The Foxglove King by Hannah Whitten: review

5/5 stars on Goodreads

The Foxglove King by Hannah Whitten

The Foxglove King by Hannah Whitten starts The Nightshade Crown series (duology, trilogy, I don’t care, I’ll read it all). The world has lost its gods. Five of them have died and one has disappeared and is now worshipped as the one true god, the god of life.

The body of the goddess of death rests underneath the town of Dellaire, heavily guarded. It’s oozing Mortem, a substance of death that needs to be regularly channeled away from humans so that it won’t kill them. Only the priests of the Presque Mort, people who have briefly died, can do it. And then there’s Lore who was born with the ability.

Lore has kept it a tight secret ever since she accidentally resurrected a dead friend when she was a child, as necromancy means a death sentence. So, when she does it again in a very public way, she’s instantly caught by the Presque Mort. But instead of killing her, the head priest—king’s brother—brings her to court and makes her spy on the crown prince, Bastien.

She’s also tasked with figuring out what’s killing a village after a village of people without a trace. Helping her is Gabriel, a Presque Mort and a former childhood friend of the crown prince. But things aren’t what they seem. Lore has no idea who she can trust or who’s pulling the strings behind the scenes. And the cause for the deaths may hit closer than she could’ve imagined.

This was an excellent book. Told in the point of view of Lore, it instantly drew me into its world. Lore was a great character with conflicting interests and a healthy self-preservation instinct. She wasn’t a simpering YA heroine, and she owned her choices, even the questionable ones.

Gabe and Bastien made excellent counterparts to her. Both had troubled pasts and neither was a black and white character, even though Gabe tended to see the world that way. I’m a bit over triangle dramas and I kept hoping the author would veer the romance towards a threesome, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. Fingers crossed that’ll change later.

The world, and especially Mortem, was a bit complicated and I’m not sure even the author always knew what she meant it to do. The court drama and the king’s need to spy on his son seemed far-fetched, but there was a reason for that in the end. I was a bit frustrated at times when Lore was slow to figure out things the author all but spelled out to readers, but not so much it would’ve marred my enjoyment. The great showdown that everything built towards came and went a bit fast, but it laid ground for the next book. I’m looking forward to reading it.

I received a free copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Daughter of Redwinter by Ed McDonald: review

5/5 stars on Goodreads

Daughter of Redwinter by Ed McDonald

Daughter of Redwinter (The Redwinter Chronicles 1) is exactly the kind of fantasy I like best these days. It concentrates on one character with no unnecessary side-plots that drag the story in the hopes to make it ‘epic’. The story follows the MC as they face events that aren’t in their control, yet have to solve anyway. As they do so, they become more than they were in the beginning.

Raine is a young woman who has thrown her lot with a small band of mercenaries. As she is trying to find a way out of siege, she comes across a young woman fleeing and helps her—an epic mistake. The woman tries to awaken a terrible being and the warrior pursuing her only just manages to subdue it and only with Raine’s help.

Ulovar takes her with him to Redwinter, a fortress town of the Draoihn, warriors who protect the realm with their special abilities. Raine hopes to be trained with them too, but their Grand Master decides otherwise. Raine has to settle into an existence of not quite a servant and definitely not a warrior. But she doesn’t quite feel like she belongs, because she has a secret that will get her executed. She can see the dead.

But she can’t leave, because Ulovar is accused of treason for what took place during the siege. It’s up to Raine to prove his innocence. In the end, she has to decide if death is a small price to pay for the truth after all.

This was an excellent book. The description makes it sound like an epic fantasy, but it’s rather small in scope, part a mystery, part a build-up to something larger. The pace is fast and the chapters are short. The mystery took its time to unravel, and although I called the twist, I did it only a little before it was revealed.

The world is well-crafted with an interesting history and mythology, a pre-industrial society that doesn’t automatically follow the rules of real-world equivalent. The Draoihn with their trances and gates were an interesting invention, though not entirely unique as such.

