Monarch: A Prince Out of Time: A Progression Fantasy Epic

RE: Monarch #1

by J. McCoy, Eligos

To save the kingdom, he'll have to stop his own murder...

It’s hard to be a drunken idiot when the world keeps burning down around you. Cairn, the charming-yet-utterly-irresponsible heir to the Uskarrion throne, is all too happy to toss the crown aside. But an invasion, conspiracy, and rise of a terrifying villain result in his untimely death.

Then, Cairn reawakens. It's a decade earlier and he's in his childhood body. But he remembers everything...
There's much to accomplish. First, however, he'd really love to stop himself from dying.

After cementing itself as one of the most beloved progression fantasy web serials on Royal Road, the RE: Monarch Series now comes to Kindle, Kindle Unlimited, and Audible (narrated by Luke Daniels). Perfect for fans of Bryce O'Connor, Luke Chmilenko, and Cale Plamann.

About the series: A progression fantasy epic set in a time-loop where planning and cleverness are as vital as swordplay, about a spoiled prince who discovers what it means to rule. Watch as he gains power, learns magic, forges alliances, and delves deeper into the mystery of the loop itself and the nature of his relationship with the ruthless antagonist.

Genres: Fantasy, Time Travel, Audiobook, Magic, Fiction, Dark, Elves

712 pages, Paperback

First published April 13, 2022

Reviews

[Jack Fox · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hit the character limit on this review. Brace yourself.


Ultimately, I think this is the work of an extremely talented writer who would be enormously helped by an editor. If you enjoy progression fantasy or time loop stories, you will almost certainly like this book. If you enjoy regular fantasy and want a good starting point to delve into those two subgenres… this might still be up your alley. It’s at least 200,000 words; you’ll be getting your money’s worth in quantity, and more is freely available online (which I have not yet read at the time of this review).

Most of this review will be criticism. Don’t take that as a blanket statement that this story is bad—rather, it’s because it’s good that I’m willing to take the time to be honest about my feelings towards it. McCoy is talented, and I am also an asshole. Most people who read this story will enjoy it. Please, try to keep that in mind.

First off: the writing. How is it?
Pretty good. McCoy isn’t a master of prose, but the potential for mastery is definitely there. They have a grasp of detail that sets scenes well and embeds the reader in the moment, quality thematic undertones, and some very quotable lines both in and out of dialogue.
Unfortunately, that talent is sometimes stretched a little too far. On several occasions McCoy uses words that seem a little too thesaurus-y, out of place, or with definitions that seemingly don’t fit the meaning they’re trying to communicate. Someone trying to murder you doesn’t look ‘besottedly’ pissed, and if any of you say, “Jack, besottedly has an archaic usage that means ‘drunkenly’ and doesn’t have to imply infatuation,” I will kick you in the shin and then politely ask you to be reasonable.

I get the sense that McCoy has an excellent grasp of grammar, but perhaps writes a little too quickly without checking their work—almost every single chapter is littered with two or three highly visible errors. We’re talking missing periods, floating quotation marks, extra words, missing words, using commas instead of periods, using periods instead of commas, inverted capitalization, sentences that don’t finish, evidence that some scenes are cut or moved around without being rewritten/fixed, and in one minor but amusing case a book that swaps back and forth between completely different titles multiple times. If mistakes like that ruin a book for you… this might not be your book, at least in its current form.

McCoy also sometimes prioritizes emotional writing over clear writing. This isn’t always a bad thing! In fact it’s often seen as a positive in certain kinds of literary fiction. Unfortunately it’s less pleasant at the end of a 200,000 word long novel with an extremely complicated ‘whodunit’ plot—the climax of the story has Cairn make a truly bizarre decision, which I’ll get into later. Still, generally speaking, the writing is quite good. The pacing is quick enough that I read this in less than 24 hours despite its length. It starts off engaging and stays that way, and that’s a difficult accomplishment.

Character is another strength of McCoy’s… most of the time. You’ll laugh, you’ll frown, you’ll like and dislike people only to swap back and forth as McCoy reveals different aspects of who they are. Characters are often not who they appear to be— enough to keep you guessing. Personalities are well-defined and varied. Cairn himself is especially well-written; I’m a big fan of the flashbacks to his childhood that are scattered throughout the story and help contextualize his decisions. He has some genuine flaws that you don’t often see in the progression fantasy genre. His relationships are varied and, while not especially complex, are often heartwarming. He grows, backslides, and grows again.

