Review: The Kingmaker

The Kingmaker by Kennedy Ryan
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Lennix Moon Hunter is a passionate advocate for Native American people, women and other oppressed groups. Maxim Cade is an environmental scientist who describes himself as a capitalist crusader. Their values are actually a lot more in sync than that description implies. I won’t spoil it but they meet cute in the most woke millennial way possible.

The story is surprisingly epic. It spans two decades and four continents and involves more than a little political intrigue and suspense. But it feels intimate because it’s first and foremost a really sweet love story about intelligent and caring but extremely ambitious people who really get each other but meet in genuinely challenging circumstances. The early sequences in Arizona and Amsterdam when Lennix and Maxim are first getting to know and falling for each other are especially sweet and charming. Even when the story expands, Ryan’s writing is always lyrical, passionate, and original. The way the two main characters think and speak made me want to spend time with them for as long as possible. At the end I wanted more.

One of my favorite parts:

If a kiss has a color, this one is the muted shades of the sky overhead, a ménage à trois of midnight and indigo and moonshine silver. If a kiss has a sound, this one is the concert of our breaths and sighs and moans. If a kiss has a taste, it tastes like this. Hunger flavored with yearning and spiced with desperation. With bites and growls and tender licks and soothing whimpers. Perfectly served portions of sweet and scorching.

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