A world divided. A queendom without an heir. An ancient enemy awakens.
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 …
A world divided. A queendom without an heir. An ancient enemy awakens.
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 to be a dragonrider since she was a child, 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.
848 pages
Langue : English
Publié 10 novembre 2020 par Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.
At the surface a traditional fantasy story with a slow start and a lot of characters. But it has a lot of beautiful moments that make it stand out for me.
Samantha Shannon vever et nydelig teppe av tråder vi kjenner igjen fra vår kulturelle forståelse av konsepter som "Vesten" og "Østen", og forteller en vakker og majestetisk historie om kjærlighet, ære, politikk og ikke minst drager.
Jeg vil ikke si mer, jeg vil at du selv skal finne ut hva boka handler om, og at du forteller meg i etterkant hvilke segmenter som fikk deg til å gråte.
Many interesting ideas and some strong leading female characters, but the plot felt contrived at times or needlessly confusing, with inconsistencies (like distance and travel time), and some parts of the worldbuilding felt too simplistic -- also I wasn't too impressed with the quests for magic objects. Edit : also worth mentionning is that in the 800 pages, there really isn't much happening at the Priory of the title.
Honestly, you don't know what you're missing in fantasy until you read this book. An author who genuinely succeeds in not recreating patriarchy in a fictional world, and then it's a fantastic, gripping story to boot.
I had a lot of fun seeing the disparate plot lines come together in the final battle. How the world is balanced is very obvious, but it was how that affected the world, and how the characters came to realize it that made it interesting. 4.3/5