However, there are occasions when the plot overwhelms characters’ better judgement, or just makes them act out of character altogether. Sometimes you’ll have moment where you stop and say, “What? Why would you do that?”
Some examples:

1) When they first meet, Persephone physically dominates Cairn with ease, crossing the room in ‘a blur of motion’, pinning Cairn, and bleeding him with her razor-sharp claws. This introduction establishes her as someone familiar and comfortable with physical violence—it’s her very first move upon meeting a potential client, in fact.
Later, when Cairn has her in an interrogation room after her failed attempt to assassinate him, she is intimidated when he flips a table. Remember that Cairn is in the body of a 13-year old child. She is then repeatedly described as ‘cringing’ when he shows her the stumps of his severed fingers. Persephone is a half-demon born of the most violent demonic legion in existence, resorts to violence and murder as her first options, and is portrayed as someone familiar with death.
Is all that a façade? Eh, maybe, but to me it seems notably inconsistent, enough to get me to stop reading and flip back to her introduction in confusion.
2) Guemon controls Enclave security and spends the entire book trying to get Cairn executed. He genuinely believes that Cairn is going to betray and kill them. As a High Councilor, he is wealthy and one of the most well-protected people in the Enclave. He also opens his own door when Cairn visits his mansion and accepts a basket of sweets from Cairn. Pretty sure he eats the sweets, too.
3) Nethtari and Kilvius accept Cairn into their family extremely quickly. That’s okay! Some people are just truly kind, generous, and loving. I would be surprised by an oppressed family taking in the son of fantasy Hitler without reservation, but I won’t say it’s impossible.
What I do draw the line at is when Cairn takes Jorra on a heist mission into a highly fortified, professionally guarded mansion with uncertain allies even after he figures out that the mission is almost certainly a trap. What makes this worse is that we later learn that one of the possible penalties for such theft is execution.
Jorra is a child. He’s brave, but he’s a kid. When told about the heist mission, he uses a blanket as a cape and flaps around the room. Cairn takes this frankly incredible risk with the son of his host family to… go on a trap mission for an information broker that he’s reasonably certain is trying to screw him over. Dick move, Cairn. And when it’s implied that Nethtari, Jorra’s mother, finds out about this later, she… doesn’t even seem mad?
4) Cairn’s final deal with Ozra, which closes out the book. More on that later.


Next, worldbuilding. Let’s go over the good!

The only cultures we see in any detail are two human cities and the infernal Enclave (and, to a lesser extent, Asmodial demons). The humans seem standard, but the infernals are richly described and fairly unique as fantasy cultures go. The Enclave itself is quite fascinating as a setting. I imagine we’ll be seeing dwarves, elves, and pixie culture soon enough, and I have high hopes for McCoy to impress there as well.
The magic system is varied and interesting. Elemental magic isn’t especially unique, but it’s used well in the story and to great effect in the fight scenes, which are above-average.

However, the world has some problems. Perhaps some of these will be explained later! I hit similar snags in books all the time, only to have my question resolved later in the series… but some of these will be harder than others to explain.
1) What’s a revenant? Based on the name, I assume some sort of undead creature, out for vengeance, but that doesn’t seem to match Barion’s description at all. We know that Barion is one, and Cairn calls himself a revenant at the end (though this is, I assume, metaphorical) but it would be nice to know the answer, considering Barion is a major villain and necessary to the plot. One sentence to give a rough overview would suffice.
2) How are the humans governing the continent? King Gil conquered every other race and makes them pay taxes, but seems to just… leave them be, otherwise? Vassal states are a thing, but Gil commits genocide, breaks oaths, attacks without provocation, and then leaves these enemy countries to plot justified vengeance without any oversight, human military occupancy, limits on militarization, or… anything? Gil is described over and over again as ruthlessly, viciously pragmatic—a master of war. So what’s even going on here? I genuinely can’t thing of a WORSE thing to do than to invade every other country on the continent in the space of a decade or two, kill their civilians and children, and then leave them alone to build up their militaries again.
3) How did the humans win in the first place? The magic in this series is absolutely devastating, and the human magical tradition is both the youngest on the continent and, seemingly, the least sophisticated. We don’t see the elves fight much, and the dwarves seem to be defeated in a convincing manner in the flashbacks we get of their battles, but the infernals should absolutely annihilate human armies. Ralakos and Ephira are infernal politicians, and yet they’re described as ‘gods’ by Cairn when he sees them fight in earnest for the first time—and for good reason. They annihilate hundreds of enemies without a problem, only losing when a more magically powerful enemy appears. But human magic is described as primitive and rare; they don’t even use proper spells, preferring raw elementalism. When you add the existence of demon armies to the infernals’ side, and Archfiends who are even more powerful than the strongest human casters, it seems absolutely impossible for the humans to be a meaningful threat. Ozra kills dozens of people by looking at them and making their metal armor implode. He does this for fun; it isn’t described as straining him at all, and he’s a physically immortal Archfiend on top of that. Mages can teleport. King Gil, by comparison, is a buff, tall human man with no magical abilities.
4) Forget the humans winning—how did the infernals win over the demons? Infernals supposedly rule demons with an iron fist, but demons come out ahead every single time we see them engage infernals in combat. The strongest mages in the Enclave, working together, lose to a single Archfiend without realistically threatening him at all. Demons can’t be permanently destroyed, are nearly fearless, live only for combat, and their most powerful casters eclipse those of the mortal races by orders of magnitude—but somehow the infernals are ‘in charge’, and it’s treated as a temporary setback that the Asmodial legion of demons are rebelling despite the fact that they are apparently capable of annihilating the Enclave (and do so repeatedly, despite advance warning and being able to try mutually exclusive tactics thanks to Cairn time-traveling).
5) Are the Asmodials actually rebelling? They seem to be working for Ephira, an infernal, the very species they’re rebelling against. What does a demonic rebellion mean? How has Ephira ‘lied’ to the Asmodials? How is a demonic army even there, out of Hades, to invade the physical realm/Enclave in the first place? It’s not really clear.
6) What is Ephira’s plan? She wants to frame Cairn for the annihilation of the Enclave, to get the infernals to destroy the humans. Putting aside the fact that King Gil somehow already crushed the infernals, sure, that’s a fine plan. So she:
a. Pretends to have an alliance with Guemon to have Cairn executed, but he figures out their secret alliance code and bribes Ephira into cancelling it… but she planned to keep Cairn alive to frame him anyway?
b. Threatens Persephone into sending Cairn on a mission to rob Ephira’s friend on the same day that Ephira is there, so that Ephira can… pretend to attack Cairn, after Cairn uses the secret alliance code to reveal that he is Cairn, which Ephira secretly knew all along?
c. Do a ton of other seemingly random stuff to frame literally almost every other character in the story, which I suppose is reasonable since she knows Cairn has access to some kind of future sight.
d. Gets a supreme illusion scepter from Mifral’s auction so that she can create a convincing illusion of Cairn slaughtering Nethteri’s family during the demonic invasion. But the person pretending to be Cairn kills all the witnesses anyway, so nobody would even be alive to reveal that ‘Cairn’ killed his host family.
e. Wait, if she can reliably get the illusion scepter every loop, why does she even keep Cairn alive? She can copy his appearance to frame him whenever. It’s not as though she planned to keep him alive after ‘his’ invasion; she makes an extremely credible and effective attempt to kill him the moment the invasion starts.
f. If the Enclave is annihilated by the Asmodial demons (which are rebelling? Not rebelling? Still unclear) how is her revenge plan going to work? Just about all the infernals not living in Hades or the Sanctum will be dead, and the Asmodials will still be running amuck.
g. She secretly has access to someone with the dantalion flame anyway, so she can train him up and repair the interdimensional gate whenever. Why has she not done that? Either King Gil is strong enough to crush them a second time even with a restored gate, in which case the Enclave-annihilation plan is pointless, or he isn’t strong enough, and the plan isn’t necessary in the first place because they can just fix the gate and win the war with the Enclave intact.
h. The different layers of this plan are so complicated that I have no idea how it would work out in practice.
7) How does Thoth’s army burn down every single human city on the same night? How did the army (armies?) get there in the first place? Soldiers require roads, food, weapons, travel time. They leave famine and dust clouds a mile high in their wake just by existing. Thoth sneaks multiple armies into the center of the human nation, burns down the capital and every other human city in a surprise attack, and does this in a single day without ANY forewarning whatsoever besides ‘hmm, the elves have been more active than usual lately’. Are they teleporting? All the armies are teleporting? What the heck is happening? If this is part of the mystery of the story, that’s entirely okay, but I need some in-story recognizance from someone that this is at least a little weird.

Last, I’d like to discuss the ending.

In short, Cairn is captured by Ozra in one of the restarts and tortured for an indeterminate amount of time—probably weeks. The torture is horrific, and I have absolutely no problem believing it to be beyond human endurance. It’s bad enough that Cairn lies in a coma for months afterwards, through multiple restarts, even after escaping through suicide. Cairn’s PTSD regarding this event is entirely sensible and I applaud McCoy for writing a protagonist who doesn’t just ‘get over’ horrific torture the instant it’s convenient to do so.
Cairn goes on to resolve the story by pledging his immortal soul to the very creature that just tortured him into a coma. When I say immortal, I do mean that—the story makes clear that Cairn is going to serve Ozra, his Archfiend torturer, for eternity in fantasy Hell.
Putting aside the questions this raises about the story’s afterlife (does this mean that the infernals have the ‘correct’ religious beliefs, and everyone else is wrong? Do all the afterlives exist, and the contract just means that Cairn will go to the wrong one?), is Ephira’s plan really so unstoppable? There’s no other way to save the Enclave?
This seems… difficult to believe, but it’s hard to be sure, because this is the point in the story at which McCoy’s tendency towards emotional writing over clarity is most apparent. Cairn goes through these restarts in a haze of PTSD and trauma and failure, and although that makes for an emotionally impactful climax, it also means that we, as readers, don’t really get to see his attempted solutions.
Now, maybe I’m just a bad reader! That’s entirely possible. But it really does seem like Cairn warns the Enclaves leaders about the invasion 3 or 4 times, sees them fail to defend the Enclave every time, and then sells his soul for eternity.
Here’s some other things to try:
1) Kill Ephira at the start of the loop. She’s the one commanding the demons, and presumably summoning them. Can the Asmodials even get to the Enclave without her? I’m not sure, because it’s never explained how they arrive, but it’s worth trying.
2) Threaten Ephira into commanding the Asmodials to do something else. Cairn convinces Ralakos and Guemon of the invasion multiple times; doing this extra step can’t be that much harder with a month of prep time. The story says this is impossible because the Asmodials ‘want blood and will attack anyway’, but when Cairn takes over he convinces them not to attack by selling his soul, which is the exact same price Ephira paid. She can do the same thing.
3) Have better tactics. Cairn knows how the invasion will play out each time; he can customize their response to be tactically perfect, because he has future knowledge and a month of prep time. Rig the caves that the demons emerge from to collapse on them. Teleport in some of the Sanctum’s super-infernals. Evacuate the town and plant explosives. Cairn gives up on fighting because Ozra is ‘unstoppable’, but Ralakos and Guemon fight him for minutes at a time all on their own several times. Another four or five high-tier infernal mages will win that fight, and mages in this series can teleport.
Ozra can’t truly be unstoppable, or the demons would already control the world. He seems to be an above-average Archfiend, something the infernals should be more than familiar with and capable of defeating. The infernals are in charge! They control the demons. They can’t just… summon another Archfiend to fight Ozra? There are NO other options, besides capitulation?
To make an overly long complaint short, a dramatic sacrifice only works as an impactful moment for readers if the author has convinced us that the sacrifice is necessary. If someone sacrifices their life to open a door when one of the characters already has a way to potentially open the door, and they don’t really try it, that sacrifice will fall flat. The same principle applies here. Cairn is making a literally infinite sacrifice, but the reader doesn’t see him attempt enough reasonable solutions to justify that sacrifice as necessary, so the moment (at least for me) did not work.


…we’re at the character limit. Ultimately, this is a 3.5 star story that I’m bumping up to 4 in the context of its genre, and as a debut. It also gets bonus points for being fun while still having some deeper themes to communicate (a hard balance to strike).

[Russell Gray · Rating 5 out of 5]

This one caught me by surprise, not just for being a good story, but this might be the most smartly written Royal Road story that I've read.

Character - 9/10, Plot - 9/10, Setting - 9/10, Writing - 9/10, Enjoyment - 8/10

This is a regressor/time loop story, which has somehow turned into one of those subgenres that I really enjoy. Over the course of years, from Groundhog Day to All You Need is Kill, Higurashi no Naku Koro ni, to Mother of Learning and this book, my journey of time-loop enjoyment has been a long one, but here we are.

The thing I tend to enjoy most is the character exploration that a time loop provides. That being said, this story made a pretty bold decision to swap out its cast of characters at the halfway point. I'll admit that I felt some of my enthusiasm diminish at that point, but I kept going and I'm glad that I did.

The plot and setting are somewhat generic in that we have a medieval era fantasy story with some staple races such as elves, dwarves, humans, and infernals. But I don't want that to sound like a criticism. On the contrary, I felt like it made me appreciate the specificities in the book even more. I really appreciated the unique flavor provided by things like the coronation ceremony, the Everwood, and the Enclave. It feels more like we will slowly unveil the grand tapestry of this world by focusing on specific locations along the way.

It's rare that I would say the writing is the strongest element of a book, but it heavily influenced how I digested the other categories of this review. The writing is probably the best I've seen in any book from the gamelit, litrpg, progression fantasy, time loop indie publishing scene. Not just due to the near absence of proofreading and grammatical issues, but also from the obvious care the author put into writing the characters and scenes. I could really tell that the author took the time to think about things from multiple angles and asked a variety of questions regarding the characters and even singular moments in a scene.

It's probably a bit of a surprise after this rambling gush of praise that my enjoyment rating was the lowest. I honestly don't know how to explain it other than something probably rooted in specific personal preferences. Sometimes it's hard to appreciate something, no matter how good it is, when it gives us something other than what we want at the moment.

Regardless, this was a fantastic read for me, considering I picked this up on a whim with no expectations.

[Tony Hinde · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is right up my alley. Underdog, coming of age, time-loop, impossible odds. Yes please!

The world-building is okay but not mind-blowing. There are plenty of recognizable elements like elves, dwarves, and demons. But there are a few twists, like the infernals and whatever that forest torturing dude was. I do like the magic system though. It has limits, costs, and consequences.

The core of this book is its central character Cairn. This is no paper-thin hero archetype. He has depth, grounded motivations, meaningful relationships, and an ark that looms larger than the bay bridge. There's a sense of doomed foreboding that gives him a bit of a martyr feel. But that just makes his efforts and sacrifices seem more admirable. It is easy to be sucked into Cairn's perspective and let the story take you.

This book seems like a great bargain to me. It's currently 68 cents on Amazon for over 700 pages of entertainment. I'm moving on to the next book in this series... Monarch II: Forgotten Sanctum.

[Johnny · Rating 4 out of 5]

book one

Mistakes: I found a good handful of them and listed them on GoodReads. The biggest one though to me was the paper dragon that kept being called a horse.

Plot: While not litrpg, I would call this time loop fantasy. A young thirteen year old must find a way to change the fate that leaves not just his family dead, but every human city burned to ash.

Characters: While the mc starts off rather soft he soon learns that a steel spin is necessary and that you can’t always forgive those who do you wrong.

7/10 With over 700 pages it’s a nice read.

[Gareth Otton · Rating 4 out of 5]

My gut is telling me that this was a 3-star story, but I feel compelled to give it 4-stars because of the nature of how I read this book. I listened to this as an audiobook, and the narration by Luke Daniels was so bad, that I can't help but think it affected my enjoyment of this story. That's a surprise because normally I like Luke Daniels' performances, but here it was comically overacted. When most of your attention is on the overdone voices and abysmal accents, you can't really enjoy the story for what it was intended to be, and it gets in the way of the author's work. Therefore, in the name of fairness, this book gets an extra star.

As for that author's work, I liked it for the most part. The premise is really interesting, I think the time loop was handled well, the characters were three dimensional and engaging, and overall it was a well-written book. I also really liked the protagonist who is a good mix of humourous, sympathetic and competent, striking a good balance so that he is never over the top or obnoxious. It made him an excellent main character to experience this story through.

One of the things I really liked about him was the relationships he had with other people in this story, as I found them to be believable and engaging. For the most part, I say that as praise for the author's work, but I am also disappointed because a lot of these relationships are tossed aside too early, never giving us as a reader chance to settle into the story and get to know the cast of characters.

This casting aside of secondary characters gets exhausting after a while as we are constantly having to learn and adapt to new faces and names as the story progresses. It's a lot of work to be in a constant introductory phase of meeting new characters throughout an entire story, and therefore as the book progressed it became harder to keep all the names and faces straight. This is a massive problem when the last 3rd of the book sees an explosion in secondary characters and a plot that is focused on politics and mysteries surrounding those characters. I'm not ashamed to admit that I got increasingly lost at this part of the book as I lost track of who was who, what was happening, and sadly, why I should care.

In fact, my attention started slipping as the whole enclave story unfolded to the point where I felt really detached from the story by the end of this book. I think the key problem is that for most of the book the main character and his actions were driving the story forward, whereas the enclave storyline is driven by external elements and the protagonist feels like he is being dragged along for the ride.

Overall, I liked most of what I read here, and would go so far as to say that I loved the first two-thirds of the book. However, between the awful narration and the lacklustre final arc of this book, my interest fizzled out enough that I'm not in a hurry to see what happens next. That's a shame, as there was a lot of promise here.

I think that this is a case of a book that would have benefited greatly from an editor to help tighten it up and keep it focused on what was important.

[Sydney · Rating 5 out of 5]

5 But I Am No Longer Your Eloise Stars

A Prince Out Of Time is the first book in the Monarch series by J. McCoy.

I'm so confused! We don't even get to the Sanctum in this book. Which means there are going to be so many books in this series if each race he pulls to his side follows the trend, and is allotted more than one. That's even before you consider if there will books on the rebuild after... I honestly wish I hadn't found this book until later, when more books were already out so I would not have to suffer through the waiting game.

This book gutted me. On too many occasions I sat, reading, feeling so terribly hopeless for this character. How dare you have such a way with words and prose to make such heart-rending pain prevalent and un-ignorable.

What is the connection between Thoth and Maya? How does one become the other? Are they truly related? Is it just coincidence that lies in their similarities? What suffrage does she face that he must pay penance for? What could he possibly do that leads her furrher on to start this path of pain?

Who was that little girl? Why is she important? How does she speak as if she knows more than him? Is it divine in nature? Is she his future child? Also, what's up with his conversations with Lillian? Is this a consequence of his mind breaking under the continued deaths and restarts, and atrocities he has witnessed? Creating some figment of his imagination to parse out what his flayed mind cannot grasp in his great and many moment of weakness?

These flash backs are so perfectly placed and enriching towards the story as a whole. While I'm sure I would still enjoy the work without them. The way that they meld him into the person he's becoming before our very eyes is fascinating.

I wonder if his Uncle lives... I wonder how this cyclic prosephy will play out before he reaches the end of his story for Empress Emira and if we will find out what whether she grants his request. I wonder what he has faced knowing now that even final death will not free him?

Everything with Radian, Maya, and the children. His use of writs to conscript the Rangers into manipulating contingencies against the future war. His close ties to Maya's family, even closer than that to his own. Almost. Watching all of these people die, so many times. His sacrifices. Everything that happened in these pages renders the mind immobile. What will become of him, what more will he face, how long will this last, how far can this go, what horrors are left? All I want to do: face it all beside Prince Cairn and see what is left of him once he finally manages to complete his mission, once he finally reaches satisfaction or acceptance of his endlessly repeating life to beg for a final death. Knowing what now awaits him once it comes.

[Roberto Flores · Rating 1 out of 5]

Two thirds in and I quit.

This is boring and tedious. The time travel mechanic is so situational it just comes off as a crutch. The pace is horrible, the characters dull. I think this is meant to have a sense of intrigue to keep your attention, it fails in that regard. This is a mediocre idea poorly executed.

[Ubik · Rating 2 out of 5]

It suffers typical webnovel pitfalls, a ton of skippable chapters especially in the later parts. The whole heist arc is super irrelevant and drags out way to long. Also too many flashbacks to his sad childhood, we got the picture the first time, don't rub it in so excessively.

Another problem was the audiobook, the narrator is overacting way too much, it became really cringy

[M Hamed · Rating 3 out of 5]

weirdly well written, unreasonably long

[Horia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great read, really good balance between angst, grief, pain, and character evolution mixed in a somewhat time-loop frame. Fine piece of good fantasy with a rewarding progression arch and a mysterious fascinating rich world building.

Feels like each chapter is a lesson learned for the main character and the progression is palpable, explained, justified and genuine.

Starts with high-court fantasy, continues with survival adventure and wraps up with a whodunit intricate story, all with demons, fiends, dwarfs, elves mages and hints of epic powers at play.

I'm a bit worried about the graphic violence and the pathological trauma of each death with a big cautionary warning about the torture and PTSD chapters. Painful to read, yet rewarding to see the resolution and evolution on how to cope and feel with it.

Will definitely continue the series

[Jon Svenson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cairn is the crown prince of the human kingdom of a fantasy world. His father the king is brutal to his subjects, but passes it off as necessary to the running of the kingdom.

The king doesn't think highly of his son, as he too soft to rule the kingdom.

I really don't want to spoil anything as the setup is a big part of the story. At times I loved this book, and at other times I had to put it down to read something else. Despite this, I think it's an interesting take on a fantasy story, with a protagonist who wants to be anyone else but the crown prince.

There's intrigue, good world building, a main character that does his best even when he isn't sure what he's supposed to be doing. The book came across as a puzzle to me, something to be unraveled until all the pieces fit. At times the book comes across as Groundhog Day, but that isn't a fair comparison.

I plan to read book 2, and if the description sounds intriguing, then you should check it out. It's definitely different, and that's not a bad thing.

5/5*

[John Galt · Rating 2 out of 5]

Prologue annoyed me. The MC is annoying both morally and in his thought process. The author's magic system changes with the needs of the plot progression. Annoying. MC's super power gift is useless because MC is too stupid to leverage it. I made it through the book. Woke up the next day and realized I could not recall a single thing from what I read. At that moment, I knew that my mind had no interest in the story or finishing the series. Sorry author. Keep trying. The prose we good.

[John #Audible · Rating 2 out of 5]

Great concept for the story, maybe borrowed from other lite novels ,"Boss level on Hulu or Russian Doll on Netflix or the big one Groundhog Day.. But the big problem is when you are time re-setting all the time and the MC remembers. There is no consequences, the plot kind of becomes meaningless because you can change it all on the very next death or reset. The story becomes boring.

[Travis Kole · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredible. This will definitely go down as one of the best books I have read this year. The story gripped me from beginning to end and I dont think I could ask for more. The story provides a great world and template in which we are introduced to a very flawed and broken character. We get to see through time glimpses into his past of how he came to be the man he ended up being. How he was shaped from his cruel and ruthless father. He also learns by the end of the first book that he has to admit to himself that his father was not out of line when it came to being a king. To be ruthless and a tyrant helped cement the kingdom but at a cost. Cairn wants to be a benevolent king to unitify the realm. He learns that to do so that he will have to do unsavory things to do so. I think that was the biggest take away from book one is that as much as Cairn hates and despises his father as King he had to do what he had to do.

This review is kind of everywhere when it comes to organizing my thoughts. I dont read progression novels that often but have to say that this is at the top right now. I was addicted to the story. To see Cairn fail over and over again and over time you see how damaged Cairn psyche is becoming. To get out of the loop, he realizes that being the savior and altruistic is not possible. I also love all the side characters and enjoy the development of Maya and Cairn over time. Every character seems to point out that she is right there for him. Cairn is obsessed with Lillian from a past life but I think he will slowly realize that the woman she was will not be the woman he gets in this life. Lastly, there is one thing I loved with this author to elevate from some of the darkness of the book. He puts little funny quips throughout the book which had be laughing a lot at times. He puts them in the perfect places to make it so the reader is not always depressed throughout the book.

Outstanding book and now its time for book 2.

[John Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good... I think?

I'm pretty sure most of these are just my personal preferences bothering me, but anyways.. There was way too much foreshadowing in this book. Dear lord. The whole prologue is filled with spoilers, and the rest of the book is constantly filled with "I wouldn't find out until two weeks later" like why?! Just have him find out in two weeks, you don't need to tell me every time! Other than that, pacing is a bit rough in a few places. The author LOVES throwing stuff that doesn't make sense at you, and then giving you tiny, tiny, hints for a very long time. Extremely frustrating to get very important information sloooooowly parceled out like that. Like, the gap between setup and payoff is very large in this book compared to others (especially in the genre).

