Me gusta explorar los nuevos autores de fantasía que van publicando, porque aunque algunos pregonaran el estancamiento del género hay obras que se dedican a refutar estas afirmaciones de manera contundente. Ahí tenemos a Josiah Bancroft o Gareth Hanrahan, con otras voces y otras ideas para asombrarnos con sus mundos fantásticos. Quizá sea demasiado pronto para decirlo, pero me atrevería a afirmar que Nick Martell es otro más de esos autores a los que deberíamos seguir la pista sin dilación. Y es que si bien Kingdom of Liars fue un estupendo comienzo de saga, The Two-Faced Queen no hace si no confirmar nuestras sospechas.


Aunque de nuevo el ámbito de la novela está restringido a la ciudad de Hollow, esto es solo geográficamente, porque la ambición del autor ha ganado muchos enteros. Empezaremos a conocer otros lugares de este mundo y sobre todo, nuevos sistemas mágicos que harían pensar a cualquiera que ha escamoteado la libreta de ideas de Brandon Sanderson.

También hay que decir que los personajes siguen creciendo en la novela, tanto los antiguos como los nuevos, dotando de mucha más profundidad e interés a una historia un tanto alocada y que en algunas ocasiones nos obliga a suspender nuestra incredulidad, con momentos totalmente increíbles y algunas acciones que se resuelven casi recurriendo al deus ex machina. Pero creo que da igual, porque nos están ofreciendo emoción y divertimento a raudales, con revelaciones cada vez más epatantes y con apuestas tan altas que resulta muy difícil imaginar con qué nos sorprenderá en la siguiente entrega, porque ya os digo que en esta se ha sacado tantos trucos de la manga que haría palidecer a Juan Tamariz.

Es cierto que en ocasiones esta búsqueda de la revelación y la sorpresa hace que el entramado acabe resultando demasiado intrincado para el lector que pretenda encontrarle la lógica a toda la historia, pero también hay que decir que el autor en ningún momento se salta las reglas que se ha impuesto al principio, con soluciones muy originales a los problemas de pérdida de memoria ocasionados por el uso de la magia, como tatuajes y diarios. Me encanta cuando en una ocasión le preguntan algo a uno de estos fabricators y responde algo como que no se acuerda, pero que es lo suficientemente importante como para habérselo tatuado en un sitio accesible y encuentra la respuesta en su propio cuerpo. Pero esto es solo un ejemplo, ya que los otros tipos de magia que hacen una aparición fugaz en la novela tienen otros costes asociados también muy elevados.

A veces cansa la utilización de los apodos en lugar de los nombres propios de algunos personajes o de las referencias a su linaje en vez de aclarar a quién se refieren exactamente en vez de ir con alusiones, pero me parece que esto es una imposición más del autor para que el lector entre en el juego. Quizá no recuerdes el nombre a causa de la magia, pero puede que utilices el apodo para circunvalar este escollo.

Como ya digo, se trata de un libro muy pero que muy recomendable, que deseo que vea la luz en español, ya que creo que podría tener mucho éxito.

ARC provided by the publisher—Saga Press & Gollancz—in exchange for an honest review.

3.5/5 stars

Overall, The Two-Faced Queen a good sequel. Similar to its predecessor, the first half was a bit of a struggle for me, but the second half was great.

“To be forgotten feels more like death than death.”



The Kingdom of Liars by Nick Martell was a debut that surprised me last year. If you’ve seen the reviews or receptions towards Martell’s debut, both positive and negative, I think I can assure you that the majority of them are valid. Personally, I found Martell’s debut thoroughly engaging, but I did find that the deliberately written-to-be-infuriating main character in the first half to be difficult to tolerate. The second half of the novel, however, was incredible. Now, what do I think about this sequel? It’s more or less the same as my overall feeling on the first book, with a few differences here and there.

“Some childhood traumas were like sunburns, other like broken bones, the most extreme like scars—faded but not forgotten.”



The Two-Faced Queen is the sequel The Kingdom of Liars, it is the second book in The Legacy of the Mercenary Kings series by Nick Martell. Although the story does takes place after The Kingdom of Liars, there’s a kind of standalone nature to the narrative that I think people who haven’t read the first book could actually understand what’s going on. Similar and at the same time different to my experience of reading The Kingdom of Liars, I did find the first half of The Two-Faced Queen to be a struggle to read. But this wasn’t caused by Michael Kingman’s annoying attitude; Michael has improved and matured a bit—note the word a bit—here. From my perspective, it felt like the plot was directionless, and to be honest, quite all over the place in the first half; some scenes and events, to me, actually felt like fillers. Sometimes, we can gauge how much we enjoy reading a book by how fast we’re able to finish it; it took me four days to read through the first half of the book, and it took me only one day to read through the second half. Now you see what I mean? In a similar way to Martell’s debut, the second half of The Two-Faced Queen provided a far more engaging narrative compared to the first half, and I won’t lie, it was even quite emotional at the end.

“Yeah, well, we can’t all be the perfect Michael Kingboy can we?”
“Kingman,” I said. “My last name is Kingman.”
“Then why do you act like a child? Kingboy makes more sense.”



There are, of course, more positive things to take from this sequel. One, after the events of the first book, Michael Kingman is more tolerable now as the main character; he’s still stupid, at times, but he has certainly matured a bit. I did, however, want more of Serena, though. I honestly thought she would have more appearances or roles in this book, but the majority of the book still revolves mainly around Michael. The second positive thing is the expansion of the world-building. I honestly thought The Kingdom of Liars would’ve worked well as a satisfying one-off standalone, and as it turns out, it seems that Martell truly still has several things in store for the series. The topics of legacies and families are still the most pivotal themes of the series; I highly enjoyed reading about them, and Martell’s prose continues to be accessible and engaging.

“I think, if possible, we deserve to hear about our parents’ flaws from themselves so they can teach us to be better than they were.”



Although there’s a bit of a middle book syndrome to it, I’ll say that I had a good time reading this sequel. The last 20% of the book, in particular, was just incredible. There are revelations, there are tensions, there are emotions; Martell has satisfyingly concluded The Two-Faced Queen by setting the stage nicely for the big showdown to come in the third—and I think the final—book of the series. I’m looking forward to finding out how the story ends.

Official release date: 25th March 2021 (UK) and 23rd March 2021 (US)

You can pre-order the book from: Amazon UK | Amazon US | Book Depository (Free shipping)

The quotes in this review were taken from an ARC and are subject to change upon publication.

You can find this and the rest of my reviews at Novel Notions

This was fun! Sure, I did request the book and then discovered that it’s the second in a series and I had not read the first one. But thought, feck it, I can totally dig in and see how goes.

Imagine my achy-breaky heart bursting with joy when I saw that author had included a ‘Story So Far’ to kick off the sequel. ‘Story So Far’ is my favourite addition to sequels. Thank you authors who do this!

What can I say without spoiling this book and its predecessor?

While I felt like I was able to enjoy TTFQ without having any prior insight, I would be inclined to take a dive into the first book anyway. The author has a knack for building on momentum and I believe that the intricate world, characters and political and otherwise struggles are so vast that I hardly got the rounded be all- end all of it. In fact, TTFQ, once it started, felt like it was on a course for disaster for some of our characters with conflicts and mysteries piling up and with hardly any time to take a breath. One simply cannot stop reading because the loose ends are many and there shall be answers, dammit!

You know what? I’m going to admit this. I might as well… I am somewhat glad I failed to be aware of book 1. Without previously sampling the author’s style, the world and setting we’re in, the characters and the various elements, I feel like I personally gained a whole lot of ‘hot damn’ moments out of TTFQ. I simply didn’t know what to expect and boy, oh boy, was a figuratively slapped in the face with awe-inspiring revelations chapter by chapter.

You need to know that the characters are all of them intriguing, making you want to know more. They are entirely human and we’ll, maybe a bit more than just human *taps nose

You’ll want to know that the world and political intrigue and the, can I say, fractions that the author has created are entirely ripe and multiple and serve a purpose.

You’ll want to know that the story flows and rolls like an avalanche. Taking you to scenes and moments of stillness, grandeur, amusement, flourish, quiet comprehension.

The magic in this book, I wouldn’t probably call magic. It’s more like… Oh! I know how to explain and some of you will roll your eyes so hard at this, you’re risking an eyeball muscle strain. So… Seen Twilight movies? You know the way the vamps have powers there to either make you see things or feel things or create a protective shield? Yeah. That.

Anyway! Moving on.

The final thing I wish to mention. The thing that rounded the whole book up for me, made it beautiful, worthwhile, wholesome… The crux of it all: family. I wish I could explain how the book felt relevant in this. I’ll try. Have you ever experienced that moment when you realize that you’ve stepped over that invisible line that separated the vision you had of your close family through the eyes of a child, and now you see, maybe even without wanting to see it, admit it, that the people you always, hand on heart, thought were the fairest, most honest, never do wrong kind of people, are in fact, well, utterly full of shit and even though you still love them and would do anything for them, you will take anything they say with a pinch of salt and perhaps, sadly, respect them a little less? Well. The Two-Faced Queen made me think such thoughts.

Final- final thing you’ll want to know, is that this book, this series in fact I feel I can safely assume, has some of you’re favourite fantasy elements. Such as: assassins, serial killers, royalty, a fully formed society, revenge, redemption, lovelovelove (love is the root of all troubles, after all!), immortality, altogether faulty and far from perfect characters to battle for your favour…and … who knows what other mystical beasts

Michael is back - he's a king killer, or at least branded as one, part of Orbis company and practically enemy of Hollow number one. The sequel to the Kingdom of Liars has more Fabrications, more action, more spectucular fights and a lot more holes in memory. It's a sequel that sets up the rest of the playing pieces, expands the world and teases at what the rest of the series might bring.

In short, the Princess is back and she wants Michael's blood for 'killing the king' but she cuts Dark and Michael a deal: stop the Wayfarer Assassin and the Heartbreaker Serial Killer and she'll give Micheal a chance to prove himself innocent. Meanwhile, Domet isn't finished with his for what happened to the Shrine of Patron Victoria. The Heartbreaker Serial Killer is back to finish business with Naomi and her father and Gwen has a mysterious job. Tie that with Dark and Angelo's mysterious past, a first look at other magic from around the world and a plot that spans lifetimes, then you've only touched the surface of the Two-Faced Queen. I've just got one damned question, who broke Celona, Nick? Who did it?

One thing I loved about this book - even if it didn't totally go the way I expected - was finding out more about Dark and his ability to wield multiple magics. The way Nick expands and teases the different magics of the world outside of Hollow had me gripped once more. I love the fact that each one seems to have a very extreme price. Fabrications continues to be a blight on plot clarity, in a very intentional and good way. Where there's holes galore. The only thing that didn't quite mesh with me here was the origin of Dark's magic. I kind of thought it would be different, but this way is great as well. Just caught me off guard.

The plot here introduced some great characters and practically threw in a load of other organisations with differing motivations, set up a load of enemies and was generally a movement of pieces - the ending left me stunned. I seriously was like WHAT, NO! and I love that throughout I can see that Nick is influenced by manga and love the series more for it.

The prose is magnificent. I seriously can't fault it - Nick writes with clarity whilst painting a vividly realised scene. The places you go are quite beautiful and pick up all the right sensual notes. It is so realised, a painting that weaves and wends through your mind. I love the word choice, I'm still a huge fan of Michael's voice. It's there, a movie in your mind with or without an audiobook. The pages speak to you.

If you loved the first, don't let it end there. We need to see Michael's story to the end! Don't wait for the rest to come out, dive in now. A series you love isn't worth the wait. This is everything epic fantasy should be and promises to be a lot more

Thank you Gollancz and Orion Publishing Group for giving me an advance review copy of The Two-Faced Queen! I have been provided a review copy in exchange for an honest review.

I was pleasantly surprised when I found The Kingdom of Liars a solid fantasy debut with intriguing world-building and strong storytelling. The ending of Kingdom of Liars teased this book's titular character's growing involvement in the story, and that got me even more excited to pick up Two-Faced Queen.

The Two-Faced Queen continues Michael Kingsman's story where it last left off: alive, but now an apprentice mercenary to the mysterious Dark while still trying to restore his family name. Further complicating matters, however, Hollow is struck by an assassin and a thought long-gone serial killer on the loose. As Michael and Dark attempt to unravel the mysterious murders, Michael finds himself not only having to regain the trust of those he cares for, but also having to grapple with several shocking truths from Hollow's history. The worldbuilding undergoes a massive expansion, and the world Martell constructed continues to grow richer in its awe-inspiring span.

Michael's narration, his thoughts and feelings continue to be intertwined with his understanding and views of the world around him. He knows things, but there are also times where he stumbles in confusion and uncertainty, worrying that he would someday make a fatal mistake. Martell isn't afraid to throw both Michael (and us readers, who are learning things along with him) into uncertain, confusing, and risky situations and I have to applaud this about his storytelling. It shines more light to this aspect of Michael as a character which makes him all the more human.

Michael is a changed person compared to his persona in Kingdom of Liars, but we readers the only ones so far to know that ;) In fact, Michael not only still has to deal with the general distrust the city of Hollow has for him, but he's also crossed some potentially dangerous people in his previous self-centred exploits. Chief among them is the Princess Serena Hollow, heir to the throne and the royal with a deep, yet strained bond with Michael. With Serena's introduction as the titular Two-Faced Queen, Martell expands his cast as well as giving greater focus to his already existing ones (notably Naomi and Trey). It was refreshing to see that not just Michael, but all the other characters are also portrayed as humanly as Michael is. They stumble, they hurt, and they bleed all the same and it makes everyone involved such a compelling cast. I can definitely see this series being adapted for TV and I would gladly binge-watch the series to see any of them.
(Although I will say that I wish Serena had been featured a lot more given that this is technically her book)

Martell significantly pumps up the suspense (naturally, given the serial killer arc) in The Two-Faced Queen. There are many twists and turns in the story, and more of Dark's mysterious past revealed to be a lot more important to the overarching narrative. Furthermore, Michael's growing use of Fabrications also begin to take its toll on his memory, his narration beginning to have more widening gaps. I loved how this injected a sense of paranoia probing at the fear of losing important information that you might not be able to ever recover — adding to the growing suspense in the book. As exciting as this book was, however, it all becomes too much at some point (I think momentarily my brain shut down) and going through the book can be a slog given the onslaught of information/events/twists, which is why I wouldn't really recommend reading this book in one sitting (rather, read it in bite-able chunks).

Martell also takes the opportunity to showcase his veracity in his storytelling: his combat scenes are raw, quick, and brutal. There's not much waiting for the enemy to mess up, and there's more visceral, bloody, and painful strikes which his characters take the brunt for. Somehow this is reminiscent of Anna Stephens's approach to combat battles in her Godblind series.

The Two-Faced Queen concludes its whirlwind of a story with more conflicts to come, more mistakes (and dread for their consequences), and a promise for an exciting adventure as Martell prepares to expand his story beyond Hollow's walls. It is definitely a much wilder ride compared to its predecessor, and Martell's dropped one too many explosive revelations for me to be able to tell the direction this series is going.

All in all, though, Martell's The Two-Faced Queen is a strong follow up expanding on his storytelling strengths: compelling characters and narratives; and strong, evocative world-building that only continues to grow richer as it expands its scope.