The Kingdom of Liars

February 10, 2020
Martell’s taut, clever debut tells of rebellion and regicide in a world where the use of magic comes at the cost of one’s memories. A member of the Kingman family has always served alongside the King of Hollow to keep the royals in check and inspire trust in the commoners, maintaining the uneasy peace between both factions and the rebels beyond the city walls. Then, 10 years ago, David Kingman killed the nine-year-old prince and the Kingman family fell from favor. Now David’s son, Michael, stands accused of killing the King himself. Michael recounts the events that led to his trial, going from a life as a grifter, to becoming a pawn in a political game, to reluctantly working with High Noble Charles Domet to clear his father’s name in exchange for lessons in Fabrication, magical skills that wipe the user’s memory when overused. Martell weaves a large cast into Michael’s world, some sinister—like Dark the Mercenary and the Corrupt Prince—others allies. Though the abundance of characters becomes overwhelming at times, their political maneuvers and varied motivations form a satisfying web. This smart, briskly told high fantasy entertains all the way until the unexpected end. Agent: Joshua Bilmes, JABberwocky.

March 1, 2020
Martell's debut novel is a shelf-bending adventure fantasy that chronicles the life--and looming death--of Michael Kingman, an ill-fated young man awaiting execution for the killing of a king. Set in a secondary world--particularly noteworthy for a fractured moon whose pieces frequently fall to the planet, wreaking havoc on the populace--the narrative takes place largely in Hollow, a once-thriving kingdom now beleaguered by tragedy, treason, and an impending civil war. Michael is an outcast whose father was executed for infamously killing a child prince years earlier, and he's obsessed with finding the truth behind his beloved father's death. A war hero, the king's adviser, and a man of honor, his father would never have killed a child, especially a child he vowed to protect. But with the once-venerated name of Kingman now irrevocably tarnished, Michael, a con man doing what he needs to survive, is faced with the monumental task of restoring his family's name. After an alcoholic nobleman nicknamed Domet the Deranged agrees to help Michael prove his father was framed in addition to teaching the young Kingman how to use his fledgling magical Fabrication skills, Michael slowly realizes that his father was just a pawn in a much larger game of politics and power. An obvious strength of this novel is Martell's worldbuilding prowess as well as his utilization of magic, which is subtle but powerful. But while the multiple subplots surrounding Kingman's father's death create a knotty mystery, they do sometimes slow the book's momentum. Martell generally keeps the pages turning, however, with a story full of relentless action and more than a few jaw-dropping plot twists. The structure of the narrative--a character awaiting death sharing their life story--is a bit overused in fantasy (in The Ruin of Kings by Jenn Lyons, among others), but the quality of the story more than makes up for it. An impressive fantasy debut that creates a solid foundation for (hopefully) a much larger narrative to come.

COPYRIGHT(2020) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

April 15, 2020
In the prologue to Martell's fantasy debut, Michael Kingman is found guilty of murdering the king. When they were children, he and his siblings were branded as traitors when their father was tried for the murder of the king's oldest son. Ten years later, a series of missteps sets Michael on a path that, he hopes, leads to clearing the family name. Michael and his siblings fell from being high nobility who played with the king's children to living on a poor side of town with their foster father, struggling to pay the fees to keep their mentally ill mother in an asylum. Despite her symptoms, their mother can't be a "Forgotten," as that memory-loss condition only affects magic users, so Michael searches for solutions to her medical problems in addition to his other adventures. Michael progressively finds himself in worse situations, certain the next one will provide the answers he so desperately seeks. Teenagers will appreciate how Michael and his siblings come into their own, and fantasy readers of all ages will be delighted with Martell's robust setting.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)