Stolen Crowns - L.G.Jenkins

  When I read dystopian series like the Hunger Games or Maze Runner I came to them when the series were all completed by the authors. So as I finished one book in the series I could easily start the next. However when you come upon a series that has not yet been completed it’s a different matter! 

I chanced upon the Merit-Hunter series when I joined a blog tour for the first book, Crowned Worthy. And the cliffhanger ending drove me nuts! I wanted to know what happened next. I wanted the next book. I needed to know what happened next! I needed the next book. It’s been an exercise in patience to wait for author, LG Jenkins, to produce the second book in the series, Stolen Crowns. But……. would you believe it? She’s done it again! Ended it on a cliffhanger and now I want the next book. I need the next book! 

I would say that to fully enjoy Stolen Crowns you do need to have read Crowned Worthy. For much of what happens in the first book has a bearing on what happens in the second. You need to know about SkipSleep, merit scores, being Worthy, being Glorified.  And of course many of the characters are introduced to us in the first book. And in this second story L.G. Jenkins confirms her place as an assured storyteller. The creation of this dystopian world, with its high tech, digital dominant living,  is sustained. The action is exciting and compelling. But alongside all the excitement is some moral and philosophical issues regarding action and motivation, forgiveness and atonement. We are privy to our two main characters, Ajay and Genni, growing and developing as people, questioning their actions and their feelings. 

As the story progresses in the second book you can begin to see where it might be headed. The reader, like the characters, start to question and doubt long established doctrines and beliefs. It is fascinating to see their minds, almost like buds in spring, start to open and question, agonisingly sometimes but you begin to hope that they will reach the right conclusions regarding the system they’ve been forced to live in their whole lives. 

I do so admire the sustained creation of a dystopian world. I wrote this when I was reviewing Crowned Worthy and it still stands for Stolen Crowns - 

‘It is one thing to imagine an alternate society but it’s quite another to construct a palpable and believable fiction around those imaginings. Every last detail has to be accessible, credible and stand up to reader scrutiny. L.G.Jenkins has done just that.’

The attention to detail is key to sustaining reader belief. And it’s immaculate here. You feel that if someone were to teleport you to Tulo you’d know exactly what to do! You’d know exactly where to go -  and where not to go! 

And now, sigh, I must wait for book 3.