The Starkin Crown by Kate Forsyth

Title:  The Starkin Crown

Author:  Kate Forsyth

Genre:  Middle Grade/Childrens

Publisher:  Pan Macmillan  

Publication Date:  1st May 2011 

ISBN:  9780330404044

Stand alone or series: Series (But can be read separately)

Pages:  384 pages

Book Received from:  Publisher (Pan Macmillan)

First Lines:  Being a prince was no fun at all, Peregrine thought moodily, staring out through the arrow slit at the pine trees shivering in the snowy dusk.  Especially when you're the son of a king without a kingdom. 

Synopsis: 
Last, the smallest and the greatest...
Though he must be lost before he can find,
Though, before he sees, he must be blind,
If he can find and if he can see,
The true king of all he shall be.


Prince Peregrine, rightful heir to the starkin and wildkin crowns, longs for adventure. But Vernisha the Vile, who seized the starkin throne, seeks to destroy Peregrine, his family, and all the wildkin of Ziva.


With Stormlinn Castle under attack, Peregrine flees with his best friend, Jack, and Lady Grizelda – a starkin girl. Together they seek the Spear of the Storm King – the long-lost weapon which, it is prophesied, will destroy the starkin throne.


But a hunter is on their tail and someone close doesn't want them to succeed...

My Thoughts:
I was surprised when this turned up on my doorstep because when I opened the box, I didn't have just one copy of The Starkin Crown, I had SIX!!  So I sent off a couple to fellow Aussie bloggers and giving away three copies on here.


I have the Starthorn Tree (the first book) sitting in my TBR pile for a while now and meant to have read this before I'd read anything else but I was told I could read this one out of order and being from the Publishers I wanted to get it read and reviewed as soon as I could.


The beginning of The Starkin Crown is filled with a few family trees, a map and list of characters and who they were in the story.  I really enjoy stories that have these types of things in them.  I found it draws the reader in that little bit more and would be fantastic for the age group it's aimed at.  


Because I hadn't read the first two books I was thankful to have this to look back on when I needed to.  That being said, I didn't have to look back often as alot of the way through it is quite clear who is who and what they are in terms to Peregrine and Jack.


As far as characters go, I really fell in love with Peregrine!  He's a great and generous character to be reading the story from and while this is told from various viewpoints throughout the story, I was always glad to come back to his POV.  I didn't particularly enjoy reading about Grizelda though.  She was every bit the spoiled princess she's portrayed in the story and I found myself at times wishing Peregrine wasn't so nice to her.  I loved the little Omen-imp.  Such a funny little fella he was.  Molly was another I grew quite fond of too.


The Starkin Crown was an entertaining read.  It was so easy to imagine the world that Kate's set the story in and I enjoyed it all the way through!