Title The False Prince Author Jennifer A. Nielsen Cover Art --- Publisher Scholastic - 2012 First Printing Scholastic - 2012
	Title The Runaway King Author Jennifer A. Nielsen Cover Art --- Publisher --- First Printing ---
	Title The Shadow Throne Author Jennifer A. Nielsen Cover Art --- Publisher --- First Printing ---
	Category Middle Grade Fantasy Warnings None Main Characters Sage, Conner, Roden, Tobias, Mott, Imogen Main Elements Fantasy Website jennielsen.com

The False Prince

I'd heard good things about this book (though I also heard the next couple of books weren't so good, guess I'll find out later). However, I didn't get around to reading it until I bought myself a new Kobo eReader to replace my old Sony eReader that kept freezing on me. Normally I never buy an ebook, there are so many free ones to choose from, and I like to know that if I paid for something I don't have to worry that as devices come and go, I might not be able to read it again 10 years from now.

But when I got offered both 80% off my first book plus a $5 credit...well, that's different, that meant free! So after struggling to decide which one to pick, I settled on this one, with the plan to round out the series in eBook form later.

And I loved it. Like I said, I heard it was good, and it was. Ok, so there's a twist that if you don't figure it out almost right from the start...we'll lets just say its not a twist. However what I thought was quite intriguing was that the main character knew full well what the twist was, but never let it slip to the reader even though its a first person narrative.

One of the Dresden Files books was like that, and in that case I thought it failed utterly. I mean we're in the character's head, how come his thoughts don't stray to the truth, I mean did he know that the readers were in his head and that he should mislead us even in his own thoughts? It made no sense.

But somehow in The False Prince, it was more subtle, like his thoughts just didn't happen to stray to those secrets while the reader was peering inside his mind, not that it was intentionally deceiving the reader.

Anyway, that probably gave away a lot, but really, like I said, its not a twist, not really. Maybe for a middle grade reader but not an adult one. Admittedly, you are never quite 100% sure, the story really could have gone either way so maybe I did confirm something too early, but hey, that's the risk of reading the review. I couldn't talk about the one thing I thought made this book rather unique.

And I love the character of Sage. He was impertinent, a prankster, incredibly annoying, cunning, but with a heart of gold and full of good intentions. And he was pitted against two other young orphan boys all vying for the crown, maybe not really wanting it but knowing the alternative was likely death. It created some interesting conflict where the boys didn't really want to hurt each other but perhaps felt they really didn't have a choice.

Even Conner, well he's a right bastard, but in the end I was still mostly convinced he had the best interest of the kingdom in mind, just going about it in completely the wrong way (and hey, if he managed to rise in the ranks in the process, why let the opportunity go to waste?)

It was a very entertaining read, and lots of lies and mysterious to unravel. You really need to keep track of all the minor details and clues. And while there wasn't much of a world to build, its your standard group of kingdoms all vying for power, I really felt drawn into it.

So it will be sad if indeed the next two books are not as good, but the standard was set pretty high on this one so will be hard to match! Will definitely be reading them though, I need to know how things turn out.