Raine is an excellent main character. She’s lost, frightened and unable to trust anyone because of her ability. She blames herself for what happened to the mercenaries and goes through much of the book not caring about anything. She seeks to belong with desperation that leads her to make mistakes that are both predictable and natural. She relies to the strengths she had from the start and while she does pull off some epic moves in the final battle, they aren’t beyond reason or her character’s development.

Side characters were interesting, but remain a bit vague because of the first person narrative. There are a couple of potential love interests for Raine, who doesn’t limit her love to opposite gender, but nothing comes of them yet. She makes friends, some briefly and the characters all but disappear, some with great length like Ovitus, Ulovar’s nephew and heir. None of the main relationships are easily defined as black and white, friend or enemy.

While this was a start of a series, the first book reads as a stand-alone with a satisfying ending and no cliffhangers. There is, however, an opening for Raine’s story to continue. I’m looking forward to reading more.

I received a free copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

The Bone Shard Emperor by Andrea Stewart: review

4/5 stars on Goodreads

The Bone Shard Emperor by Andrea Stewart

Second books in trilogies are never easy, and they seldom live up to the expectations the first book sets. The world is familiar, the characters won’t grow to their potential until the third book, and the best battles are saved for the last too.

The Bone Shard Emperor, the second book in The Drowning Empire trilogy by Andrea Stewart, is slightly less exciting than the first, but it manages to avoid stagnation and the sense that it’s merely a pass-through to the important final book. Mostly she achieves this by short chapters that always forward the overall plot, and by deepening the world.

Lin is the emperor now, but it’s not an easy or welcome rule. It doesn’t help that she questions her right to rule too, knowing that she isn’t the emperor’s natural daughter. The constructs her father built wreak havoc on the islands, and her decision to end the tithing of bone shards doesn’t bring her the goodwill she hoped. Her father’s shoddy rule has made the governors of the islands independent and they’re not willing to provide soldiers to fight the construct army taking over the islands one by one. The islands keep sinking, and the Alanga, the ancient enemy, are back. And they’re much closer than she could’ve imagined.

Jovis has accepted a position as a commander of Lin’s guard, but he’s still a spy for the Shardless Few, which constantly forces him to choose where his loyalties lie. And he hasn’t managed to get rid of the smugglers either. When he finally decides to side with Lin, he manages to betray her trust.

Phalue and Ranami have smaller roles. They’re trying to establish Phalue’s rule as the new governor of their island, balancing between the emperor and the Shardless Few. And Sand, who now knows she’s a construct copy of the old emperor’s dead wife, is prepared to bring down Lin’s rule with her construct army.

Everything heads inevitably towards a confrontation on a battlefield, much too soon for Lin. She and Jovis have a secret weapon in their magic, but they dare not use it in public. And there’s a new wielder of the same magic on their side. But can they trust him?

This was an interesting book, with enough action and revelations to keep it feeling fresh. Some of the latter seemed to spring out of nowhere, like the existence of replicas in addition to constructs and the origins of Alanga, as if they were clearer to the author than what she’d remembered to tell the reader.

The only thing that caused me to cringe was the rather forced romance between Lin and Jovis. It was clumsy and not necessary. Jovis declaring his love after spending years obsessed with his wife seemed especially poorly done. I also tend to imagine him as much older than he is, in his forties even, and her much younger (in reality, she’s only five, no matter what her memories say), and I find the idea of them together somewhat repulsive.

The ending left Lin and Jovis in a new place again. The existence of Alanga is out and Mephi is in the hands of the enemy. It’ll be interesting to see where all this will lead.

I received a free copy from NetGalley in exchange of an honest review.

