Queen of the Tearling by Erika Johansen
Published by Bantam/Transworld, July 2014
380 pages
ISBN: 978-0593072691
Review by Mark Yon.
A promising debut Fantasy.
Kelsea Raleigh Glynn is a Queen-in-waiting – the sole heir to the throne of Tearling. Brought up in hiding, it is time for her ascendance. After the death of her mother, Queen Elyssa, for the last eighteen or so years the Kingdom has been looked after by her Regent Uncle, waiting for her to come of age, whilst the Kingdom has also been coveted by the Red Queen of neighbouring Mortmesme.
The book begins when Kelsea is brought from her hiding place by what remains of her mother’s Royal Guard. Kelsea faces an uncertain future. With assassination attempts made and others possible at any time, she has to claim the throne, win the hearts of the populace and save the Tearling from its enemies. All at the age of 19…
Debuts are always a step into the unknown, which makes them quite an exciting prospect. I must admit this one engaged me from the off.
What worked most for me was the characterisation, which, when working in traditional realms, comes across very well. It is good to read of a lead heroine that isn’t perfect-looking, and whose personal attributes outweigh her physical qualities, which gives a semblance of normality to the tale. The queen’s internal monologue is usually well written too, as in fact most of the dialogue throughout. There’s not too much info-dumping, which is often the curse of the debut novel. The loyalty of her retinue is something that feels quite real – not easy to do in a new writer’s work.
Similarly, the villains of the piece are appropriately nasty. The Red Queen of Mortmesme is rather magnificent – you could say ‘maleficent’. We are not initially given the motives for her evilness but it is glorious that a character can so clearly revel in being bad, just for the sake of being bad. In addition, her aides are just as creepy – the spider-like Arlen Thorne, for example, is quite sinister in his manipulative actions. The Regent is quite awful. All of which clearly play their part in the telling of the tale.
There are missteps, or at least areas that didn’t work quite so well for me. There are plot points that just don’t seem logical – an insistence that a coronation take place the day after her arrival in New London, for example – that could have done with a little more judicious editing.
What is most disconcerting is the fact that although the story initially reads as a medieval-esque Fantasy, with armour, sorcery, swords, castles and all, it is slowly revealed that the tale is actually some sort of future apocalyptic tale set in some sort of England. The main city is called New London, the currency used is pennies, the rare books in the Queen’s library include a certain series of seven books by JK Rowling, there is talk of ancient knowledge being lost, not to mention genetic engineering and so on. Where this can work – Michael Moorcock’s Runestaff novels, for example – it can work well. However, here I’m not sure this entirely worked for me, to the point where the novel may work better without these elements. Whilst the author should be applauded in her attempt to make the tale different, by making it SF and Fantasy, for me the result is that such embellishes actually diminish the overall effect.
More problematic perhaps is the issue that both in style and tone the book veers between Young Adult Fantasy and Adult, with scenes reminiscent of both. At times it reads like The Hunger Games, whilst in others it’s more like Mark Lawrence’s Broken Empire series, although it is clearly neither. There is nudity and swearing, but generally the feel is often that YA trope of someone decidedly young dealing with a situation for which they feel out of their depth. This gives the book a rather bipolar feel at times.
Despite these issues, the book kept my interest until the end, and, perhaps most importantly, made me want to read the next book. The actual ending is not really much of an ending, but more of a set-up for the next book, something that is rather traditional these days.
In summary, Queen of the Tearling is a rather interesting, if a little uneven, curate’s egg of a novel. The book has been optioned for a movie, allegedly with Harry Potter’s Emma Watson in the lead, which I can see working (apart from the ‘not-very-good-looking’ part, perhaps.)
I don’t think this one’s going to be for everyone – but I must admit that I found it rather entertaining. It is definitely worth a look.
Mark Yon, June 2014
Thanks very much for the review. This one had made it onto my radar, and while I wasn’t blown away by the intro, it seemed promising enough that I hope to fit it into my budget.
Thanks, Amethyst. I’ve tried not to give away spoilers, there, but it’s one where you have to give away some to understand the book. Hope you enjoy it. Reading the review back, a few weeks after writing it, it may sound a little more negative than it should, but I was trying to explain why the parts I was less happy with were that.
Be interested to read on the Forums what you think.
You almost made me want to read it – almost. Well, see how the second book turns out (I hate endings that aren’t).