Dynasties battle for the crown in Tessa Gratton’s debut adult epic fantasy, The Queens of Innis Lear.Three Queens. One crown. All out war. Gaela. Ruthless Commander. I am the rightful heir of Innis Lear. No more will I wait in the shadows and watch my mother’s murderer bleed my island dry. The King’s hold on the crown must end—willingly or at the edge of my sword. Regan. Master Manipulator. To … end—willingly or at the edge of my sword.
Regan. Master Manipulator.
To secure my place on the throne, I must produce an heir. Countless times I have fed the island’s forests my blood. Yet, my ambition is cursed.
No matter what or whom I must destroy, I will wield the magic of Innis Lear.
Elia. Star-blessed Priest.
My sisters hide in the shadows like serpents, waiting to strike our ailing king. I must protect my father, even if it means marrying a stranger.
We all have to make sacrifices. Love and freedom will be mine.
“Amazing. Just Amazing.”–Robin McKinley
At the Publisher’s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
more
I tried, I really did but It didn’t hook me from the start. It was quite boring and confusing, with lots of names, lots of unusual actions, and well just not my type of book.
I’ve been meaning to read this book for quite a while now. I first saw in the new release section at B&N and though that it sounded like a compelling read.
Boy, I was not wrong.
The Queens of Innis Lear is a high fantasy reimagining of Shakespeare’s tragedy King Lear. Lear is, in this tale, the king of the isle of Innis Lear, utterly devoted to the worship of the stars, so much so that he has forbidden the old forms of magic that once gave the island life. When he command his three daughters–Gaela, Regan, and Elia–to tell him how much they love him, he is enraged when his youngest doesn’t flatter him and he banishes her from his kingdom. In doing so, he sets in motion a chain of events that will tear both the island and his family apart.
The book crackles with a rather strange poetic mystery, and I found myself drawn in with every page. Gratton has a true gift with her prose, one unlike almost anything else I’ve read recently. It’s at times beautiful and yet also unsettling, a fitting means of conveying the profound unease that drives the novel’s plot. Just as Innis Lear struggles under the tyrannical rule of Lear and his fanatical devotion to the stars, so the very prose of the novel struggles under the titanic forces of personal loyalty and betrayal as each of the major characters tries to break free of the ties of destiny and obligation that constantly circumscribe their actions.
The novel is a very dark retelling, which is appropriate, considering that the original play is a tragedy. All of the major characters are significantly flawed, some more than others. In fact, I frequently found myself disliking most, if not all, of the major characters at some point, and while some might find this a bit of a turnoff, I actually found it refreshing. The world that Gratton has created is a harsh and unforgiving one, and this is especially true of Innis Lear. One of the key conflicts of the novel is between the cold destiny of the stars and the more earth-driven magic that is native to the isle, and each of the characters struggles (often with fatal results) with some aspect of this dichotomy.
The women of the novel are, it should be said, incredibly powerful, though each manifests it somewhat differently. Gaela, the eldest, attempts to forge herself into a weapon with which she can rule the isle as its king, while her sister Regan (to whom she is bound by ties deeper than they share with anyone else) is more attuned to the powers of the island. And Elia, once her father’s favourite, must try to strike a balance between the competing forces of her life. What I found particularly compelling about the novel was the fact that all three of them are distinctly non-white, since their mother was from a part of this fictional world that is non-European.
There is no question, however, that the most compelling character is Ban. Like his Shakespearean predecessor, Ban is tortured because of his status as a bastard. Whereas his father has always lavished his love and attention on Ban’s younger brother Rory, Ban has always wanted to be something greater. As clever and crafty as he is, and as talented as he is at harnessing the power of magic, he is always condemned to play a secondary role in the life of those around him. Even his mother, Brona the witch, seems to have other priorities. Like the greatest tragic characters of Shakespeare, Ban is fundamentally broken, and his tragedy is that he realizes this and can do little or nothing to change it. As a result, he sees himself as something of an agent of creative destruction, and while we may rightly regard many of his actions as despicable and sometimes cruel, he does have something of a point.