The Coward by Stephen Aryan: review

4/5 stars on Goodreads

The Coward by Stephen Aryan

I picked up The Coward by Stephen Aryan thinking it was a comedic account of a man who has faked his way into herodom and now has to face the consequences of his cowardice, when the threat he hadn’t actually dealt with returns. I don’t know why the description gave me that notion. The book turned out to be a run-of-the mill epic fantasy that starts a Quest for Heroes trilogy. I received a free copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Kell is a farmer with a heroic past. He’s the sole survivor of a quest of heroes to kill a creature that has caused the weather to turn cold. His quiet life is interrupted when the weather worsens again, and the king sends him back to the creature’s lair to see if it’s come back. He gathers a group of people, heads to north and does exactly as commanded, heroically saving the day again. The end. There are no cowards, just a few moments of weakness that only make the characters more human.

Despite the baffling name, this is a competent fantasy starter. Narrative flows well, the characters are interesting, and there’s plenty of action. There are several point of view characters in addition to Kell, like Gerret, a young boy joining the quest. He hopes to become a hero too, only to learn that it’s a perilous job. Other members of their small group get an occasional chance to narrate the story too.

The most important side character is the Head Priestess of the Shepherd, the zealot leader of the dominant religion. She’s an old woman fighting to spread the faith at any cost and to prevent age from getting the better of her. She was a creepy character, but her chapters suffered from a lack of a coherent arc. They mostly set the plot for future books, but in the context of this one, they remained a bit pointless. A holy war isn’t original enough an idea to keep my interest either.

While this was a good book, it was much too long. It’s as if authors think that fantasy needs to be epic in length, whereas it should be epic in content. This wasn’t. A large portion of the book was spent on a journey, with the group fighting a monstrous creature after another. Obstacles make a good story, but the scenes were repeating themselves after a while, turning the heroes into mindless butchers. The characters were prone to introspection too, and while it gave them depth, none of it led anywhere, which added to the sense of needless length.

The book ended with a series of out of the blue revelations that hadn’t even been hinted at. I couldn’t help thinking that instead of wasting pages in pointless butchering, the author should’ve used the space in foreshadowing them better. The ending promises interesting times for Kell in subsequent books, but I think the book works as a stand-alone just fine.

The Two-Faced Queen by Nick Martell: review

3/5 stars on Goodreads

The Two-Faced Queen by Nick Martell

The Two-Faced Queen is the second book in Nick Martell’s The Mercenary Kings series, which started with The Kingdom of Liars. It’s epic fantasy set in a world where using magic results in a memory loss and a broken moon drops pieces down to the earth. I received a free copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I had a lot of issues with the first book—the plot was all over the place and there were too many unnecessary characters, among other things—but I decided to give the sequel a try. Unfortunately, the issues continued.

There were, if possible, even more going on than in the first book. The rebels, the king’s death and Michael trying to prove his innocence, the princess and the succession to throne, Michael trying to restore the Kingman legacy, avenging his father and taking revenge on his step-father were joined with refugees from a far-away country, Michael training to be a mercenary, a serial killer, and an assassin, to name only a few. And all of it was Michael’s responsibility.

Needless to say, with everything going on, the focus wasn’t properly at anything. Like in the first book, Michael was running all over town, doing this and that, and mostly failing. None of the plotlines flowed organically, let alone so that the reader could follow or anticipate what would happen. There were no logical plot points or climaxes. Continuity and logic issues that I hope only occur in the advance copy I read—characters showing up in scenes they’re not supposed to be or knowing things they’re not supposed to know—didn’t help matters either. There were no moments of peace to give Michael—and the reader—time to reflect what was going on and why. Mostly, I suspect, because the author had no idea either.

The entire first half felt like a collection of filler scenes to make the book long enough for some imaginary epic fantasy word count. For example, Michael made a lot of noise about the necessity of helping the refugees as part of his Kingman legacy, but a chapter later they were completely forgotten and never brought up again except as props.

There were too many characters too like in the first book—mostly the same characters, with nothing to do. Problem for this reader was that they weren’t really re-introduced or connected to the events of the previous book. The author assumed that the reader would remember them all, but personally I had no clue. I spent the first half of the book wondering who all these people were and why they mattered.

