Hi, everybody! I haven’t finished a book in a while, so I wasn’t sure if I was going to put a review up today or not, but I found this on Goodreads and realized I’d never published it here. So here goes! If you haven’t read it already, I’d recommend reading my review for the first book in this series, The False Prince, and then come back here. Also – don’t read this review if you don’t want spoilers for the first book, The False Prince! Go read it and then come back here!

Title: The Runaway King

Author: Jennifer A. Nielsen

Publisher: Scholastic Press

Source: library

About: A kingdom teetering on the brink of destruction. A king gone missing. Who will survive? Find out in the highly anticipated sequel to Jennifer A. Nielsen’s blockbuster THE FALSE PRINCE!

Just weeks after Jaron has taken the throne, an assassination attempt forces him into a deadly situation. Rumors of a coming war are winding their way between the castle walls, and Jaron feels the pressure quietly mounting within Carthya. Soon, it becomes clear that deserting the kingdom may be his only hope of saving it. But the further Jaron is forced to run from his identity, the more he wonders if it is possible to go too far. Will he ever be able to return home again? Or will he have to sacrifice his own life in order to save his kingdom?

The stunning second installment of The Ascendance Trilogy takes readers on a roller-coaster ride of treason and murder, thrills and peril, as they journey with the Runaway King!

WELL!

I come to you reviewing this book 12 chapters into the next one (The Shadow Throne)… and it’s easy to say that this trilogy is destroying me.

However, this book (that is, the second in the series), wasn’t my favorite – between the first, and now, 86 pages into The Shadow Throne, it’s probably my least favorite. But of course, I LOVED this book (I read it in a day and just ask my family – I was quite literally squealing in delight!) Jennifer A. Nielsen is awesome. (Though I might take that back at this point, the way her third book is ruining me!)

At this point in the series, I know that the main character, Jaron, ALWAYS has something up his sleeve. There’s always something he’s not telling you, so I was fully prepared to be amazed yet again at his (or rather Jennifer Nielsen’s?) 😉 incredible wit, and amazing skills… but I was seriously doubting his decision-making skills in this one. I just DID NOT trust him! How was he possibly planning to make it out of becoming a pirate and deceiving the pirate king into thinking he was an orphan, when the fact was the pirate king was out to destroy him?! I just… had no words.

But despite my better efforts, I really wanted to see how Mr. I-Can-Do-Everything was going to make it out of this one.

THEN came the help of sweet Imogen and his dutiful right-hand man, Mott, and I came to relax. A little bit. Imogen and Mott thought Jaron was just as crazy as I thought him to be.

Let me put it this way: the book had me hooked! (All three books do!) When you THINK you’re expecting something, it just happens a completely other way! (BELIEVE ME when I say that!) There’s always something that turns out how you never could have imagined, and I just have no words. I can’t say enough good things about this book (as I think I said in my review for The False Prince, as well!) so I guess I’ll just leave you with this fangirling review. (It’s a complete mess, I know.)

Buuuut you see I gave it four stars. I told you it wasn’t necessarily my favorite book in the trilogy, but I’m starting to realize (as I read The Shadow Throne), that it’s really just leading into what’s happening (!!!) in the third book. I mean,obviously the second book is going to lead into the third book, but this book had no solid conclusion; the third book picks up right where the second one left off, when war is coming to Carthya. (I promise that’s not a spoiler; it’s completely inevitable throughout both the first and second books!) So the book just leads into the REAL adventure (which I’m reading now!!) and it’s not the BEST book in the series. Thus, the four stars.

Sorry if this wasn’t my normal organized review! I just really need to finish The Shadow Throne because it’s killing me! 🙂