Prince of Thorns Review

Prince of Thorns by Mark Lawrence was his first book and it turned out really well, but not many people have heard of it. It is book one of his Broken Empire series. You may know Lawrence for his new book Red Sister that was published last year and is a nominee for the Audie Award for Fantasy. Prince of Thorns is a fantasy novel about the main character, Jorg Ancrath. The story follows Jorg as he travels throughout the kingdom doing anything that he needs to in order to get revenge on his uncle. While the book is in the fantasy genre, it isn’t your standard different world with magical creatures. The world that it takes place in is a very dark version of what we think of as a medieval life. It is full of action and has very explicit action scenes. The whole book is very descriptive and leaves very little to the imagination. I wouldn’t recommend this to anyone that is faint of heart.One of the key features that Lawrence uses throughout the book to characterize the main character Jorg is that he has flashbacks that show what happened to him in his past and how it lead to where he is. Lawrence’s use of flashbacks was very well done and lets you see key points of Jorg’s life while leaving an air of mystery, which allows you to put the pieces together yourself. While the book isn’t very suspenseful, and is more straightforward, it still manages to suck you in. The book was very good at capturing my attention, making me forget about the world, and getting drawn into the story. Lawrence has made up countries with specific geography, given characters within the countries their own accents, included a map of the countries, and created cities and capitals. It is extremely well developed, and for good reason, as the book's main plot revolves around the war between all of the countries.All in all Prince of Thorns was a very good book that I would recommend to anyone that likes fantasy books and even people that aren’t big fans of fantasy. The book has good characters, a solid plot, and a great setting. I rate the book an 8 out of 10. So if you find yourself with some free time, make sure to check out the book.By: Robby Trubiano