It didn’t make things easier that some of them were seen in new light. Michael got his memory back at the end of the previous book and the nameless people of the first book were now his old friends. Unfortunately they weren’t connected with the memories the reader had of them. Who was Joey and why he needed heart surgery? Who was Dawn in the previous book?

It didn’t help that the author can’t really create distinct secondary characters. I could’ve sworn that Michael’s sister Gwen was a soldier or in law enforcement in some capacity, yet she turned out to be a blacksmith who liked to dress as a boy. I had no recollection of that.

The only positive change was Michael himself. Now that he could remember who he was, he was less obnoxious and obsessed with revenge. Like he said himself, the curse had prevented him from growing up. Not that there was much character growth here, but at least he tried to be a better person.

The second half of the book was better and more coherent, with a few truly emotional scenes at the end. All the unnecessary distractions were eliminated and the plot concentrated on finding the serial killer. Their identity was a twist that would’ve been more impactful with better foreshadowing from book one. Now it was merely one of the WTF moments the book was full of.

In my review of the first book I noted that it could’ve used a stern editor that would’ve cut the unnecessary plotlines. The second book would’ve benefited from multiple point of view characters. They could’ve been given some of the plots that poor Michael tried to handle by himself to add some depth and coherence to them. The author clearly has a lot he wants to tell, but the chosen method doesn’t do it justice. The one additional POV there was didn’t move the plot forward at all and so was fairly useless.

I think the books’ problems stem from worldbuilding. Martell has clearly spent years creating a complex and intriguing world containing everything possible, and wants to cram it all in, whether it serves the overall plot or not (like what’s with the moon). Many scenes existed solely to introduce the world, making the plot incoherent. The plotline about the immortals will—likely—be the guiding line from here on. In hindsight, it probably was that in the previous book too. It merely got swamped under all the unnecessary distractions.

The book ended at a new place for Michael. The issues with his step-father aren’t solved and new issues have emerged. There’s so much to come that this likely won’t be a classical trilogy but a longer series. I’m not entirely sure, however, that I’ll continue farther than this with Michael.

Hall of Smoke by H.M. Long: review

5/5 stars on Goodreads

Hall of Smoke by H.M. Long

Hall of Smoke is the debut novel of H.M. Long, and what a great debut it is. It’s stand-alone fantasy that starts deceptively small and grows into epic proportions. I received a free review copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

The book is set in a pre-industrial, almost tribal world that doesn’t instantly or obviously refer to ours, though the largest warrior culture reminded me of Rome and the smaller ones of both North American native cultures and Asian cultures. It’s a good mixture where nothing is so directly borrowed that it would jar and everything blends together to form something unique and new. The mythologies and habits are rich and they are brought up organically as the story flows. Countries and cultures have formed around different gods and though languages and habits remain fairly similar, the gods’ dislike of one another has transferred to humans too. Wars and raids are regular.

The main character is Hessa, a warrior priestess of Eang, the goddess of war. The country and people are called Eang too and the priests Eangi, which was confusing at times. She’s the only point of view character and the narrative is in deep first person, which works very well. She’s young (nineteen, maybe), but thanks to the constant wars, an experienced warrior. The priests and priestesses of Eang aren’t chosen; they are born with a special gift from the goddess, a fire that both makes them superior soldiers and heals them too. Other gods haven’t gifted their followers with anything similar.

The story begins at a low point in Hessa’s life. She has failed to perform a task from her goddess to kill a visitor to her town, and as a consequence has been stripped from her position as a priestess. While she’s in a remote shrine to pray for forgiveness from Eang who refuses to answer to her, her entire town is butchered by followers of a different god—an unprecedented occurrence. She’s the only priestess of Eang left in the whole country and she’s in disfavour. But her goddess finally appears and promises her that all will be forgiven if she finishes the task given to her. From that point on, throughout the book, she’s carried by one goal: finding the man she was meant to kill so that she can have a place in the hall of death with her loved-ones.

