Spirits are still alive and potentially causing havoc in The Reluctant Queen, the second installment of Sarah Beth Durst’s fantasy saga, The Queens of Renthia. While the novel picks up the events of the previous installment (Queen of the Blood), new characters are introduced and conflicts from the previous volume are cast in a slightly different light because of these new characters, essentially a quintessential second installment in a series.
Everything has a spirit: the willow tree with leaves that kiss the pond, the stream that feeds the river, the wind that exhales fresh snow . . .
And those spirits want to kill you.
It’s the first lesson that every Renthian learns.
Not long ago, Daleina used her strength and skill to survive those spirits and assume the royal throne. Since then, the new queen has kept the peace and protected the humans of her land. But now for all her power, she is hiding a terrible secret: she is dying. And if she leaves the world before a new heir is ready, the spirits that inhabit her beloved realm will run wild, destroying her cities and slaughtering her people.
Naelin is one such person, and she couldn’t be further removed from the Queen—and she wouldn’t have it any other way. Her world is her two children, her husband, and the remote village tucked deep in the forest that is her home, and that’s all she needs. But when Ven, the Queens champion, passes through the village, Naelin’s ambitious husband proudly tells him of his wife’s ability to control spirits—magic that Naelin fervently denies. She knows that if the truth of her abilities is known, it will bring only death and separation from those she loves.
But Ven has a single task: to find the best possible candidate to protect the people of Aratay. He did it once when he discovered Daleina, and he’s certain he’s done it again. Yet for all his appeals to duty, Naelin is a mother, and she knows her duty is to her children first and foremost. Only as the Queen’s power begins to wane and the spirits become emboldened—even as ominous rumors trickle down from the north—does she realize that the best way to keep her son and daughter safe is to risk everything.
Sarah Beth Durst established a place of dark wonder in The Queen of Blood, and now the stakes are even higher as the threat to the Queen and her people grows both from within and beyond the borders of Aratay in this riveting second novel of the Queens of Renthia series.
When I reviewed The Queen of the Blood, I noted how I was extremely impressed by everything Durst did, “The bones of the story are relatively straight-forward, but what Durst does with the framework is very powerful, evocative and quite simply, elegant.” The same can be said here, though Durst upends her own conventions while shuffling the deck of Epic Fantasy. Daleina became queen at the end of the previous volume and is only about six months into her reign here in The Reluctant Queen where she is seen to be suffering from a life-threatening disease. Not only will her own life end, but because of the critical link between Queen and Land, the people and the land will suffer. So, as in book one, the search for a queen must commence while Daleina’s former paramour, Hamon, searches for a cure.
Durst balances the narrative along two parallel lines – the current queen in court as she tries to maintain a veneer of calm for her people and the introduction of Naelin, who is reluctant about becoming queen. While Daleina’s story is intriguing, it is Naelin who shines throughout the novel. If you want to see the anthesis of a typical fantasy protagonist, look no further and she is glorious.
Naelin is the mother of two, married, and only wants to be left alone with her family. Against her wishes, Naelin’s husband Renet pushes her to be more than what she is, more than what she wants to be and draws the attention of the Queen’s Champion Ven and Captain of the Queen’s Guard, Alet, onto Naelin. Durst depicted this as a very selfish and self-serving move for Renet and built up ample sympathy for Naelin largely through the powerful love she feels for her children. Although she is given little choice in going with Ven and Alet to be trained because of the extremely powerful spiritual powers she exhibits, Naelin loudly and publicly severs her marriage to Renet.
Struggling to find a cure for Daleina’s disease, Hamon reluctantly enlists the aid of his mother, a master at poisons and concoctions. When Daleina’s sister arrives at the castle, Hamon’s mother finds a relatively willing assistant and they work furiously to find a cure for Daleina. Complicating all of this is that queens-in-training are dying during their training as it seems forces are making it difficult for Daleina to find a successor.
Durst is a very gifted storyteller with a knack for comforting prose, both qualities which make The Reluctant Queen an extremely engaging novel and one that is difficult to put down. What was also impressive was Durst’s willingness to put the mother of two in the role of heroine-protagonist and heir to the throne. Most such “chosen” heroes are young, often male, and have little to no familial attachments. With Naelin, her reluctance is understandable, she doesn’t want to be the hero to anybody other than her children. She draws strength from her children, they drive her to be the person she is. It may be trite, but mothers are heroes to their children, the children view mothers as such and the mother wants to be the hero to her kids. Her interaction with Ven, who is attempting to train her, show what a strong person and character Naelin is. Put it this way, out of anybody in this novel, the one who I’d want on my side the most is Naelin.
While there’s a growing shift to shining the spotlight on hero-protagonists more like Naelin in recent years, I couldn’t help be reminded of Barbara Hambly’s magnificent Dragonsbane and the protagonist of that novel, Jenny. Both novels are also set in a fantastical secondary, mythical world.
Durst takes the story she began in The Queen of the Blood into the next logical step, but does so in a natural, seamless fashion. The novel ends leaving a great deal to look forward to in the final volume.
Highly recommended
© 2017 Rob H. Bedford
Hardcover, July 2017
Book Two of The Queens of Renthia
http://www.sarahbethdurst.com/
Excerpt: http://www.sarahbethdurst.com/ReluctantQueenexcerpt.htm
Review copy courtesy of the publisher HarperCollins Voyager
