The High King's Golden Tongue (Tales of the High Court) Paperback – November 16, 2019

This book is the introduction to the series, so it feels like it sets the stage for future books, as well as telling the story of Prince Allen and High King Sarrica. The book has a lot of action, court intrigue, war, emotions, and a very slow-burn romance that only takes off toward the end of the book.As the story opens, Prince Allen is arriving at the High Court to meet his intended and to receive the final acceptance for the arranged marriage. He has prepared for this role as the king's consort all of his life and intensely for the past two years. Everything for his province relies on a successful match. When he is received by the king, Allen is shocked that Sarrica doesn't even seem to know he was coming. He rejects him and has Allen thrown out of his reception room.For much of the book, Sarrica is a rather unlikeable character, as he is still grieving from the death of his first husband four years ago. Sarrica is also overwhelmed by the administrative requirements of court and he wants to also make time to spend with his two children. Allen is exceptional, with important skills and a profound strength of character. The book is full of many exciting events, a cast of characters, and a great HEA. I look forward to reading the next book in the series.

I have now read 4 out of the 5 full-length books in the series. The first is the best, imo, but the last one is a close second. The author excels at palace intrigue, complicated plots, and political games. The characters are also well developed, have their own voices, and are likeable. The dialogue flows well and is believable. There may perhaps be slightly too much description of details, like clothing, room decor, jewelry, etc., but it is better than no detail at all and reminds me of the classic regency romances, with its awareness of the potential uses and importance of symbolism and messaging in these areas. The religion and world building is good, particularly in the last of the five, in which the religious structures, rituals, and beliefs were impressive and touching.Now for the criticism: My main issue with this series and most of the work by this author is that it seems that no editing has been done whatsoever and they are still charging full price. To be fair, the overall mistakes, typos, and inconsistencies are fewer and less egregious than in many other series I've read or tried to read, but those did not cost seven dollars each. I get the sense the author is good enough that these books are better than average without any editing, but they could be so much better and more satisfying with even cursory editing. There are many dropped words, misused words, mistaken homonyms, words that were meant to be replaced but not edited out so you wind up with two versions of the same word or phrase, and dropped letters. For instance, in the 5th book, the main character's name Desmond is written as Desmon several times. That would have been so easy to prevent. Sometimes sentences are difficult to parse, which could have been fixed by some simple revision. The inconsistencies aren't glaring, but they are discordant. For example, in the 5th book (the one I most recently read), Desmond at one point thinks to himself he has never worn pink before, when there was an earlier, rather important scene in which he wore ombre pink garments. Another example is how it is mentioned midway through the book how an important person's ashes will be scattered in the sea during a particular religious festival, but then later they make plans to scatter his ashes at a different, somewhat random time with no mention of the festival at all. Not huge things, but a bit annoying. While I realize these examples are from the 5th book, the same general issues can be found in all the books. I still bought and read them anyway because I like them that much, I just feel it's a real pity these aren't allowed to shine to their full potential by being polished by a good editing.A lesser flaw in my opinion, but one that might bother some people more, is the pacing. The books do tend to be a little bit slow. Important things happen, and there is plenty of adventure - they're not those romances in which nothing happens but people talking in rooms all day (which I don't mind, actually), but sometimes things can drag a bit. Mostly, I think this is because of the level of detail involved and the way the author likes to include a lot of smaller moments that many would not bother to write out. There is also some repetitiveness that could have been cleared up with proper editing as well.These are unique high fantasy works that are extremely inclusive, diverse, and queer. They aren't especially dirty or explicit, though they aren't clean either. I think it's a good balance. The plots are good, the characters likeable and realistic, and the stories overall enjoyable and strangely supportive. They just need a good once over after they've been written and before they're released. I have also read and enjoyed the Unbroken Soldier series by this author.

I received a copy from the Author in exchange for a honest reviewThe story was a bit long at over 110k+ words and I felt it could be a bit shorter but despite the length, I couldn't stop reading. I was so engrossed in each page that I put everything else on hold to read the book without any interruptions.PLOT:As much as a love a good romance story, I love books with subplots almost as important as the romance and this book delivered. The story arcs were suspenseful, intriguing and perfectly inter-wined with the romance that it wasn't until I was done reading the book that I realized there were several mini stories blended into the book without it being obvious. This gave the book suspense and made it unpredictable, as well as provided some distraction from the tension between Allen and Sarrica’s relationship.CHARACTER: The book features beautifully amazing characters, each growing in their own way and learning to accept the love that was right in front of them if only they could get their act together and embrace it.I love how in the beginning Sarrica only saw Allen as Cold and beautiful even though Allen wasn’t cold, he was just used to hiding his emotions. It was fun watching him lose composure a few times and I squealed with joy whenever someone managed to make him laugh or blush. Despite the perfection that Allen put as a front, in the inside he was loaded with insecurities and scars.Sarrica hung on to Nyle despite his death; their marriage wasn't perfect even though Sarrica made it seem so, in fact, it was heading for doom had Nyle not died yet Sarrica refused to acknowledge it.Before I continue I’ll like to add that I love Lesto and he’s so badass and like a grumpy cat! I can't wait to read the next book in the series to watch is fumbling attempts at love. I’m almost sure he’ll screw up somehow.Back to the main couples, Sarrica and Allen relationship was complicated even though it could have been simple, Allen kept trying to prove himself and Sarrica, God bless his soul is terrible with words. I knew he didn't mean to come across as hostile to Allen but God, was he even trying?The characters were amazingly crafted and each brought their own internal and external conflicts to the table, creating more subplots that never distracted the stories but rather made the story richer as well as made us understand and love the characters even more.The prose was beautiful, simple and fluid despite the non-contemporary settings and speech patterns. Thumbs up to Megan Derr.One more thing… Tara and Rene are adorable together and nothing can convince me otherwise!

Wow. This was a great read. I love our golden tongue and our rough high king! This had a lot of my favorite things, kingdoms, wars, consorts, soldier. The ending was worth the wait. Be aware this is the definition of slow burn!!!!Gosh, I’m gushing. Well written, the characters have depth, everything is fantastic. Lovely.