But things aren’t easy or straightforward when one is alone and facing several enemies. While she tries to locate her prey, Hessa learns that the entire world is in upheaval, and not just among humans, among the gods too. As her goddess increasingly fails to come to her aid, she starts to question her devotion and the task given to her. Little by little, as her faith unravels, the stakes become higher, until Hessa finds herself as a pivotal player in gods’ war against each other.

This was a very satisfying story. The plot flows organically from one event to another, with Hessa learning and growing along it. The pacing isn’t fast, but the chapters are fairly short and there is constantly something going on that makes you want to keep reading. Because of the first person POV, the side characters remain slightly vague, and none of them become more important to Hessa than her task, but I liked most of them. And I especially liked Hessa. She’s resilient and determined, and capable of adjusting her worldview when the old one becomes untenable. And in a true manner of epic fantasy, the person who has lost all becomes the most important person in the world. Since this is a stand-alone, the ending is satisfying and doesn’t leave you with a need to read more.

The book is well-written and the language is beautiful. However, there was a glaring, recurring grammar mistake that became so irritating that I have to mention it, just in case there’s time to fix it before the final version is published: the first person singular objective case pronoun is me, not I. It was so seldom in correct form that the mistake had to be deliberate. Other than that, the book was a joy to read.

 

The Princess Knight by G. A. Aiken: review

4/5 stars on Goodreads

The Princess Knight by G.A. Aiken

The Princess Knight, the second book in Aiken’s The Scarred Earth series, focuses on Gemma, the war monk sister of Queen Keeley. She’s not quite as overwhelmingly larger than life as her eldest sister, but she makes a compelling lead character too.

Two years has gone since the first book. The war hasn’t begun yet, and Keeley has had time to settle down in the town she’s claimed as hers. Then someone starts to destroy all the various religious sects and kill the worshippers of the myriad gods. The war monks could be next, so Keeley sends Gemma to warn them. She hasn’t been back with her people since she left two years earlier, and she’s considered a traitor of the order. She might face death when she returns, but she goes anyway.

This is in many ways a smaller book than the first. The plot isn’t quite as epic in scope, concentrating more on Gemma and her dealing with her past. The cast of characters is smaller, though random point of view characters still pop up at odd times for a couple of paragraphs. There aren’t as many huge fights between the sisters. The plot about the worshippers of one god never rises to become the threat it’s supposed to be. Beatrix, the evil queen, is mostly in the background. Even the love story, the inevitable consequence of mixing genres like epic fantasy and paranormal romance, sort of happens in the side-lines, despite Gemma and Quinn spending most of their time together, and Quinn remains a bit of a cardboard character. Worst of all, there isn’t enough Keeley. Her larger than life character carried the first book. Here she is mostly observed from the outside, with only a couple of point of view chapters towards the end. I missed her greatly.

This being said, Gemma was strong enough a character to carry the book by herself. The plot was entertaining, there was constant action in one form or another, and the group of people she ended up gathering around her were interesting and different from the people around Keeley, so there was no repetition. In the end, she rises as a more determined and less angry person who is ready to lead her people. And the twist at the end ensures that I’m more than eager to read the next book too.

I received a free copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

 

The Blacksmith Queen by G. A. Aiken: review

4/5 stars on Goodreads

The Blacksmith Queen by G.A. Aiken

The Blacksmith Queen, The Scarred Earth Saga 1, is one of those books that I noticed when it came out and then discarded, as I had other books to read at the time. It seemed to ride on the wave of popular fantasy books that have come out in recent years where a strong underdog queen has to fight to capture and/or keep her realm, complete with a cover that has a crown on it. Turned out, it wasn’t quite that book.

The book is by G. A. Aiken, who has mostly written steamy paranormal romances with dragons in them (and other paranormal romances as Shelly Laurenston). But turned out, this wasn’t quite that either—though a dragon does make an appearance. It’s a combination of the two, with an epic fantasy plot and paranormal fantasy pacing. The romance is slow burn on the background and never the main goal, although the second book does concentrate on a different pairing. It’s a book about women, three sisters, with men taking the side roles.

