The Nine Realms by Sarah Kozloff

I've written before of the deep hole in my heart left by The Realm of the Elderlings. I want to be immersed in a world of magic and politics and, preferably dragons. I want the world to surround me so that I forget all my concerns and wrap myself up in a cloak of the fantastical. So I was listening to an episode of Pop Culture Happy Hour called "Three Great Fiction Audiobooks" and Greta Johnson said that A Queen in Hiding written by Sarah Kozloff and read by Imogen Church is better than A Song of Ice and  Fire and was written from a feminist perspective, I immediately put it on hold at the library and waited for three months for it become available.

I rarely listen to audiobooks because I have podcasts as my walking the dog media format, but so many podcasts take a break over the holidays that I was starting to worry I was going to run out of things to listen to.  No need to worry because this audiobook was seventeen hours of glorious fun. A big drawback of audiobooks is that I can't mark passages to record notable quotes or descriptions, so that's not going to happen as I make my way through these novels.  I did listen to all of them, though, and I agree that the narrator did an amazing job.

I don't want to give too much away here, but if you've read any George R.R. Martin, you'll feel right at home here. We meet Queen Cressa and her daughter, the Princella Cerulia, but there is intrigue at the castle.  In the opening scene with Cerulia, she admits that she can talk to her horse and, dear reader, I felt the lure of Fitz's Wit and the dream of another character like Nighteyes (see my many thousands of words about The Realm of the Elderlings above).  We follow additional characters: a lieutenant in the opposing forces Army, a scholar, and a couple of people at the castle, including the nursemaid, a runner of all errands, and the regent himself.

I can see why Greta Johnsen recommended this as an audiobook. Church does a great job with such a huge cast of characters, giving each of them a different twist. I found myself trying to find time to do chores with headphones just so I could get back to my book! 

In other words, this was an excellent start to what I hope will be an excellent series. It's basically a book of world building here, introducing us to the Nine Realms and the rules of the world. There is magic, but that magic is relatively rare, but since Cerulia can talk to animals, you won't hear my complaining.  I love that this book is primarily centered around women, which is slightly unusual in a fantasy world. I also like that the women are not always badasses, but can grow into their badassery.  

Huge, huge thumbs up for me on this one. The next book in the series is available on audiobook already (no three month wait for the second book!), so I'm all ready to keep moving on!!

5/5 stars

In The Queen of Raiders, we pick up right where we left off. Thalen, a scholar we met before, starts a band of terrorists on enemy soil to convince the enemy (the Oros) to leave their war-making abroad to come home to deal with the terrorists. Our beloved princella finds her way to Thalen, of course.  Along the way, we meet more characters, including some magi, a peddler, and a young boy who it seems like will play a pivotal role in whatever happens in the future. We get magic and magicked animals, horses with attitudes, and a seriously amazing eagle.

I really am riveted by this series. I finished listening to this audiobook in just a few days and when the third book wasn't available through Libby, I actually downloaded the Hoopla app so that I could immediately start in on the third one, too.  It's incredibly reminiscent of Game of Thrones, in that way that every so often there's just a new character introduced and you have to figure out how each character intersects the story. 

I don't LOVE the battle scenes, to be honest. I really do like the scenes when the Raiders are mucking about in the forest, trying to build camp, but reading through the Goodreads reviews, it seems like the people who dislike this series do like the battles, so I'm not entirely sure what that says about me or about Goodreads reviewers.  There's also a romance angle to this story that I'm not sold on, but hey, if the romance convinces people to read about an epic magical fantasy story, who am I to deny it?

5/5 stars

My love for this series was tested a bit by A Broken Queen, the third of the books.  It picks up where left off in the previous book, with Cerulia hurt and a bit clueless about her path back to her throne. She's at a bit of an impasse and while this is absolutely believable - she would be demoralized and depressed - it doesn't make for the most riveting of reading/listening. Kozloff is putting all the pieces into place so that the last book in the series will be epic, but this one had us going off in so many directions with so many points of view that it was hard to settle in on caring about any of them and Cerulia sort of gets shafted into the background.  

Ah, well. I'm hopeful that it will lead to a thrilling conclusion.

3.5/5 stars

And then the final book in the series is The Cerulean Queen.  On one hand, it's a satisfying ending what with the queen being the queen and the queen getting her guy. On the other hand, so many loose ends were not tied and Cerulia's character was absolutely inconsistent.  

A list of things, in no particular order, that left me unsatisfied:

1) Where did Ciello really come from? He just gets introduced in The Broken Queen as her bodyguard whose recommended by someone in the same convalescence home Cerulia was staying at, but what was his deal? Where was he from? Why was he so obsessed with Cerulia? 

2) What became of the two Oro soldier that Thalen was studying?

3) What of the Oro magi?  Scene upon scene of Smithy, including one in which he was recruiting children, and there's just no resolution to this.

4) Why do some animals listen to Cerulia and some not?  I want more explanation and exploration of her Talent. More to the point, I want more animal POVs than just a horse. (No one will ever beat Nighteyes wanting to be the stick.) As you well know, I really just want a story about a girl and her beloved pet.

5) Why would Cerulia torture an old man (even an evil old man) and why would she waste time fretting SO VERY MUCH over clothes? This is absolutely unlike anything that the rest of the series would lead us to believe she would do.

3/5 stars

All four books in this series came out within the span of six months in 2020 and was designed to be binged. I think the first two books are real winners as Kozloff sets the stage for the scope of the world, the tiny bits of magic present, and introduces some complex characters. It's nice to read a book set in a matriarchal world (I enjoyed Cerulia telling a prince that if she married him, they'd have to stay in Weirandale and he was absolutely astounded) with women accepted as leaders and fighters. But the ending let it down and I'm starting to think it's impossible for fantasy authors to close out sagas in any satisfying way. In the same way I'd recommend The Realm of the Elderlings up until the last trilogy, I think you could read the first two novels in this series and then move on with your life without lugging around the weight of the rest of this series.