The Gilded King continues my run of trying out books that aren’t in my regular reading schedule. When The Write Reads announced this book tour, the book blurb sounded really interesting so I decided to give it a shot.
Title: The Gilded King
Author: Josie Jaffrey
Series: Sovereign #1
First Published: June 25, 2018
Categories: Fantasy, Paranormal
Acquired: from author in via The Write Reads book tours
*** Thank you to the author, Josie Jaffrey, for providing me with a digital copy of this book in exchange for an unbiased review. ***
Book 1 in Josie Jaffrey’s Sovereign series
In the Blue, the world’s last city, all is not well.
Julia is stuck within its walls. She serves the nobility from a distance until she meets Lucas, a boy who believes in fairytales that Julia’s world can’t accommodate. The Blue is her prison, not her castle, and she’d escape into the trees if she didn’t know that contamination and death awaited humanity outside.
But not everyone in the Blue is human, and not everyone can be contained.
Beyond the city’s boundaries, in the wild forests of the Red, Cameron has precious little humanity left to lose. As he searches for a lost queen, he finds an enemy rising that he thought long dead. An enemy that the humans have forgotten how to fight.
One way or another, the walls of the Blue are coming down. The only question is what side you’ll be on when they do.
The Gilded King is a beautiful, visual book… with vampires
When I first agreed to join this book tour, I definitely wasn’t expecting vampires. The book blurb (above) doesn’t really mention that point at all. So, while I was a bit surprised (I don’t generally read vampire stories), I had already been drawn in enough to continue.
The one thing that really captivated me was the stunning world that Jaffrey has created. We see this world through two points of view – the story is told through the perspective of Julia and Cameron. Because their situations (not to mention their characters and morality) are so different from each other, it really gives the reader a good look at the story from different angles.
The city of Blue is actually a haven or a prison, depending on what side you’re on. There are humans and vampires (known as Nobles) living together in Blue, but not all are there willingly. Apparently there is a plague that has spread across the globe and it infects vampires. They created Blue as a safe zone – the humans that live in Blue are “clean” and so the vampires know they can feed on these humans without becoming infected.
In order to keep the humans from running away (because, seriously, who wouldn’t?), they are told the area outside of the city, Red, is wild and dangerous. If a human leaves Blue, they risk becoming contaminated and are never allowed back in.
The two stories – Julie (a human) in Blue and Cameron (a noble) in Red – are separate at first, but end up intertwining and overlapping with each other near the end. It was like reading two different stories at the same time – but in an enjoyable way.
I rarely read paranormal books and generally avoid anything with vampires, so this was definitely something out of my regular reading zone. I try to read a few books a year that aren’t cozy mysteries or historical fiction (my usual choices) so I’m glad I gave this book a chance. While I’m still not going to make a habit of reading vampire stories, I’m definitely going to continue with this series.
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Josie Jaffrey lives in Oxford, UK, with her husband and two cats (Sparky and Gussie), who graciously permit human cohabitation in return for regular feeding and cuddles. The resulting cat fluff makes it difficult for Jaffrey to wear black, which is largely why she gave up being a goth. Although the cats are definitely worth it, she still misses her old wardrobe.
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