Falling Kingdoms (Falling Kingdoms #1)

Falling Kingdoms (Falling Kingdoms #1)

Morgan Rhodes

It’s the eve of war… Choose your side.
Princess: Raised in pampered luxury, Cleo must embark on a rough and treacherous journey into enemy territory in search of magic long thought extinct.
Rebel: Jonas, enraged at injustice, lashes out against the forces of oppression that have kept his country cruelly impoverished. To his shock, he finds himself the leader of a people’s revolution centuries in the making.
Sorceress: Lucia, adopted at birth into a royal family, discovers the truth about her past- and the supernatural legacy she is destined to wield.
Heir: Bred for aggression and trained to conquer, firstborn son Magnus begins to realize that the heart can be more lethal than the sword…
Excerpt taken from book.

Language

Bas****- 7

D***- 3

A**- 1

B****- 3

A**- 4

Alcohol, Drugs, Smoking

A man is drunk.  This happens frequently. He takes a trip to find to find the perfect wine.  This wine is supposed to not have ill side-effects such as a hangover.

Wine is a common drink and one young woman decides to not drink anymore because she thinks she’s had enough recently.  However, she is offered a sample and accepts.

Some wine tastes terrible but people drink it for the intoxicating effects, not the taste.  

A man smokes a cigarillo. Before even noon he is slurring and drunk.  

A young woman wishes for wine during a difficult conversation.  

Wine is served at a banquet.  

A group of people meet at a tavern for a drink.  

A chief is smoking a pipe that has an herb that causes hallucinations.  

Wine is served at a celebration.

Intimacy, Sex, Immodesty

As an insult, a man says another man’s sister must be with child if she is getting married.  He states that it is known that, certain “girls don’t wait for marriage before they spread their legs to anyone with enough coin to pay.”  Then he propositions the sister.

A young man feels ashamed for the romantic feelings he has for who he believes is his sister.  

A young prince has a mistress.  A king does also.

While very drunk, a young woman loses her virginity.

A man is rumored to have a bastard son.  

A man and his mistress meet in a closet and kiss passionately.  He has to leave and requests her to come to his room later. Sex is implied.  

While drunk, a young woman loses her virginity.  Virginity is a “gift” to each woman’s husband.

Several topless women dance for a chief.  This happens a few times.

A woman has a forbidden romance and becomes pregnant.  

At a tavern, a woman slides her hand across a man’s chest and down his abdomen.  He stops her from going further. She suggests going somewhere more private.

A much older woman offers herself to a young man to be his lover.  She claims she would be better than any others because of her experience.  She kisses him.

A man kisses a young woman.  She wraps her arms around him and pulls him closer.  She kisses him again, softly, then harder.

A young man kisses a young woman passionately but she puts her hands on his chest and pushes him away, falling backwards as she does so.  

A man “spends time” in a woman’s bed to gain favor with her father and his status.

Violence, Weapons, Crime, Blood

A young woman has magic that is strengthened by the blood she has spilled.  One young woman led the man outside while another stabbed him in the heart.

A guard has a young woman by the throat, he is thrown back against the wall hard enough to crush his bones.  A woman sees two young women in her house and threatens them with her dagger. She is killed with magic that strangles her as the two women take her infant and flee.  One woman stabs the other in the chest as she takes the baby.

A man wears a dagger on his belt.  

A man attacks another man who has insulted his sister.  The other man holds a dagger and thrusts it in the man’s throat. He fumbles, falls to the ground and blood forms a large puddle around his head.  A man tries to pull the blade from him, people around him are stricken with grief. The man is pulsing blood, gurgling and convulsing before he dies.  The man’s brother vows to kill, with the same blade, the two that were there.

A man is hit in the gut, taken to the ground and a blade is held to his throat.  

A young woman dreams of a man’s murder.  Him reaching to her, the blade, blood gushing, her drowning in the blood, then the man’s brother threatening to kill her.

After murdering a man, one man feels very powerful.

A young child is cut on his face and his father demands whoever cut him loses his life.  However it was his father who cut him after discovering him potentially stealing.

A group of people offer blood offerings to their leader.  

A king is asked to give a blood sacrifice to this leader and he slices the neck of his bastard child.  His eyes went wide and blood spurted from between his fingers.

Two young men practice sword fighting.  

A man takes his son to witness a witches execution.  The boy remembers her screams of terror as her body was lit on fire.  

A king threatens to kill a man with his bare hands if he fails again.  

A man imagines pulling a girl’s hair out piece by piece while she begs for mercy.  

A woman backhands a young man in the face twice.  

A father beats his son for back talking to him.  He leaves his face bloody.

