ARC Review: The Sun King's Dawn, by Briar Niran

 

Burdened with an inability to desire others, King Richard of Ardenia still finds peace in his unruly siblings, his loyal circle, and even in his young knight, Sir Kaelen, whose yearning stares he has spent years ignoring. But when Richard rides to a borderland village to investigate eerie happenings, all peace shatters. The veil containing Gloamvarn, a neighbouring realm filled with fell beasts and unimaginable horrors, is cracking. Sooner or later, it will fall.
As Richard hunts for a way to safeguard his kingdom, Kaelen stays close, a constant, protective presence that stirs a strange tenderness Richard doesn’t dare name. For the monsters have a new ruler. And the tyrant hungers not only for Ardenia. But its king, too.

Thank you to the author for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Briar Niran's The Sun King's Dawn is a gorgeous achillean romantasy with the slowest of burns, first volume of a quartet, featuring an asexual king and his loyal knight. Told exclusively from the point of view of the king, the novel is a deft exploration of sex-repulsed asexuality and of how alienating it feels to live in a world where everyone expresses their love through carnality. At the same time, it's a novel about finding out one's own way to express love.

King Richard is a beautiful protagonist, complex in his grief and in his belief to be defective. He fiercely loves his siblings, and puts their well-being over his own more than a few times. His loyal knight shines bright with fealty and honor and with the kind of all-encompassing love that the bards sing about, but to the king it's anathema, and source of endless embarrassment and disgust, despite holding deep affection and trust for the knight. This creates a very interesting dynamic that promises to become much more intricate as the series goes on, without the need to somehow "fix" the King.

The worldbuilding and writing might be deemed simple, but they hold up very well, creating the perfect backdrop for the story. This is a secondary world with many creatures from our legends and a basic magical system, but the way it all blends is quite nicely done; the kingdom of the vampire-like creatures especially comes to mind, and there's some really horrifying moments linked to the overall threat of the book, a coming corruption of the flesh. In that regard, threat of sexual violence is also present, but handled expertly in a sensitive manner.

The main villain is perfectly villainous and quite disgusting in his pursuit, while his motivations may at first feel at least partly justified. We feel Richard's despair and horror as the book goes on and the villain's leery overtures become more and more explicit and terrifying. The rest of the cast holds up very well; Richard's three siblings are all well developed, and especially his kid sister is a delight.

The Sun King's Dawn is a perfect first installment.

✨ 5 stars