The world-building throughout the novel decent. One gets the sense that this is a fully fleshed-out world, but much of it remains off-stage. For much of the novel, the action takes place both on the isle of Innis Lear and the country of Aremoria (analogues of the original play’s England and France). Though there are mentions of other countries such as the Third Kingdom (the birthplace of Lear’s wife Dalat and Kayo the Oak Earl), there isn’t much said about them.
In that sense, The Queens of Innis Lear is driven much more by its characters. It’s a searing look at the consequences of fanaticism and unbending adherence to principles over people. Each of the characters, from the highest to the lowest, finds himself or herself caught up in forces that they can barely name or control, each weighed down by the pasts of family and of nation. And, while the novel has a substantially happier ending than the play upon which it is based, we are still left feeling a sense of melancholia at how much has been lost, and we are left to wonder whether Elia will ever fully recover from the destruction that has torn apart everything that she held dear.
The brilliance of The Queens of Innis Lear lies in its ability to seamlessly weave together the Shakespearean and fantastic elements into a coherent whole. One can see the glimmers of the original play in many aspects of it, even as one can marvel at the way that Gratton has bent it into a new shape. This says a great deal not only about the strengths of the novel on its own, but also about Gratton as a storyteller. To be able to take such a famous story and remake it into something terrifying and visceral and beautiful is the mark of a very gifted writer indeed.
It’s already been announced that Gratton has written another fantasy reimagining of Shakespeare, titled Lady Hotspur. Given how much I enjoyed this novel, I can’t wait to what Gratton has in store for us!
The usual princess: struggling to be accepted. Star-crossed lovers. Went on a little too long. I started to lose interest by the end.
Nicely created world with interesting characters.
A book that is written in haunting, lyrical prose that is as much as joy as the plot itself. An exquisite retelling of King Lear in which nature, magic and the natural landscape are as much a character as the people.
Simply beautiful.
This is really hard review for me to write, The Queens of Innis Lear is epic in its storytelling and so much thought has gone into the world building, characters and history I feel like I should love it – it’s a high fantasy King Lear retelling with ancient magics, twisty plot and underhandedness, pretty much ticking all my boxes (and all of Shakespears!), but it sadly fell short. It’s because I appreciate all that must have gone into writing this that I feel so torn with what to put in my review, so I think i’m going to a good old fashioned list of pro’s and con’s
Pro’s – As I said before, this book is epic in it’s story telling, 3 sisters each vying for the crown of the island of Innis Lear when their father passes. Geala, the warrior, Regan the good wife and Elia (the youngest and favourite of the King) the Star Priest. What follows is a richly woven tale of court intrigue, old scores to be settled and simmering vengeance. The sisters must suffer through banishment, loss, grief and anger in order to decide who should rightfully wear the crown, all have different motives and ideas for the Island, but the old magic of an Island ruled by the stars has its own ideas too….. Whilst I found many of the characters hard to get on with (see cons) my favourite character by far was Regan. Her journey was one that I found solace in and her character development was off the scale. There were many moments of brilliance interspersed in the story and at times I felt like I didn’t want to put it down. I adored the sections about the old root magic and the language of the trees, these magics were beautifully written as were the magics of the stars and made a deserving focal point in the tale.
Con’s – there are no chapters in this book, it shifts around MANY different points of view in a rolling format and whilst it is separated into parts these are sparse. The book is also just far too long, I found myself skimming some parts and then having to go back because a tiny nugget of important information was nestled in the pages and pages of unnecessary explanations of things that had already been explained. I felt that it was in need of a lot of editing as at times reading it was a was a real endurance – I knew the payoff was coming but it was just so hard to get there. I wasn’t particularly taken with many of the characters either, there was so much going on and so much subterfuge and double dealing amongst them that it was hard to really build up a relationship with them as many of them had little opportunity to build up much depth. There is one huge question that I had throughout which never got answered either which was a real failing in continuity.
So in fairness, this is 3* from me.
