Review: Demon Princess

Title: Demon Princess (Demon Kingdom Fairy Tales #1)
Author: Kassandra Lynn
Page Count: 162
Amazon
My Rating: 3 TURTLES: An enjoyable read, but I suggest check out if you like the topic before adding it to your to-read list.
*I was given this book in exchange for an honest review

Description:

With her father gone and her brother missing, Demon Princess Adriana has to assume the throne, temporarily becoming the Demon King. The procession is underway, and the princess is nervous yet determined … until the unthinkable happens and she is summoned! Somehow, Aldric, a mage-in-training, has summoned the princess into the human kingdom. Now trapped, Adriana must hide her identity and escape before she loses her life in the hands of her mortal enemies.

Review:

This book had the potential to be a very interesting story. It is set in a fantasy world with two conflicting races, demons and humans, and the protagonist is a demon, which is an interesting perspective. Unfortunately, I felt that it fell flat in several areas that prevented me from fully enjoying it.

For one thing, I felt that the world building was incomplete. There were a lot of rules about the magic of the world and the set up of governments and culture that weren’t addressed. This made it hard for me to feel fully immersed in the world, and instead felt removed from everything. For example, when Adriana is first summoned everyone assumes she is human, and, even though “summon beasts” are enslaved to the will of their masters, the adults of the story don’t take any action to find out how she was summoned. It is explicitly said in the story that slavery is illegal and humans don’t get summoned, so I had a hard time believing no one with authority would have noticed something unusual.

I also felt like the plot was very linear. What I mean by that is that there were very few plot twists or subplots. Adriana repeats over and over to herself certain things that she will do… and then she does them. I expected that she would think some things initially and then change her mind about some things as the story developed, but she didn’t. Since the story is about a demon being dropped amongst the human world, among supposed enemies, as she gets to know and befriend some I would expect her to change her perspective about them and vice versa. I felt that this was not explored as much as it could of and seemed like a missed opportunity to me. Maybe this will be shown more in the following books, but I wish I’d seen more of it here.

Demon Princess certainly has a lot of potential. It has an interesting world, an interesting premise, but it just wasn’t for me. I’m fairly picky about what I like and don’t like, so just because it wasn’t my cup of tea doesn’t mean it won’t be yours. If the description sounds intriguing to you, by all means check it out!

Disclosure: this post contains links to an affiliate program (Amazon), for which I receive a few cents if you make purchases.