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wealhtheow 's review for:
The True Queen
by Zen Cho
Prunella, now Sorceress Royal after [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], has opened a school for females who wish to learn magic. The male thaumaturges of England are furious about it. Into their squalid attempts to steal power from Prunella walks Muna, a young Malaysian amnesiac. Muna's sister went missing in Fairy, and she is desperate to get her back; desperate enough to pretend to have magic of her own, and desperate enough to mount a rescue into the very heart of Fairy. She is assisted by Prunella's bff, the mild-mannered but steel-souled Henrietta.
I love so much about this book. The characters are lovely, and I immediately wanted only the best for kind Muna and sensible Henrietta. The fantasy Regency England world in which this is set is precisely my favorite type, with a wondrous mixture of the actual time period and the weird wildness of fairies. There's a whole sequence with huge terrifying dragons that's treated just as though it were Bertie Wooster and his aunts talking about whether or not to eat someone. The style is overall a delightful descendant of Wodehouse or Heyer: that frothy type of burbling nonsense mixed with real affection for the characters. But the pacing is just godawful. As in the first book in this series, characters figure out the plot far later than the reader, which I find frustrating. And even worse, just as in the first book, characters persist in having these long, not particularly important conversations literally in the middle of climactic battles. It infuriated me. The last thing that bothered me isHenrietta and Muna's romance. They make good sense as a couple and I was pleased that this book had not one but two queer romances in it. But they know each other for I think just a couple days before Henrietta thinks herself in love with Muna, and at best another day after that before Muna realizes she's in love with Henrietta. I really wanted to see them get to know each other, or have some more time adventuring together, before I believe that they're truly in love.
The concept and much of the execution of this book is so delightful. I hope there are more written in the same lines, but with rather better pacing.
I love so much about this book. The characters are lovely, and I immediately wanted only the best for kind Muna and sensible Henrietta. The fantasy Regency England world in which this is set is precisely my favorite type, with a wondrous mixture of the actual time period and the weird wildness of fairies. There's a whole sequence with huge terrifying dragons that's treated just as though it were Bertie Wooster and his aunts talking about whether or not to eat someone. The style is overall a delightful descendant of Wodehouse or Heyer: that frothy type of burbling nonsense mixed with real affection for the characters. But the pacing is just godawful. As in the first book in this series, characters figure out the plot far later than the reader, which I find frustrating. And even worse, just as in the first book, characters persist in having these long, not particularly important conversations literally in the middle of climactic battles. It infuriated me. The last thing that bothered me is
The concept and much of the execution of this book is so delightful. I hope there are more written in the same lines, but with rather better pacing.