This book wasn’t exactly what I expected maybe because I didn’t read King Lear so I didn’t have the right idea what a basically retelling of the story is going to be like. Maybe it’s a retelling but if I’m correct the author took quite a few liberties with the story.
The book itself is long and for me it took me a while to really get into it but it has an enchanting writing style. It’s full of metaphors and symbolism and other poetic tools which give the narration a lyric atmosphere. It was beautiful and a really uplifting experience to read. On top of that, the author, using the writing style created colorful, lush, vivid visual pictures for the setting of the story. I loved this part of the book, it was really enjoyable.
The plot on the other hand wasn’t really my style. It was full of political intrigue, masked motives, secrets and betrayals with close to none actual action. It is a beautifully built up and complex storyline, and while I can enjoy a good mental and strategically conflict, I like it better when it is balanced out with a bit of a spark and physical action. To top it off the pace of the book was quite slow and even sluggish if you ask me.
The book is narrated from several different points of views and it helps you to gain a better understanding of things in this incredibly multilayered scheme of events. However, while most of the points of views were important for a clear storyline there were a couple of pretty useless ones as well and when a book is as long as this one I have an aversion for unnecessary chapters. For example some of the ‘past’ chapters could have been incorporated into other ones without a lengthy explanation since there were only one or two sentences that mattered from them in the end, or Aefa chapters could have been left out completely because her point of view didn’t give anything to the story at all. Don’t get me wrong I liked her painfully honest and blunt character but her chapters were ‘empty’.
All of the characters are so well rounded and fleshed out that it’s amazing. It doesn’t mean I liked all of them, because there are quite a few anti-heroes in this tale. Let’s see:
Ban The Fox: In the beginning I thought that he is going to be my favorite character in the book, however his thirst for revenge came out and it ruined his clearheaded views and his pure heart. He made a lot of horrible decisions, especially around the end of the story because of his need for acceptance, he didn’t even realized he was already accepted by the ones that really mattered.
Elia: She is the youngest princess and she grew up without ambitions or grandiose dreams. She just wanted to live a simple, humble life and in my opinion she was too soft and a bit ignorant for court life. I think she was the representation of pure love. However, when things got more complicating and life demanded her to take up the responsibility of a royal princess, she simple refused to even consider it. I hated this in her, I saw her reasons but the way she dragged out the time until she finally acted in favor of her country was a bit annoying. Still she was the best option among the sisters.
“I never do anything, it’s as you said. I’m always the buffer, the balm and comfort! A bridge, perhaps. But the bridge doesn’t soar or even move; it never even sees the end of the river. I thought the stars were enough, the choosing them for him was enough, but I’ve spent my entire life doing nothing. Studying what others do, what the stars say we should do. Reacting. Being what I’m supposed to be. I held the course, tried to be kind and listen, but did you know? Even the trees do not speak to me now. I spent myself with the silent stars and forgot the language of trees.”- Elia
Regan: The middle princess, the fanatic and the user. She is titled the cunning, manipulative and scheming one but in all honesty she rarely aced it. Yes she had a knack for manipulating men but she was basically a follower and not a leader. I hated her
Gaela: The oldest princess, the warlord and the most ruthlessly ambitious us one of them all. She is really bitter and in her grief and fear of love she created a vicious fighter and someone who is just as fanatic as her father just with different tools. I really liked to admire her power and determination, how she fought her way to the top but her methods were really wrong and somewhat childish as well. She broke when her mother died and went into a drastic direction to avoid the hurt again.
Marimaros: A neighboring king, a prospect for marriage options. In the end I think I liked his character the most. He is a great king and takes the wellbeing of his country and his people really seriously. Yes, he has ambitions and hopes to gain things from Innis Lear but in the end he makes the right choices. Among the fanatics and vicious usurpers he was a light .
There are a couple of important supportive characters as well, whom by keeping secrets enabled the catastrophe of the Lear family to play out.
This one wasn’t my favorite read of the year but it was interesting nonetheless. I’m glad that I got the opportunity to read and review it.