Kings of the Wyld by Nicholas Eames Review

I’m going to get the most important part of this Tiny Review out of the way first: Kings of the Wyld is awesome, and quite possibly one of the best debut novels I’ve ever read.

With that out of the way, some details. In Nicholas Eames’ first book, a band of ex-mercenaries join together to try and rescue the daughter of one of its former members, trapped far away in a city under siege by all manner of weird monsters and creatures. Each member of the band has reasons to shrug off the idea, be that a cosy family life, an obsession with finding a magical cure to the biggest desease going or becoming an overweight king, but they reunite one by one, and so begins an epic journey to try and reach, and rescue, the girl in question.

It’s very easy to explain what makes this such a great story to read. Every character you come across, be that one of the band members or a small seemingly insignificant bit-player, has something about them which makes them worth noticing. I got embroiled in the story, and formed one of those inexplicable mental bonds with the main characters, to the point of finding myself audibly gasping near the end when Clay’s fortunes take a hit. There are twists and unexpected bumps in the band’s journey which never seem over-convoluted or unrealistic in the context of the story (which is entirely possible even in a fantasy setting like this). I even stayed awake until nearly 3am as I thundered through the final chapters, desperate to know how everything turned out. That’s not something I tend to do, certainly not to that extent, but the next-day exhaustion was totally worth it and I’m 100% hoping to have the opportunity to have those emotions again from Eames’ next novel.

This is, without a shadow of a doubt, unmissable.