The Queen of the Tearling by Erika Johansen

The Queen of the Tearling by Erika Johansen

Rating: 4 stars

Synopsis: On her nineteenth birthday, Princess Kelsea Raleigh Glynn, raised in exile, sets out on a perilous journey back to the castle of her birth to ascend her rightful throne. Plan and serious, a girl who loves books and learning, Kelsea bears little resemblance to her mother, the vain and frivolous Queen Elyssa. But though she may be inexperienced and sheltered, Kelsea is not defenceless. Around her neck hangs the Tearling sapphire, a jewel of immense magical power; and accompanying her is the Queen's Guard, a cadre of brave knights led by the enigmatic and dedicated Lazarus. Kelsea will need them all to survive a cabal of enemies who will use every weapon - from crimson-caped assassins to the darkest blood magic - to prevent her from wearing the crown. But the quest to save her kingdom and meet her destiny has only just begun - a wondrous journey of self-discovery and a trial by fire that will make her a legend...if she can survive.

Review: According to Goodreads, I'm one of very few people who really liked this book. Don't get me wrong, there are things I would have changed but overall I loved it and once I got into it I completely devoured all 400+ pages of it.

Kelsea is our nineteen year old heroine; raised in the middle of nowhere in preparation for the time when she has to go home and rule a kingdom she barely knows anything about. I did like Kelsea as a character although there are times when she did irritate me. She gets very hung up on one moment in her childhood for a while that confused me slightly because, while I could see some of the relevance to including it, it did seem a little strange to me to include it. However, I did think Kelsea made an amazing Queen. She comes to the Tearling with a very basic knowledge of how everything works (and by basic I mean really basic) but she steps up straight away. The reason Kelsea knows so little is because her foster parents, and her guards all took a vow to her mother - but we don't get told why. I'm hoping this is explained in the sequel because there has to be some reason why all these people would keep things Kelsea really needed to know beforehand from her.

The whole story revolves around the Shipment - a monthly lottery where hundreds of randomly selected people are shipped of Mortmesne and to the Red Queen. This is the treaty that protects the Tearling from invasion and so, of course, Kelsea puts a stop to that immediately, despite knowing this. Some people will see this as being stupid but Kelsea is hell bent on Justice - a concept that is foreign to her kingdom when she arrives and so everything she does is to give her people Justice and I thought it was really brave of her to put a stop to something that has been ingrained into society for seventeen years on her first day in the Tearling.

I liked Mace (or Lazarus, whatever you want to call him) as a character. He makes a formidable guard and, despite the 'security' lapses, I think he makes a really good leader. Over the course of the book, you really see the guards and Kelsea develop this friendship and banter between themselves which help Kelsea prove herself to her guards. That's another thing. Kelsea is nineteen - still just a child - and that's how her guards see her. She has to continually try and prove herself to everyone when she barely knows what to do herself and that characteristic made her endearing to me as a character. She's no push over but she's not completely fearless; I thought there was a nice mix of the two.

I did think the beginning was a little weak. The journey from the cottage to the Keep took longer than necessary I thought but, once the characters got to the Keep, the story did really pick up. The differing perspectives and inter-joining story lines worked really well for me and helped bring the plot together in the most part. I was surprised at how little we saw the Red Queen throughout the book - I was expecting the book to end with the Invasion that was promised early on but that never comes. There are a lot of questions surrounding the Red Queen and the final section we get in her perspective leaves you with a good few more.

For a debut novel I thought this was a really good book. The world Erika has created is so detailed and developed and she's really bought it to life. There are mentions of rape and abuse and prostitution so it's probably not for younger readers but on the whole I really enjoyed the book and I'm looking forward to the sequel that's coming in June this year I think and the movie that's coming out that's starring Emma Watson.

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