I no longer want to read this book so I won't be rating or reviewing it, thanks for granting me approval nonetheless and I hope to read it eventually.

I keep wondering why this book didn't work for me. It has all the right reps, a premise that is thrilling and promising and dark. I just stopped reading this book one fine day and that's that. I never heard the book call me back again to pick it up. I wouldn't know how to rate this book.
The characters and the narration are probably what messed this up for me. There are too many characters and sometimes they feel forced upon on us. This book felt like an uphill walk. With multiple characters, multiple stories and a plot that made it all very difficult, this story failed to shine bright for me.

I received this book from the publisher via Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.


I honestly see why some people utterly love this book.  And I wanted to, I just... didn't, quite.  It's a little slow, I couldn't quite get into the world building, and I didn't really connect to the characters.


That said, I did like Arrah's relationship with her parents and Grandmother, and how they were explored. And I loved *parts* of the world building - the magic choosing some and not all, the tribes, the difference between cultures.  That was all lovely.


I really didn't care about the gods, though, which was a shame as it was so central to the magic system.  The magic system itself is pretty cool, and the witchdoctor element felt really well thought out and well done.


Arrah is a good main character, even if she breaks pretty much every promise she makes! She is trying to help and do well, and later on fix the damage she feels responsible for (even if I don't know that she should!) and it's hard not to empathise with that.  Her decisions need serious review, but her heart is in the right place.


It is a good book, and I do recommend it - especially if you are ownvoices, as I am obviously not. It just wasn't quite what I wanted it to be :)

I've been reading a lot of fantastic diverse fantasy this year, and I was hoping that <i>Kingdom of Souls</i> would follow in that same vein. The promise of a mythology inspired by African culture, the concept of witchdoctors, and particularly the idea of a young adult protagonist willingly giving up her years and youth for magic all seemed amazing. The kind of dark YA novel I'm always on the hunt for. Unfortunately, it didn't live up to my expectations in almost any way, and all the hype I've seen surrounding this book has been so confusing.

The main character's, Arrah, initial feelings and emotions set her up to be a relatable narrator. We can all relate to feeling like a disappointment in some way, and I imagine a lot of us relate this particular emotion to parental expectations. Arrah wants magic to feel connected to her world, as she can see the magic but not interact with it, and to her mother, for which magic is her entire life. I don't feel like this is particularly unusual or original, but it is a YA novel, which does tend to focus around coming of age ideas, so I didn't hold it against the novel until Arrah started making a lot of nonsensical choices.

Arrah makes bizarre choices and has confusing emotional reactions to things. I feel like everything is either an over- or under-reaction with her. It's difficult to explain without spoiling parts of the book, but choices that would elicit a lot of emotional struggle from literally any normal person are just brushed aside, and on the other hand, moral issues with clear-cut resolutions are agonized over. It was honestly really confusing to get a grip on Arrah's personality because she is so cutthroat one moment and so blasé about people's lives the next. Some of her choices don't really make sense. The initial problem, spoken about in the synopsis so I don't think it's a spoiler, to give up years of her life to find missing children, barely has anything to do with her. She is emotionally invested, but at that point in the novel, everyone else is as well and the problem is on its way to being solved. I saw the cover to one of the ARCs a while back, with the quote: "Grandmother said I will be a powerful witchdoctor one day. But I cannot wait that long." I was really looking forward to all this quote implied: high stakes, impending disaster, or the solution to a problem resting on Arrah, and got none of that. I would've believed more a simple motivation, such as Arrah just becoming more ostracized from her family and society or just <i>wanting</i> what was supposed to be her family birthright. Her drama surrounding the situation just seems so unnecessary.

Following up on Arrah's personality, all the other characters in this novel felt so underdeveloped. At one point in the novel, we are traveling with a group of eleven people all at once. It's very hard to juggle that many people in a scene, and the vast majority of the characters only have scraps of personalities because the author never spends on any time on them. There were <i>so many</i> characters. They too were unnecessary. We really didn't need to know Arrah's entire household, the various sidekicks of her and her lover, and a bunch of seemingly random people, all of which were essentially irrelevant to the story. I wish the author had dedicated this time to fixing or rationalizing Arrah's flip-flopping personality, or developing her love interest. He and Arrah were friends before the start of the novel, but the author seems to rely on their previous, off-page interactions for the romance, which was never developed or elaborated on in the text itself. Their relationship does get moderately more interesting towards the end of the novel, which was frustrating.

