Wednesday, January 9, 2019

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Kill the Queen by Jennifer Estep




Kill the Queen is the first in a fantasy trilogy that is saddled with an unfortunate sales pitch: someone decided to market the book as "Game of Thrones meets Gladiator."  While the Gladiator comparison works, this book has basically nothing in common with Game of Thrones - in tone or in content.  So readers hoping for a Game of Thrones-esque book will be disappointed by Kill the Queen, through no fault of the book's own.

For the book is actually pretty good for what it is - a fantasy tale of a heroine building herself up into a stronger person as she seeks revenge on the cousin who killed her entire family to seize the crown.  The book is rarely unpredictable or original, but it is executed extremely well, and its lead character is really excellent.  So if you're looking for a fun fantasy series featuring magic, gladiators and revenge?  This will definitely be up your alley.


-----------------------------------------------Plot Summary-----------------------------------------------
Everleigh Saffira Winter Blair is a minor princess of Bellona, with a claim to the throne so insignificant as to be utterly ignored by most in the place of Seven Spire.  To make it worse, unlike her hated cousin, the Crown Princess Vasilia, or many other members of the royal family, she doesn't have a useful magical talent - she's a mutt known for just having a magically strong sense of smell.  But what she keeps secret is that she has another magical power, the power of "Immunity" which allows her to cancel out magical abilities and objects to a certain extent.

And when Vasilia kills the rest of the royal family and frames a neighboring country, it's only this Immunity that allows Everleigh to get away.  Falling in with a gladiator troupe led by a former member of the Royal Guard under the assumed name "Evie," she at first wants nothing more than to escape and finally be free of her Royal Duties.

But Vasilia's plans for Bellona threaten to envelop the Kingdom into war and destruction, and Evie finds herself growing stronger under the gladiator's tutelage.  And there is no one else who can save the country, and so Evie must cast aside her freedom in anonymity and find a way to.....Kill the Queen.
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Kill the Queen is told from Everleigh/Evie's point of view in three parts, with the first part leading up the Coup, the second part featuring Evie attempting to find herself in the Gladiator troupe, and the final part being her taking the steps toward her ultimate revenge.*  The result is that the first part of the book seems perhaps a bit slow, as the reader will see everything coming pretty quickly as it is heavily foreshadowed (gee, the champaigne given by the creepy woman smells funny?).  But the book's pace improves quite a bit after the first part as Evie moves away from her comfort zone into a life where if she doesn't pull herself together and find strength both within and without, she'll quickly wind up dead.

*None of this is really a spoiler, as the book is pretty transparent about where it's' in general going from the start, even as how it goes in that direction is often left for the reader to discover.

This works out really well because of Evie's internal narration and the fact that she's a rather strong lead character.  The reader - well myself - may yell at Evie to trust certain characters well before she actually does, but the book gives her strong reasons for doing what she does instead, and the result is a plot that twists and turns, and is held together by Evie.  It kind of seems in retrospect that Evie transforms from the cowardly hider at Seven Spire to the brave stubborn girl in the gladiator troupe rather quickly, but Estep writes her so well you don't really mind, and makes Evie a strong character you really want to root for.

The book's secondary characters are also rather well done, even if all but one of them aren't really more than character archetypes.  The thing is, they're pretty well done character archetypes, from Paloma the elite but naive gladiator, to Serilda, the badass head of the gladiators, and her right hand man, Cho.  And then there's Sullivan, Evie's initial trainer at the gladiator troupe, with whom she shares a mutual attraction.  He's the most in depth secondary character of the crew, and he's a refreshing surprise - no simple love interest is he, and while his secret past would seem to make him another character archetype, the book winds up subverting that in the end....for now (we'll see if that lasts for the rest of this trilogy).

And the plot and action of this book, again after the slow inevitable first part, works really well.  The book flows through a number of set pieces that are each written well and all very different, from gladiator duels to magical duels to a well spoiler with deadly consequences, and it results in a very fun package to read.  Again, this book is utterly not like Game of Thrones in any way (this book might have a cynical tone, but there are obvious good guys and bad guys) but it is what it is, and what it is is very enjoyable.

Again, it's not a truly great book due to the pacing problems and predictability, but it got me interested quickly enough to allow me to finish this book in two days and keep me interested in the sequel when it comes out later this year.
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