Using magic, a young girl slaps a woman.  The woman grabs a dagger from under her skirts and holds it against a young man’s throat causing it to bleed.  She plans to slit his throat and make the younger woman help him. The young woman uses magic and throws the woman against the wall hearing a crack of her skull and holds her there. Blood gushes from her mouth and she’s making a gurgling sound.  Fire erupts from the woman’s chest and she screams as she is burned and falls to the ground.

A young man wants to reach out and strangle a young woman until the life leaves her eyes.  He later wishes he would’ve killed her.

A young man punches another young man in the nose, breaking his nose, making it gush blood.  He then holds a dagger to the young man’s throat. A young woman threatens to kill him if he kills her friend. He takes her captive and while she tries to escape, she falls and hits her head on a rock blacking out.  When she wakes she finds a dagger and holds it to his throat. He is able to wrestle it from her then pin her on the ground with his body while holding a hand around her throat. He takes her and ties her hands up and attaches a chain to her ankle.  He threatens her by holding her throat again but walks away. He keeps her chained up in a shed with food and water once a day. A man knocks out the guards by the shed. A woman comes from behind and tries to stab one man.

Two kings each threaten to torture the other’s daughter.  

Two men fight with swords, blood streaks down one sleeve, one man thrusts his sword in the other’s chest.  He fell with a grunt. The man fights another man and finishes him off with his sword through him also. That man chokes on his blood and falls limp.  A sword is thrust through the man’s chest from behind, he touches the blood then falls on his back, limp. A young woman runs to him and holds him, bloodying her dress.  Another man tries to grab her but she scratches him across the face and he shoves her. A rock is thrown at his head and while down the young woman grabs a sword and holds it over his chest.  Another man takes it from her and knocks the man unconscious instead of killing him. She goes to a man that has been killed and kisses him goodbye.

A father goes to hit his son in the face but the son grabs his wrist and threatens his life.  

During sword practice, a young man breaks two other’s arms.  

A young woman is tied with her hands above her and her face is bloody. A man backhands her face.  He threatens to slice off her ears and put them on a necklace. He grabs a dagger and threatens to pluck her eyes out.  He orders twenty lashes on her back.

Boys as young as twelve years old are marching off to war.  A king instructs many men to spare no one and to show him a river of blood.  Then instructs them to attack. They are head-on with the opposing people. Swords crashing, screams, hacked-off limbs.  A soldier goes to stab a man in the heart but he is taken down by another then sliced in the throat and throat wrenched to the side as his throat sprays blood.  An enemy man with one arm barely hanging on charges another man. The man swings an ax and sprays himself with the man’s blood. He then finds a pair of curved swords and loses count with how many he kills.  He thrusts his sword into a man’s abdomen and watches as light leaves his eyes. A young boy is nearby, his legs are crushed by a horse but he has a deep blood wound in his stomach where his intestines are spilling out.  Arrows are piercing flesh next to them. The boy starts coughing up blood and dies. A soldier comes from behind and uses his spiked arm armor to kill him. His face and hair are matted with blood, and his throat is partially slashed.  A man screams as an arrow gets his leg. A knife is imbedded in a man’s side but he rolls away and grabs a sword, slashing off a man’s head. The river is running with so much blood that it looks red.

A king sends a woman’s head to another king.  

An explosion tears through a castle.  

A man has an injury all the way to his arm bone.  His abdomen is also slashed. The medic says is close to death.  The man’s father nics the medics throat in response.

When a young woman heals a man’s injuries he screams in agony, arches his back and said it felt like lava in his bones.  

A young woman causes a large door to explode.  People are screaming from the fire, they’ve been hit with shards that pierce their skin, limbs are scattered and blood is abundant.  

A man grabs a young woman’s hair, he has a sword that is dripping blood.  Another man comes from behind and stabs him and another man. This man has cuts on his face and a wound on his side that is bleeding a lot.  He slowly slides to the floor and dies.

A man is found on the battlefield in pieces and bloody.

A man slices another man’s throat.  He grabs it with blood spurting through his fingers.  He falls to the ground and is on his back with blood spilling onto the floor.  His body was hung up for all to see. Men continue fighting after this turn of events and throats are slashed or heads are completely cut off and put on spikes.  

A young woman holds a dagger to a young man’s side.  She is then taken captive.

Potentially Intense Themes

A man’s father was thrown from a horse and killed from a broken neck.  

A mistress has a baby and the man’s wife, who is barren, takes the baby for her own while the mother mysteriously disappears.  

Dozens of people have frozen to death or died of starvation.  

A man slipped and fell off a cliff while drunk, plunging to his death.  

A young woman threatens suicide if she has to marry her betrothed because she loves another. Her lover was “gone.”  Death is assumed. She prays to a goddess to take her as well.

A young woman is very sick with dizziness, headaches and frequent bloody noses.  She gets worse and worse and ends up dying.