Both of these elements carry the story very well, though I do hope there will be a character list, tribe list, and orisha list for readers to follow along with. Regardless of a sequel, it was refreshing to read a book that was solid from beginning to end without feeling rushed but rather feels whole and satisfying.īarron also manages a cast of characters that are as unique and fleshed-out as the worldbuilding – which is quite a feat given that the story is in first-person and the quality of each character’s development is preserved even when there is no direct interaction. According to Barron, this is the first of a trilogy and I can safely say this is a great start. Rena Barron wrote a story so engaging and unpredictable vivid and enchanting thorough and satisfying and somehow found a way to fit it under 500 pages – the twists alone are well-executed and believable. Even with that description, there’s no way to express how this book will exceed expectations. When her grandmother has a strange vision and things start to go awry in her home Kingdom, she decides to sacrifice years of her life for magic to set things right. The book follows Arrah, a young girl born to a family of powerful witchdoctors, but possesses no magic of her own. The storyline of this book is amazingly fast-paced, laced with action, high-stakes, plot twists, vivid worldbuilding and a sea of plot points that make this a very hard book to put down. But in case you want more reasons, here are mine.

The first thing that crossed my mind (after “When is Rena Barron’s next book coming out?”) was that I’m glad this book will exist for young fantasy-lovers who thought there were no magical adventures for them which is a good enough reason to pick this up. A girl with no gifts must bargain for the power to fight her own mother’s dark schemes-even if the price is her life.

Rena barron kingdom of souls