Yolen never fails to impress her readership with her intricately woven tales of adventure and romance. Sword of the Rightful King is no exception, the epitome of a great fairytale with its magic, lore, fights, and conquests hidden within the pages. All one need do is open the book and let the story suck your mind and imagination into plot and counterplot, schemes both evil and benign, and an underlying sense of mystery.

The theme “never judge a book by its cover” is shown to be true again and again throughout the book. At first, the readers are hoodwinked into believing one thing about a character, only having it turned upside down in one delicious moment. Of course, in a world where magic is rife, anything is possible.

This book is well written to the point of perfection, with characters amazingly human and some so horribly evil that the reader just loves to hate them. The prose is beautiful, and the descriptions boggle the mind and trip the imagination.

I recommend Sword of the Rightful King to everyone who can hold a book, actually. If you love to read and are in need of more reading material, material that will slake your lust for reading (at least a little bit), Sword of the Rightful King is definitely for you.