This was a hard decision on whether I would give it a 3 or a 4 star rating but in the end, the overall of the book won a 4. It took me a while to finish this (again, I am beginning to delay in reading) when I began since October and now its December already! Anyway, once again I love how the world building is but the 3rd sequel focus on a young Sophos, last seen in The Thief, in his perspective on how he became the King of Sounis. After been captive by Medes (twice), slaved and fought back, A Conspiracy of Kings has every thing as it turns out except that I felt the first few chapters were very slow. As how it was delivered, the promising part of unexpected events turns out well in the consistency of writing, character and plot. While (been bias now) I rooted for more Eugenides to appear in this book, his appearance is much lesser but when he does appear, its once again a favorable wind that perks up the reading. Still, this is one series I am still in any way following due to its writing and world building. Of course, I can't wait to see what will happen next and I am one book away to read Thick as Thieves and hope I can read it when time permits. This, again, is a book I would recommend to anyone who started from the beginning.

I legit thought the whole book was the events of the first third of the book. I have no idea how I managed to forget so much of this story. But that was great for the reread because it was like reading it for the first time.

The ending does make me mad that Thick as Thieves is a standalone story. I've been waiting seven years, I need some closure after this ending.

You must know this first.

I am smitten.

The Queen's Thief is why I read. Bravo! Bravo! Bravo!

Will someone please explain why I haven't heard of Megan Whalen Turner or The Queen's Thief before? What else has the world been hiding from me that I should already know about?

Tell me you haven't felt like this before. Go ahead. I dare you.

There are four books in this series, with rumors of at least two more...although I'm not getting my hopes up, the last book was published in 2010. Never fear. Book four ends in a very good place.

Book 1: The Thief
Book 2: The Queen of Attolia
Book 3: The King of Attolia
Book 4: A Conspiracy of Kings

Not to mention--the book covers are totally sweet!

This is the story of Eugenides--The Queen's Thief himself--and how he is a completely wonderful literary character. It's one of the most well written and clever series of books I've read. The writing is so confident (yes, confident), I was powerless to resist being pulled into Gen's world.

Of course, only his closest friends can call him Gen. That's me. I've read the books. We're tight.

This is fantastic fantasy at its finest, with epic story lines to follow, heroes to adore, villains to despise, lessons to learn, kingdoms to save, love to find, and twists to try (and fail) to anticipate. The twists! Oh, the twists, Twists, TWISTS! Just when you think you have it, you realize you've been long-conned since before you even knew you needed to watch out for the trick. The world building and polytheistic culture is as lovely as it is tight. I'm telling you, this is top quality stuff.

Don't allow yourself to waste any more of your life having not read The Queens Thief.

I can't abide my friends not knowing they are missing something great.

Read. Now.

My job is done.

I wash my hands.

The Value of a Star: Ratings Explained

Maybe a bit spoilerish:

I wasn’t ready for this book, maybe a bit of a reading slump unfortunately. I had thought this would be the perfect way to get back into good reading since I loved the King of Attolia. But maybe I was hoping for more Gen or even Attolia, but Sounis was not that great of a perspective to read from, at least halfway through the book.

I guess the journey aspect follows through as it has throughout this series, but the abductions and running away from Sounis felt hard to believe, compared to the Sounis we met in The Thief. There wasn’t any emotional connection with him, even when he was drilling the fact that he desperately needed to find his mother and sisters (the ending when they met up at the end was underwhelming compared to how desperate he was throughout the book to know if they were alive).

The book got more interesting once Sounis met up with Gen, Attolia, and Eddis after which heading out to get kidnapped again! Which is fine since this time, it was all part of the plan.

I suppose you will really have to push through this book to get to the essential political controversies, which lacked in detail until halfway through the book.

I kinda of loved the very last chapter though; it showed the great relationship between Gen and Sophos that we also see in the prologue/beginning chapters of the book. It bothers me greatly that we won’t be seeing Gen and Attolia until the next unpublished novel, which comes out whoknowswhen.

The third book was better. I think one of the best things about this series is each book as a different narrator. The first three books mainly dealt with Gen. In this book he was barely in it and the scenes he was present he was aloof and didn't actually say much.

From the reports that Sophos was missing in previous books I was curious what had happened to him. I am not completely sure I was expecting this story to be from his point of view. I enjoyed his descriptions of what had happened to him after his disappearance.

Throughout this series I have wanted a map. There are so many neighboring countries mentioned I have wanted to look at something to make sure I have the picture right in my head. The war discussions do get a little long without actually saying anything, but overall I did enjoy the book.