A conspiracy of kings

Another excellent book in the Queen's thief series, this one being the first in which Eugenides steps out of the focus and is not central to the story. This story picks up from the first book in the series and follows Sophos, the heir to Sounis. His disappearance is mentioned in the intervening books but nobody knew what happened to him; this book tells his story, and resolves the still pending question of what will happen with the war between Sounis and Attelia and Eddis. And of course, the Medes are as ever in the middle of everything trying to cause trouble.

Sophos is a much more serious, thoughtful, kind character than Eugenides so the tone of the book is appropriately different than when we follow the latter's hair-raising escapades. Much of it is recounted in Sophos' own words as he tells the story afterwards. He's a very likeable character however, and it's also clear how annoying Eugenides can be when seen through other people's eyes.

One thing this YA series does very well is address the challenges that younger rulers face when stepping into their power. Eugenides is often called young, and must spend a lot of book 3 proving himself and learning how to win the trust of the Attolians. Queen Attolia herself was very young when she took the throne and had to learn to be extremely ruthless to keep her Barons in line. Queen Eddis had an easier time but is still quite young, and Sophos is also very young and inexperienced as he struggles to survive the intrigues and plotting and figure out how to get his uncle's barons to trust him, or how to deal with them. It's an aspect of power that most YA books don't deal with at all, and this series does it very well and with multiple different examples in the different rulers of how different situations can be.

We return to Attolia, but this time with less Gen, less Irene, and more Sophos. And Helen, who seems to be more understandable and likable in this one.

Sophos, who you might remember from The Thief, has grown up. We get glimpses of who he is becoming as he loses everything, hits rock bottom, and rises up, like a king should. And along the way we get a few glimpses of Gen and Irene, who I dearly love, and the continuing evolution of Sophos and Helen, who we were teased about from the end of book 1.

Turner's writing style takes me a while to settle into for some reason. I enjoy her stories and her characters, but they are a bit of slow burn for me. Once I get back into the groove, however, I speed right along and enjoy the journey.

Still love book 3 best, but this was a solid three star read. Can't wait until book 5 next year!