One of the things that drew me to this novel was the magic system and world, and that remains the only thing that kept me reading. I still love the dark tone of this novel, which seemed realistic for the high stakes the protagonists face without being too depressing. We didn't really get to see a lot of the repercussions of Arrah trading her years for magic, so while the idea remains interesting, I hope it's developed more. The ending suggests that the world and mythos of the world will be expanded on in the next novels, but with such a lackluster beginning, I don't think I'll be interested in reading.

Much thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me a digital copy of this book.

In the beginning this book was really confusing. The reader just got thrown into a ritual with tribes, names, countries and languages that had all very similars names. After I figured out what was what the story picked up and told a really interesting and innovative story with an incredible magic system. Most of the characters were relatable and fleshed out. But sadly somewhere in the story it lost me and i couldn't get back into it. I will still follow up with the second book and maybe it will keep my interest until the end

It's been a while since I read YA with Fantasy that I like!

What an unfortunate thing for Arrah not to have powers and sacrifice half her life.

I wasn't expecting that surprising twist and plot! A bit confused with some parts but what happened with her Grandma and the witch doctors was truly unforgettable.

I understand why Arrah was called the last witch doctor and she proved that she is worthy of the title.

I can't wait for the continuation of the story. Congratulations to Miss Rena!

Thank you Harper Voyager for selecting me to receive an ARC and NetGalley for the ARC!

Arrah's mother, father and grandmother are all powerful witchdoctors, but she has no magic. It has always made her feel inadequate and unworthy. All she has ever wanted is magic of her own, and she doesn't understand why it won't come to her. Her mother makes it quite clear that her daughter is a huge disappointment to her.

When children start to disappear from the Kingdom, Arrah is determined to find out what is happening to them. She has a vision about a green eyed serpent, and learns that the Demon King of legend is trying to return. She knows there is a way for her to use magic, but it is frowned upon and risky. But Arrah is willing to risk everything to get magic for herself and try to save her friends, and the whole kingdom, from a terrible fate.

This book is very long, and quite slow moving, and I admit that I wasn't rushing to pick it up. It took me a long time to finish it.

Having said that, there are a lot of things happening. The writing is thoughtful and descriptive, which is good because there are a lot of different aspects of this world the author has to explain as the story progresses. There are tribes, where there are witchdoctors and magic, and the bigger city which is modern and the people there don't have magic. There are also two different religious belief systems which are both integral to the story, so there is a lot going on. It works though, and everything makes sense together if you're willing to go along with it. I found it a little confusing to start off with, but once you are immersed in that world it gets easier to understand what's going on, which is always good!

This book is packed full of magic, tragedy, battles, relationships and mythology. There's even some romance. It is an entire story on it's own, but it's also clear that this is meant to be the beginning of an epic saga. I will definitely be looking out for the next book when it comes out, as I want to know what could happen next.

Actual rating: 2.5 ⭐

Well... this is unfortunate. I didn't like this book. I didn't have like too much expectations also. I was just looking for a good time with a good fantasy with amazing rep and diversity. What I got was an amazing plot, great magic system, poor execution and an agonizing death with that slow pace which made me look at the time remaining all the time.

This book had so much to offer tbh and if it would've been a little bit more fast paced, it would have been much much better. I mean, the characters were great!

Arrah is from a family of witchdoctors. The only problem is: her magic has still not manifested. As a last resort, she decides to sell her age for magic. Also, the children from her village are disappearing and she wants to find out the culprit before her friends disappear too.

I really liked Rudjek and Arrah's relationship and chemistry and it had the whole Romeo Juliet feel to it as their families were both quite powerful and well, hated each other.

Coming to the demon king and all the twists regarding it, they'll leave you shocked and the reason for raising the demon king will make you want to empathize with the villain but it is just not so simple because the characters aren't black and white and have so many depths and layers to them. But, the tragedy was, even though the villain reveal shocked me, by that time I just wasn't invested in the story anymore; I was just waiting for it to be over!

I don't like dnfing books, especially when there's a fantasy with African tones and such great diversity.

I've no clue if I'll read the second one in the series and time will only tell.

I had such high hopes going into this book and I was NOT disappointed! This was such a WILD ride and I loved every moment of it! Just when I thought I had an idea of what was happening or how a plot point would be resolved we took A TURN! I love the characters and I can't wait for book two!

This book was utterly incredible. I have so many feelings about this book and I can't quite express them all, but it’s safe to say I loved it so completely. The characters were all so well written and Arrah was a perfect protagonist. She tries so hard to do the right thing, but understands that she doesn’t have the power she craves that those around her all seem to have without effort. Yet despite this, Arrah does everything she can to defeat those who are hurting her city and world. Though she is scared and feels powerless, she is also fierce and determined and sacrifices so much to help those around her.

Arrah’s relationship with her parents and the contrast between them was so well done. Her love for her father Oshe is so strong, they are so close and care for each other so much, and this made the contrast found in Arrah’s relationship with her mother Arti even more pronounced. That relationship is filled with warring resentment towards Arti as well as the love she carries for her and the battle she has in trying to control her emotions was so powerful to read. There was a really interesting family and power dynamic in Kingdom of Souls which was different than a lot of relationships commonly seen in YA and it was really refreshing. Every interaction with her family drew me more deeply into Arrah’s world because so much of who she was came from how she had been treated by them.

All of the side characters in Kingdom of Souls were well fleshed out, extremely well written and I loved all of them. Their relationships with each other and with Arrah were meaningful and it made me really care for and about them, because I could feel the love Arrah had for them. I’m looking forward to reading more about her friendships in further books, and seeing how her will they wont they almost romance with Rudjek (which was beautifully written) will continue.
There were so many twists and turns within this book, and I never would have guessed anything that happened, despite foreshadowing and hints because they were done with such care and precision. The world and lore was so immersive and beautifully written. It was richly filled with details, to the point I could almost imagine myself inside of it. I loved the Orishas, the tribes and magic system. It was so incredibly done, and I wanted more of it. I can't wait to learn more about everything in the next book. I enjoyed that we have the viewpoints of Orishas scattered in passages throughout which furthered our knowledge of some plot points without being info-dumps.

I honestly adored this and recommend it to everyone despite the dark themes, triggers and difficult situations found in the book. However I would advise looking up CW beforehand, as this does deal with child murder, rape, and other disturbing events.

I was really excited about reading this book. It sounded amazing! Unfortunately I was a little disappointed. While the world building is incredible and I loved the magic and the culture the plot moved too slowly for me and I found myself getting bored at times as I just wanted things to happen.

I still think that this book is really great it's just one that didn't quite blow me away but I do still want to continue with the series.

Kingdom of Souls is a YA fantasy drawing from West-African mythology. Beautifully written with incredible world-building set in a dark fantasy world. The characters are fleshed out and intriguing. There is a bit of romance that only adds to the heart of the story. Rich in detail and filled with twists, Kingdom of Souls will keep readers on the edge of their seat. Highly recommended to readers looking for something new in YA dark fantasy.

I’ve tried to start this book numerous times and never made it past chapter 2. I was drawn to the synopsis and thought it was a unique plot that I haven’t ever read before. Sadly this book didn’t work for me. I might try again at a later date but for now I putting it aside and moving on.

It took me a long time to read this book, much longer than it should have considering the style of the book. The book itself was not a problem, the problem was the lack of time I had for reading. The disjointed nature of my reading meant that I struggled at times to get back into the book.

Arrah lives in a land where magic exists in abundance but despite being related to two of the most powerful witchdoctors in the land Arrah is yet to come into her own magic.

Each year she makes the trip to have her magic tested and each year she fails despite being able to feel the magic in the air all around her. Her father is nothing but loving and supportive whereas her mother makes her disappointment clear.

Arrah has always looked down on those who sell their years for magic but when children start to disappear Arrah sees it may be the only option she has. What the magic reveals will shake everything she believes in.

The author introduces a lot of characters into the mix in various guises which made the story quite difficult to keep track of at times.

I liked the Gods and Demons aspect of the book and that made it a bit more unique as did the tribal aspect.

There were a lot of things to recommend in this book, but I really don’t want to give away any of the major plot twists so suffice to say I was never bored.

It wont be for everyone and even though I loved it there were times I became bored and wanted it to finish.

Fans of Children of Blood and Bone should check this out.

Kingdom of Souls continues the recent run of great West African-inspired fantasy, with a mystery that quickly becomes something greater, driven by the whims of gods and monsters. Its central character is Arrah, a woman who, despite having family with strong magical bloodlines on both sides, has yet to come into her own magical powers - a subject of increasing frustration to her and to her mother, Arti, whose expectations for her daughter are far greater than Arrah has any hope of living up to. After another failed magical ceremony, Arrah returns to the city of Tamar, only to get caught up in a plot in which children are disappearing - what follows is a hunt for answers that quickly brings Arrah and her family into the orbit of the powerful demon king, prevented from being with his now-lost Orisha lover an age ago, and now back for revenge on both the Orisha and humanity as a whole.

Although I had fairly limited assumptions about Kingdom of Souls' plot going in, its a book that covers a lot of ground in a relatively short time, at least once the relatively slow set-up begins to pay off. It takes a while to establish all the relevant pieces in Arrah's world: her mixed tribal heritage, and the traditions of both her mother's Mulani people, and the Aatiri tribe of her father and grandmother; the ceremonies of the tribal lands and Arrah's frustrated participation in them; the different reactions she receives among the Mulani and Aatiri compared to the more diverse and ostensibly less magical circle of friends in Tamar, and her relationship with forbidden love interest Rudjek. On top of that, there's the mixed system of belief and Gods - the Mulani worship only Heka, the God who brought magic to humans, while others worship a pantheon of twenty Orisha (not to be confused with the "canonical" Orisha of Yoruba myth - these are entirely Barron's creation), and a whole set of legends around the Demon King and his desire for human souls. Putting all of this together, setting the wheels in motion for the kidnapped children plot, and setting up the decision whereby Arrah decides to become a "charlatan" - someone without inherent magic who trades years of their life in order to cast spells - takes around a third of the book. It's an impressive amount of set-up and my suspicions that it was being done for a series rather than a book were proved correct when the ending resolved some, but far from all, the plot threads that get built up from this start.

Once the plot gets going, its done in a way that pulls the rug out from reader expectations more than once. For one thing, the inciting incident of the missing children gets an answer much sooner than expected, although its a gut punch of a reveal. From there the story twists into something quite different, which is difficult to describe without spoilers but much more than I expected on the relationship between Arrah and her mother Arti, and the trauma that her mother suffered which contributed to the choices she made for Arrah and for her entire family's future, as well as involving the demons and Orisha mentioned above. It makes for a story that offers a much broader perspective than the average first person teenage protagonist fronted story (although Kingdom of Souls is definitely in "crossover" rather than firm "YA" territory), forcing Arrah to look beyond what she wants (acceptance, to be with her love interest, not having the world destroyed by soul-sucking demons, making sure all her loved ones are OK) to the motivations and desires and difficulties of other people - be they humans or... well, soul-sucking demons. Despite that, it definitely doesn't let anyone off the hook for their terrible choices, and trust me there's some terrible choices happening here.

There were definitely elements of this that I liked more than others - despite the necessity of the set-up, the first third of the book dragged for me, and I also didn't have much time for the doomed love affair between Rudjek and Arrah, due to their parents' rivalry and other magical factors that become clear later on - perhaps because I wasn't paying enough attention during the parts of the book this was initially set up, I just didn't have a whole lot of time for their particular brand of relationship within a novel that already had plenty of nuanced, engaging, non-romantic relationship stuff going on. Rudjek also felt upstaged by Arrah's magical friend Sukar, who I felt I could have spent much more time with.

