The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon
- samantha shannon
- fantasy
- winter tbr
- coyer
- 52 book club
- 4 stars
- book club
- nerdy bookish friends
- book reviews
Title: The Priory of the Orange Tree (The Roots of Chaos #1)
Author: Samantha Shannon
Publisher: Bloomsbury 2019
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 848
Rating: 4/5 stars
Reading Challenges: Winter TBR; COYER; 52 Book Club - High Fantasy*
The House of Berethnet has ruled Inys for a thousand years. Still unwed, Queen Sabran the Ninth must conceive a daughter to protect her realm from destruction—but assassins are getting closer to her door.
Ead Duryan is an outsider at court. Though she has risen to the position of lady-in-waiting, she is loyal to a hidden society of mages. Ead keeps a watchful eye on Sabran, secretly protecting her with forbidden magic.
Across the dark sea, Tané has trained all her life to be a dragonrider, but is forced to make a choice that could see her life unravel.
Meanwhile, the divided East and West refuse to parley, and forces of chaos are rising from their sleep.*
The Nerdy Bookish Friends club started 2023 with this behemoth! And what a story it was. I will admit that it took my about 100 pages to really get into the story. There are many people and places to keep track of and I had to orient myself to this world. This is high fantasy and definitely involves a lot of world-building at the beginning. Once, I settled in, I started to connect to some of the characters and began to see the big conflicts brewing. I really enjoyed how Shannon wove the stories of all these very different characters to highlight their prejudices and biases. By the end of the book, I was glad that I had read it, but I must say this wasn’t my absolute favorite. The pacing seemed very off throughout the book. I was extremely bored at many times throughout and then something would happen and I wouldn’t be able to put the book down. I may have been more satisfied if this book had been broken up a bit in two separate volumes. Still debating about reading the prequel that’s just about to be published…
The Roots of Chaos
- #0.5 A Day of Fallen Night
- #1 The Priory of the Orange Tree
- #2 TBD
Next up on the TBR pile:
