Free the Darkness: King's Dark Tidings, Book 1

I am re-reading this series. I also purchase the audiobook with the Kindle books and the narrator, Nick Podehl helps bring the characters to life in this action packed story.Great character development, it is a very fun read. Kel Kade has quite the creative mind to develop a story like this.

This is a 6 part series (so far) I have read 1-3 so I can PROMISE that this is worth the time. The book is well written and paced very well although some things are easy to predict but it’s fantasy and a lot of fantasy has been done to death. The action scenes and battles are ALWAYS enjoyable but it’s hard to root for Rezkin when he’s so overpowered and has no physical or mental equal. Every woman who sees him falls for him which gets repetitive at times. I LOVE how each character matures and grows as the story progresses (Rezkin included). If you read the first one but didn’t feel it, I recommend giving the second one a try it gets SOOOOOO much better!

I bought this as part of my usual xmas swag of self-published books and was very pleasantly surprised. This is the best self-published book I have bought to date.Overall the writing is good, with a plain, literate prose style that focuses on the characterisation. As a result the book is dialogue heavy, with limited imagery. The story swaps perspective from character to character, often with little grammatical indication that it has done so. It is a tribute to the characterisation that despite the lack of structural indication of a PoV swap that I was never lost, the individual motivations and style of each major character being enough to keep the PoV clear. Based on just the writing I would probably have given the book only four stars, but the story takes the book to another level.The storyline is nicely unique while still very much being within the mainstream of the fantasy genre. This makes for an easy read as it does not require the author to do loads of exposition in order for you to understand the world around the characters and at no time does the plot lose you in ridiculous complexity. It is the characters that really make this book; the author obviously has a real talent for creating interesting characters. The main character is a classic high fantasy construct, though unique in his own way, but easily the most powerful and capable being in the books and the result is he accomplishes his goals with little challenge. The secondary characters are genre standards, but done really well, given their own feelings and voice, making them anything but cardboard cut-outs and making you care about them. The interest in the story are delivered by the revelations about the characters, especially the main character, rather than from challenges and surprises arising and being overcome. I was pleased that even by the end of the book, despite the genre standard approach in many ways, that I was still unsure of where exactly the plot was going, which to my experience is not often the case with many fantasy books where the plot is usually so linearly generic that you quickly start to see the plot twists coming.The book is not without its drawbacks, but they are more matters where my preferences and those of the author obviously diverge, rather than being writing mistakes or plot flaws. At no time did they distract or detract from my enjoyment of the book however, which is a sign of just how fun a read this book was. Definitely looking forward to book 2 and to future books from the author, hoping that he keeps improving from this excellent first effort.

Good storytelling here, with bit of humor and lots of action. The only character that gets a full development is the main character, but that's OK - this is just the first in a series. The premise is probably the best part - super assassin trained almost from birth, treated brutally, experiences no human kindness, trained to exhibit social skills but it is all an act, as he has no direct knowledge of human society. But most importantly - he's utterly obedient and utterly unaware of his ultimate purpose. This is required, because his final instructions, told to him by his last, dying master, get somewhat garbled and that's the basis of most of the humor in the book. So instead of protecting and honoring his "king," he's to protect and honor his "friends." The problem is he doesn't know what a "friend" IS, but he heads out in the world and tries to fulfill his "mission" as best he can. Unfortunately for him, the outside world does not operate according to rules he understands, and it all gets a bit...complicated. And funny.I really liked this book, but there are a couple of places where I had to suspend disbelief a bit more than I liked. While I can believe that the main character is superb at acting socialized, while being a cold blooded killer in reality, he really isn't cold blooded enough to pull off this plot device. Secondly, he runs into trouble based on the fact that, unbeknownst to him, he is a complete hunk, and every young woman who meets him melts in his presence, leaving him constantly confused. That makes for great humor - but, after a while you get the impression that all females are shallow and in truth the female characters get very little development. That said, this could easily be rectified in later episodes.Oh - and if you simply can't stand bad editing, don't get this book. It is horrendous. Spelling errors from page one on.There's a lot more to the plot than I've described here, by the way. And it's all told well. I'll most certainly be picking up the next book in the series.