It’s a story of a larger than life family, literally, who through machinations of one of their own find itself in the centre of a battle for succession, despite being peasants and blacksmiths. Keeley is a master blacksmith, a huge woman with great strength and skill—and heart. She believes good of everyone and doesn’t believe in absolute evil. When her sister Beatrix is declared a queen by witches, she sets out to protect her, only to be declared a queen too, much against her will. But Beatrix won’t take her sister’s competition lying down, so the family is torn in two, with Beatrix on one side and the rest siding with Keeley.

While the scope of the story is epic, building towards a huge war in some future book, the execution is that of a paranormal fantasy. The chapters are short and the scenes are always on the point with no time wasted on the road. I’ve recently lost my appetite for fantasy that takes a third of a book to just set the characters in their normal before plunging them into something new, so this kind of fast narrative where every chapter advances the plot works for me perfectly.

There are several point of view characters, some of whom only exist to offer an insight to an event, but the core characters emerge as interesting individuals. The main couple is Keeley and Caid, a centaur warrior who is more than a match to the huge blacksmith who finds herself building an army to take out the old regime. Gemma, Keeley’s sister who is a war monk and feared by everyone, will take the centre stage in the next book. What made this book a fun read was the relationship between the sisters. Keeley and Gemma were constantly fighting with loud voices, but they also had each other’s back when needed. Everyone’s a little crazy, but their hearts are in the right place. And like in all good epic fantasy, the evil queen is evil and needs taking down. I can’t wait to read the next book to see where this all leads.

 

The Dragon Republic by R.F. Kuang: review

4/5 stars on Goodreads

The Dragon Republic by R. F. Kuang

 

The Dragon Republic is the second book in Kuang’s The Poppy War trilogy. The first book ended with such a bang that it was difficult to see how the second could possibly continue from there, and in part, it didn’t quite pick up with the intensity of the first.

The war against the Federation is over, thanks to Rin. Without it, she and her group of shamans are adrift. Her opium addiction doesn’t help, but she is haunted by her actions in the war and can’t function without it. Things pick up when the Dragon Warlord gives them a purpose: kill the Empress and join his quest to replace the empire with a republic. But the Empress is a powerful shaman, so the assassination doesn’t go as planned and Rin ends up having her abilities bound.

The first half of the book is an endless military campaign where Rin is once again a regular soldier, and despite the constant action, it gets rather boring. It isn’t until at the latter half of the book that the story becomes more interesting, and the pace improves. Rin gets access to her powers, but only with the help of her oldest friend from the military academy, to whom she is now bound. Together they win the war against the Empress, only to find out that it wasn’t the war they should have been fighting.

For this second book, Kuang broadens the world the people inhabit (ancient China) by adding a western force that is very obviously Christian Europe. They come with airships and firearms, and with promises of military aid if the primitive people of the East show they are capable of progress. They preach the word of one true god and are intend on purging the heresy of shamanism. That means endless tests done to Rin to figure out her abilities, and if that fails, killing her and her kind. And, of course, in the end, their promises prove false: they are there to colonise, not to help. Rin discovers this too late.

Rin isn’t a very intelligent character when it comes to deciphering the motivations of people around her. She’s constantly looking for stronger persons to rely on whom she could respect and who would give their approval to her. I think it stems from her being an orphan, as she tends to latch onto father-figures. This leads her to place her trust on anyone who is willing to lead her. And time and again, she is let down by these people.

Because of her need for approval and a father-figure, Rin remains a surprisingly immature character despite all the horrors of war she has witnessed and inflicted. She doesn't really create romantic feelings for the many men around her, even if she occasionally mistakes her feelings for it. She's twenty and hasn't even been kissed, so the men don't see her romantically either. Her friendships don't really flourish. She manages to anger or alienate most of her friends in turn, though some of them do come back too. At least the constant change in friends and allies keep things interesting.