Another thing that bothered me not because it was bad, but because I just didn't like it was the characterization. I thought everyone was some variety of a terrible/annoying person, and I personally find it hard to get through a book where I don't really care to root for anyone.

Anyways your mileage may vary compared to mine, so if any of these issues aren't things that are a hard pass for you, you will probably like the book.

[Adam Roberts · Rating 5 out of 5]

A dark and intriguing twist on the time loop trope

This book was definitely not what I’d expected going in from other “time loop/back in time to do it over” books. Cairn faces horrible consequences and graphic endings more than once, and even at the end of the book he is nowhere near as powerful as he really needs to be. It’s a drastic change from the MC who is overpowered, or who is hyper-competent. Cairns greatest assets are his mind, ability to plan, and his stubborn refusal to give up and take an easier way out of his troubles.

Throughout the story we never do find out any more real info on his main enemy or their motivations, and in fact it’s clear very quickly that they are masterminding events far in advance of Cairn encountering said events. The ending was rather satisfying after the horrors he had to go through to get tot hat point, while still leaving me curious for what comes next. It also leaves me with a lot of questions about the background of the story. Can’t wait for book 2!

Warning: there are a couple of scenes that are not for the faint of heart or the squeamish. Also a fair bit of language if you have an issue with cursing.

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

MC/STORY/POLITICS?

the MC CHEARACTER:
I read a bunch of reviews that warned me of a "stagnant" character but instead of what i was expecting, what i got was a subtitle mind game. Now, I can see how some could see that the guy didn't change that much, to give the fair critics their due, but, isn't that....normal? we as people don't usually change on a dime and its only book one. He's going to still have the same basic personality because as we get older its harder to change that, but what's CHANGING....is his PERSPECTIVE on LIFE....yes? We can ALWAYS learn MORE!!

the STORY:
I am FULLY invested in this persons life...that's pretty much it. like a 50s maid hooked on an afternoon soap...dang it now i'm getting excited all over again and i need book 2!!!

are there politics in the book?:
Bottom line-
NO.
I noticed nothing woke, nothing overly conservative, nothing pushy one way or another. the author STUCK TO THE STORY and it was a BREATH OF FRESH AIR. I HOPE they stay that way going forward.*^^*

[Marcin W · Rating 2 out of 5]

Started off great. Built sympathy in the intro for MC very well... but then just crashed into same-old drivel IMO.
#1 gripe The time loop is not consistent / the MC got pushed back 10 years 1st time, then as needed after.
#2 Cant believe im saying this, but 1st time the story needed some torture porn. IE the MC goes through horrible deaths but they are very quickly mentioned & forgotten as if it did not matter much.
#3 too many characters somehow. Or bad intros for them. I could not care for any but the 'main' 2.

# Only thing that kept me going (aside from Luke Daniels' great narration)... the occasional life lessons the MC flashes back to. They are not the best ive seen, but still interesting perspective.

Overall Mother Of Learning did it much-much better. 2nd star cuz was able to tough it out & got B2 for free which has the same feels.
Will probably NOT continue with this series.

[T · Rating 5 out of 5]

I discovered this series by reading the comic first on the Naver Webtoon app. The comic is quite faithful to the first half of the first book in the series. I devoured the books. I understand that this is considered indie publishing but I found the author’s work to be as good as Robert Jordan or Brandon Sanderson, and in a similar style of high fantasy writing. I thought the characters were fleshed out well, multidimensional, their growth and change through the story reflecting what I think real world experiences would be like. The world building setting is engaging and appropriately vast like you would want in a series of this kind.

There were some minor lost punctuation, forgotten periods, apostrophes, that were not often present, but present enough that I noticed it, and was surprised that an editor would not catch such simple mistakes.

I really enjoyed this book, and all of its sequels. I hope the author publishes a book 4 soon.

[Julian · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is in large parts well written, with three dimensional characters, an interesting world and a solid plot.
My main gripe with the book is the age of the characters. Cairn - our main character - is sent back in time to his 12 year old self. Yet people for the most part don't really treat him like a child, or give his opinions and commands far too much weight. It could be explained by him being a prince, but I still feel like that could've been done better. The second and more glaring issue are his interactions with other children that age. Most notably the strongly hinted future romance with someone that's 13-14 during this book. While Cairn is outwardly 12-13, he's very much an adult on the inside.
While I did enjoy most of the book, the problematic age inappropriate relationship(s) together with a somewhat unsatisfying ending, make me question if I want to continue the series.
Still, 3.5 stars rounded up to 4.

