Take a photo of a barcode or cover
graculus 's review for:
The True Queen
by Zen Cho
It took me a long time to finish The True Queen, even though I'd been waiting eagerly for it to be published - it just turned up at a time when life was a bit busy and I was having trouble concentrating on anything much. I think that wasn't helped by the fact that while it's set in the same universe as [b:Sorcerer to the Crown|23943137|Sorcerer to the Crown (Sorcerer Royal, #1)|Zen Cho|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1430239646s/23943137.jpg|43548024] and follows on from it in terms of its timeline, the characters I'd grown to know and love from that book play mostly supporting roles in this story.
The main point of view character is Muna - along with her sister Sakti, she finds herself under the tutelage of Mak Gengang and has no memory of her past. After a misjudged attempt to ransack the library of the English consul on Janda Baik, the sisters are sent through Faery to seek some kind of refuge in England but get separated along the way. Muna, who has no magic of her own, is forced to pretend she does and subsequently also becomes embroiled in problems coming from Faery, where a valuable talisman has been stolen.
While I enjoyed this book, I felt that at times the foreshadowing was quite heavy-handed as I could predict a number of what should otherwise have been unexpected plot twists. Alongside this, at the end there's a (for me, anyway), unconvincing ending to a sub-plot around one of Prunella's friends agreeing to an unwanted marriage in order to save her family's fortunes - an alternative is offered, in fact two alternatives, with the second suddenly not mentioning the financial issues involved at all. Just one throwaway line could have fixed that for me but instead it just nagged at me as something unresolved.
So, despite feeling miserly, I've gone from 5 stars to 4, not that this will stop me picking up anything else this author writes, it's just that Sorcerer to the Crown was an incredibly tough act to follow and this book (again, for me at least) didn't quite pull it off.
The main point of view character is Muna - along with her sister Sakti, she finds herself under the tutelage of Mak Gengang and has no memory of her past. After a misjudged attempt to ransack the library of the English consul on Janda Baik, the sisters are sent through Faery to seek some kind of refuge in England but get separated along the way. Muna, who has no magic of her own, is forced to pretend she does and subsequently also becomes embroiled in problems coming from Faery, where a valuable talisman has been stolen.
While I enjoyed this book, I felt that at times the foreshadowing was quite heavy-handed as I could predict a number of what should otherwise have been unexpected plot twists. Alongside this, at the end there's a (for me, anyway), unconvincing ending to a sub-plot around one of Prunella's friends agreeing to an unwanted marriage in order to save her family's fortunes - an alternative is offered, in fact two alternatives, with the second suddenly not mentioning the financial issues involved at all. Just one throwaway line could have fixed that for me but instead it just nagged at me as something unresolved.
So, despite feeling miserly, I've gone from 5 stars to 4, not that this will stop me picking up anything else this author writes, it's just that Sorcerer to the Crown was an incredibly tough act to follow and this book (again, for me at least) didn't quite pull it off.