripping. The fusion of SciFi and Magic really worked. I was invested in the characters, my life affords little time for actually reading so I grabbed it when I was given the chance.
I look forward to the next instalment Charlotte, maybe an ARC hint hint
I look forward to the next instalment Charlotte, maybe an ARC hint hint
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews