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The Goblin Emperor - Katherine Addison

3 1/2 stars (rounded up to 4 on my shelf)

The Goblin Emperor is about Maia, the fourth son of an emperor. The emperor hated his fourth wife and sent her and their son away to an isolated part of the kingdom. The boy grew up with only his mother (until she died when he was eight) and his abusive cousin, who became Maia's guardian after his mother died. The boys mother was a different race than his father (his mother was a goblin and his father an elf) and their marriage was strictly political. Maia only saw his father once, at his mother's funeral. One day disaster struck - the airship the royal family had been traveling crashed killing the emperor and his three older sons. Maia was the only surviving male of the family and all of a sudden, the shunned halfling was emperor. This book is about Maia's attempt to adjust to life in the heart of the empire trying to rule. I liked this book a lot. The book does not have an exciting plot, very little happens beyond the story of how Maia adjusts to this new position. There is a lot of political intrigue in the novel and a lot of characters with hard to pronounce names to keep track of (I had to keep referring to X-ray on my kindle and the list of characters in the back of the book). The book is not for everyone, but if you love detailed and intricate world building and main characters that might have some flaws, but overall are good and kind, give this a try.

Thank goodness for X-Ray. The book I'm reading now has SO many different people in it with jobs with different government agencies. The book even has a guide to who everyone is, but seriously, X-Ray helps me so much.

Sounds like this one was worth the work you put into it though!