At the end of the book Rin finally comes to a conclusion that she is the strongest person there is and the only one worth relying on. Hopefully she’ll stop seeking for validation from the wrong people in the last book. Likely though, it will lead her to use her powers in more destructive manner than before. And another war is inevitable. The setting for the last book is perfect.

Book 2/65

The Poppy War by R. F. Kuang: review

4/5 stars on Goodreads

The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang

The first book I read this year is The Poppy War by R. F. Kuang, the first book in The Poppy War Trilogy. It’s a great fantasy debut set in a culture that greatly resembles ancient China, with an enemy empire across the sea on a bow shaped island that is obviously Japan.

The premise seems like a run-of-the-mill chosen-one story: an orphan is accepted to a prestigious military academy where she excels against the odds, studies arts no one else does, and discovers she has powers unlike anyone else, so that when a war breaks out, she has the ability to save the nation.

However, the Chinese culture brings a twist to the story. Rin, the heroine, works hard to be accepted to the military school (as opposed to being accepted on a whim/by command of king etc.), works hard to impress her masters, shows respect to her elders, and when her master tells her she cannot use the power of gods, she obeys. When the war breaks out, she is sent to help a besieged town, where she is miserable and frightened, and unable to use her powers because she is afraid of the consequences. Until the moment she isn’t.

During the course of the book, Rin discovers her heritage as a member of people annihilated in the previous Poppy War. Only one other person has survived and he is driven by rage and need for vengeance. She moulds herself after him, with grim consequences. At the climax of the story, she makes a choice out of rage. Unlike in western fantasy, where the hero saves the day in a morally sustainable fashion, Rin chooses differently. When she tries to reason with herself to ease her guilt, she comes to a conclusion that there are no chosen ones; only the choices we make ourselves. The book ends at the point where she has to come to terms with her actions.

Rin is a complex character who struggles with anger issues and insecurity, her low background among the offspring of warlords, and her need for power and revenge. Drugs (opium mostly) play a heavy role in her ability to communicate with gods, which in turn leads to addiction. Side characters are similarly torn by many issues, especially the addiction, which makes them difficult to root for.

The narrative style is slightly distancing, so apart from Rin, I didn’t form a deep connection with other characters. The plot progresses in a steady pace, with no slag (two years in the school is covered in a couple of chapters), and the world comes to life effortlessly with no unnecessary exposition. The point of view is strictly Rin’s, with one exception to show readers who is the true enemy, so that it doesn’t feel like it comes out of the blue when Rin learns of it. The Poppy War was an easy and compelling read that rose far above its premise. And for once, I have no idea how the second book in the trilogy will turn out to be.

Book 1/65

Kill the Queen by Jennifer Estep: review

4/5 stars on Goodreads

Kill the Queen by Jennifer Estep

 

After the previous book, I struggled to find a book that could hold my interest. I started a couple of books that I had to put down, but I’ll maybe finish them later when my mood is more suitable for them. The one that won in the end was Kill the Queen (Crown of Shards 1) by Jennifer Estep.

Kill the Queen is epic fantasy that reads like urban fantasy. It’s told in the first person point of view, the heroine is a sassy woman in her late twenties set apart from others because of her different magical abilities, and she kicks ass. The story itself is pure epic fantasy: the entire royal family is massacred, and the sole survivor, Evie, goes into hiding to learn the necessary skills to avenge everyone and claim her place on the throne. To achieve that, she joins a gladiator troupe where she finds true friends that she hasn’t had in the court.

The book isn’t necessarily remarkable, and it doesn’t stand out among the similar books. The lone orphan betrayed by the one person she thought was her friend is a trope well-tried before. The medieval world is familiar, even if this one was mixed with things like indoors plumbing and fast communication. The peoples populating the world were too similar to ours—the people of the north had Nordic names and the dragon shifter was Chinese. But the writing style is catchy and I found myself reading late in the night, eager to find out what would happen next. The story was concise and got to the point satisfyingly fast, and the ending was good. The story doesn’t need a follow-up, but there were a couple of questions left open, and I’ll definitely read the next book too to find out what will happen.