All in all, this debut kickstarts a series which has some serious potential, both in terms of worldbuilding and direction, and while this first volume has a lot of work to do in putting it all together, it pulls it off in an inventive way which mostly maintains the pace that a story of this urgency needs. Worth digging into, especially for those looking for an interesting take on magic, love and coming-of-age in a very well-realised fantasy world.

We are living in a golden age of fantasy. The genre is being dissected and reimagined everywhere you look. Mythology and legends from around the world are fuelling these reimaginings which run the gamut from Eastern Europe to China. In Kingdom of Souls by Rena Barron we are delivered a fierce fantasy novel deeply rooted in West African mythology that lives up to all my expectations of a ‘great read’.

The world building here is epic and rich, I was entranced by the rich West African mythology and the often dark world of the witch doctors. Rena Barron really draws on the folktales of her heritage painting a gloriously imagined yet grounded world. There is a lot of information to take in during the first half of the book,but stick with it as the payoff is exceptional.

Our lead character Arrah is a strong heroine, she is independent, headstrong and gets things done despite insurmountable dark odds thrown at her. And believe me the challenges she faces are often very dark and very evil. It’s actually really refreshing to have such an evil adversary with no shades of grey. But spoiler warning, some scenes are very dark.

In short, if you love a fantasy that is fresh, has epic magic, love, demons, edge of your seat world saving moments and a chilling villain then this book is for you.

A fantastic debut that leaves you wanting more ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ out of five

I really enjoyed this book. It was very different from anything I have read before; full of magic and conflicting gods. I did find the protagonist a little frustrating at times - I felt she made stupid decisions which lead to situations which could have been easily avoided. A lot of the scenes also felt like filler scenes; they did not further the plot, they were simply there for something exciting to happen.
I enjoyed the writing style and the magic system was very interesting and I look forward to learning more about it. I also enjoyed the plot twists, which were surprising but also made sense.

Overall, I really enjoyed the story although there were some plot issues, I'm looking forward to reading the second book when it comes out!

Thank you NetGalley and Harper Collins for providing me with a copy for review.

Kingdom of Souls follows Arrah, a young girl who is the descendant of two powerful and magical lines, but who thus far has not presented any sign of possessing magic herself. The older that she gets, the less likely it is that she will demonstrate her power and the more desperate she begins to feel to prove herself. There is another way that she can gain this power and help the people in her kingdom, but it is dangerous and involves selling years of her life.

This is a great story about finding yourself and the lengths that people will go to in order to protect those around them. Arrah fights to have everything that she wants and needs and life and her relationship with magic is no different. She works hard and goes to great lengths to get magic, refusing to take it for granted and fully understanding the power it holds and the price it has.

It is brilliantly written and has you hooked right from the beginning by throwing you into the action and building the world around you on the journey. It begins with a prologue that gives you some grounding, but it weaves a lot of the intricate detail of the world into the story, slowly revealing it to you as you read.

It is a great first installment of a series that I'm sure is going to go very far.

So I will keep this one short and sweet. KoS was a novel which had been thrust at me from every direction on social media and i was so very here for magic, mayhem and insane birthrights - i mean this is more or less my jam.

Alas it fell just a little short for me. Maybe it was the ridiculous hype, maybe it was my high expectations.

I had a hard time connecting with the main character Arrah as she was a headstrong character but she fell just a little flat when it really mattered.

I did however love the villains of the piece. Especially since one is a female with no remorse for the things she has done, clawing her way to her position and refusing to let anyone, even her own offspring, tear her from her pedestal.

The narrative itself was enjoyable and intriguing in parts, the magic system bringing together elements of all my favourites. The pacing of the whole was a bit up and down, interchanging between progressing at a snail's pace and with the speed of an oncoming runaway vehicle.

Overall I liked this novel but didn't absolutely love it. Would I read it again? Maybe not. Am I wishing for my time back? No.

A complex and compelling story. I enjoyed the magic system, and the orishas, and the exploration of good & evil and revenge