Book Review: The Hidden Sun

Title: The Hidden Sun

Author: J. Lloyd Morgan

Pages: 345

Rating: E for Exceeds Expectations

Review: If I ever pick up a book that involves royalty, it always involves fantasy as well. Any sort of element from fantasy and I’ll be good. But this time the one I picked up was just royalty and politics. And oddly enough, I really enjoyed it. Getting straight to the point here, The Hidden Sun is a story that spans through a couple of years and shows what happens when the wrong person takes charge. When love becomes forbidden and a secret. What happens when your home is now the worst place to be. It’s a story that shows how challenges are met.

The reason I’m getting straight to the point is because it’s what the novel does itself. It gives us these breaks every few paragraphs skipping from one scene to another, reminding me of a television show. While at times it distracted me from the reading and made me wish that certain scenes played out longer, it kept me going, knowing that just on the next page something new and crazy was about to happen. Aside from that, the novel does span through a few years, which made me want the book to be longer. I just wanted to know the characters more, know the story and the places a bit more deeply. Keeping it short and sweet had its advantages but also disadvantages.

The characters, although, were brilliantly written out. I found them all interesting and began to love a couple of them which tore my heart as a few died. And let me warn you, J. Lloyd Morgan isn’t afraid of killing off a few characters. But the fact that they were written out so well made it all the better in the end. They brought out real emotions and care which as a reader I was happy about. His writing was also pretty good. It was easy to read and the way he played with words made it bearable.

Overall the whole book itself was epic and kept me interested enough to want to read what comes next. But I was also surprised at the fact that I fell for this story pretty hard. Not only did I enjoy it like I said above, I wanted more by the end. I wanted to know what happens next with all of the characters. I know that their stories haven’t ended and that there’s so many things that can go wrong. And even though it didn’t have any magic or dragons or wizards or whatever, it still had that magical spark to it. It was magical without the magic.