The Poisoned King
I really like these books. They’re undeniably, overwhelmingly sentimental, but for me at least they pull it off so it just feels lovely, not saccharine or preachy. While the stories feel a bit younger, a bit more fairy-tale-ish, the experience of reading them definitely shares something with my experience of reading the Harry Potter series, before JKR took her castle of gold and became a cartoon villain. This series has some not-so-subtle allegories to real-life villains, and a central theme of this one is the corrupting influence of gold. I hope the author sticks with that and doesn’t turn out to be another disappointment. It would be sad, because again, I like this series a lot.