Daughter of the Salt King – ARC review!

Title: Daughter of the Salt King.

Author: AS Thornton.

Format: E-ARC (Thanks to Netgalley, all opinions are my own!)

Publisher: CamCat Books.

Page count: 349.

Release day: February 2^nd 2021.

Genre: Adult, Fantasy.

Rating: 4 stars.

What is it about? (Summary from GoodReads)

As a daughter of the Salt King, Emel ought to be among the most powerful women in the desert. Instead, she and her sisters have less freedom than even her father’s slaves … for the Salt King uses his own daughters to seduce visiting noblemen into becoming powerful allies by marriage.

Escape from her father’s court seems impossible, and Emel dreams of a life where she can choose her fate. When members of a secret rebellion attack, Emel stumbles upon an alluring escape route: her father’s best-kept secret—a wish-granting jinni, Saalim.

But in the land of the Salt King, wishes are never what they seem. Saalim’s magic is volatile. Emel could lose everything with a wish for her freedom as the rebellion intensifies around her. She soon finds herself playing a dangerous game that pits dreams against responsibility and love against the promise of freedom. As she finds herself drawn to the jinni for more than his magic, captivated by both him and the world he shows her outside her desert village, she has to decide if freedom is worth the loss of her family, her home and Saalim, the only man she’s ever loved. 

Rating:
Characters: 8/10
Atmosphere: 8/10
Writing: 8/10
Plot: 7/10
Intrigue: 8/10
Logic: 7/10
Enjoyment: 8/10
Average: 7.71

My thoughts:

I really did not remember what this book was going to be about when I started it. This happens way to often when I request ARCs, they sound good, I request, get approved, and when I finally pick it up I do not know remember what it was going to be! But I was very pleasantly surprised.

In this book we follow Emel who is one of the many daughters of the Salt king. The salt king wants to marry off as many of his daughters as possible to important people to improve his relations to these people.

So far it is not working for Emel, and she is still stuck in her fathers palace. Until when day she finds her father’s Jinni. And that is really were the story starts!

I really enjoyed Emel’s character! She was really trying to find her way out, but she also really cared about (some of ) her sisters, and some friends she made. So she had to fins a way out and take them with her. I also really enjoyed some of the minor characters, like Tabi (?) not sure anymore how to write her name, but she is one of the sisters.

The first half of this books took so many turns that I did not expect, which meant this book took a very different direction from what I thought after starting this! I do think the second half of this book was a bit slower than the first, since it did focus more on the romance. I think if it was a little less focussed on the romance and more on the action from the first half, I would have enjoyed it even more!

The plot was very interesting, I kept wanting to continue to see where the story was going!

I really enjoyed the writing, and I would definitely pick up something else written by AS Thornton!

Happy reading!