[Talia]

First impressions, the concept of this book immediately appealed to me. I think exploring what repeated time loops can do to your mental state is inherently interesting, especially if it's done well. I think the world building of this book is also really well done, in particular the magic system. However, I do have one major reservation about this book, and it's one that seems to always come into play with books about male regressors in action fantasy stories. He goes back to being a teenager, and then meets another teenage girl. And unfortunately, she seems to hold romantic feelings for him which may or may not be reciprocated. He is fully an adult, even if he is in a teenage body. It's disgusting, repulsive, and something I dearly wish wasn't a trend in stories that feature regression. I just hope that nothing ends up actually happening between them.

[Jan · Rating 2 out of 5]

This started great, but in the end I did not finish.

Prince gets a chance to re do the last ten years of his life and avoid a grisly death.

On the positive side this was well written. The characters were good. The plot also, at least until towards the end. When the MC is being clever the book is great.

Sadly al lot of the MC being clever is meaningless because it's ultimately undone by a reset. After a few resets I noticed I had stopped caring because I was expecting everything to get reset. Resets seemed to become a way to have horrible things happen and then retract them.

From the intro to the book I thought this would be a humorous book, but while it does have humor it's really a very dark depressing book. There is lots of trauma, physical and mental. In the end the utter hell the MC was being put through was what made me put down the book.

[Michael Jackson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thought provoking

Most time travel or reset books can be boring, find path fight battle win war get killed reset do it again, this books is something like that it shows the duality of leadership do you kill a child because in the future he leads an army that destroys the world or do you try and stop what that child becomes to try and get a better outcome.
It has battles etc some times its hung up on the sins of the father bestowed on the child, is he a tyrant and his son follows in his footsteps or does he follow his mothers more merciful path knowing that what ever he does will still end up costing him something his ethics his emotions his sanity and even his soul and is that what thoth the protagonist wants to make him suffer?

[Helen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this - I've burned through this in an afternoon kind of enjoyed it :)

It's a good progression and loop story, which races along at a good place with well written characters and interesting world building

It has it's flaws though. I'm still confused about the mechanics of the loop itself, and I really don't like the abrupt scene changes into the MC's memories with dear old dad. Plus, I couldn't quite figure out his skill set - considering he starts out as the wasteral son, he has a good grasp of statecraft (especially if he's supposed to sleep through council meetings). But I struggled to get into the beginning, so I may have missed how competent he's supposed to be

All in all, a good read. Book two is out in August, so I think I'll have a go with that one too :)

[Forrest · Rating 4 out of 5]

good, but the flashbacks

I enjoyed this more than I thought I would, based on the description of the book. I will definitely read the next one.

However, about 2/3 of the way through it, the writing style changed a bit. Suddenly, I’d find myself reading a flashback without any transition and being confused about who was doing what and where they were. This happened several times and was mildly annoying.

Also, near the end, the MC and several others have information that the reader does not. The MC makes a decision, and then the author prevents him from even thinking about it until it is over. I know they did that to artificially increase the “tension.” But it was annoying waiting for the “Ocean’s 11” like reveal at the end. To find out what he was doing and why.

[Alesay · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars. DNF at 34%. While I found the premise interesting enough and appreciated how the book handled trauma, I wasn’t a fan of the prologue. It felt too spoilery and dropped me into a future scene before I had any reason to be invested. That scene didn’t carry enough weight to make me want to move toward it, and that framing affected my enjoyment more than I expected.

Although the book has plenty of intense and interesting moments, I struggled to connect with the MC or feel invested in the story’s direction. Based on what I read and where the story seems to be heading, it’s not something I'm in the mood for at this point.

[Faith · Rating 5 out of 5]

You should treat yourself to this story!

This is the best book I’ve read in a very long time. My mind was so invested in this tale and I was constantly kept guessing. There was not any of what I call “lag time” when a story starts to drag. Also, there wasn’t any type of repetitive thought process from the protagonist that becomes so annoying. A very well written, twisted, interwoven plot with fantastic characters — some you will love and others you will hate! I’m so happy there is a book #2.

[Adam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just fantastic.

I originally went into this book thinking it was going to be an easy afternoon read. Nothing fantastic just enough to pass the time until another book was released….how wrong I was.

This book was just amazing the story, characters, plots and twists made me just want to finish the book in a day. I’ve already purchased the second book and I don’t usually preorder books 5 stars.

[Tim Kaiver · Rating 5 out of 5]

Re: Monarch is one of the best time travel regressor books I've read. On top of Luke Daniels' gripping narration, McCoy's ability to keep us in suspense and endearment to his characters made this read stand out as among the best of the year. It's brutal at times, but McCoy has a feel for when to hit the high points and keep the story going. This epic tale has hooked me for the next and hopefully many more. Great job all around!

[Murphies_law · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fascinating concept reminding of the famous movie Groundhog Day but rather confusingly executed.

The story has a dramatic and overly bloodthirsty start. I had to force myself to pick the book up again.

I loved the parts when the MC learned different perspectives on deeds in the past. The view humans are bad and the other races are good was different but somewhat naive. The motivation of the evil characters seems bizarre and lackluster.