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A review by mxsallybend
The Queen of Days by Greta Kelly
3.0
An epic adventure. A flawed-but-lovable family of thieves. Fallen gods. High stakes. Greta Kelly promises a lot with The Queen of Days, but even if the tone was much darker than I anticipated, it was still a solid read.
If I were to have any complaints about the book, they would be pacing and emotional balance. It starts off so good, sucking you right into the story, with Tass (the Queen herself) a character who commands your attention, but then it becomes mired in backstory, squabbling, and really heavy emotional turmoil/manipulation. It picks up again before the end, with some great action scenes to close it out, but I struggled to remain engaged during the middle of the book.
As for the main character, Balthazar, I’m very much of two minds about him. I like that he’s a sort of fallen royalty desperate for revenge, a man who is decent and caring and loyal, but also given to following his heart rather than his head. He’s flawed in so many ways, and there are times it’s hard to respect him, much less like him, but he’s realistic. There’s also the issue of his tragic romance which I thought was going to be pivotal, with a late-stage betrayal of change-of-heart transforming the relationship and giving the story some life, but it never goes farther than convenient plot point. Otherwise, Zee and Edik weren’t really standout characters on their own, but I liked the portrayal of their marriage within the context of this found-family band of thieves.
That said, when it was fun it was tons of fun, with some great action scenes involving the promised heists and battles with fallen gods. It’s often intense, almost cinematically so, and the climax contained a few surprises that I thought worked very well. I wish it’d had a different tone, either less darkness and angst or more focus on redeeming those emotions, but that’s the reader in me who prefers hopeful, awe-inspiring fantasy to grimdark gloom.
https://sallybend.wordpress.com/2023/08/30/book-review-the-queen-of-days-by-greta-kelly-fantasy/
If I were to have any complaints about the book, they would be pacing and emotional balance. It starts off so good, sucking you right into the story, with Tass (the Queen herself) a character who commands your attention, but then it becomes mired in backstory, squabbling, and really heavy emotional turmoil/manipulation. It picks up again before the end, with some great action scenes to close it out, but I struggled to remain engaged during the middle of the book.
As for the main character, Balthazar, I’m very much of two minds about him. I like that he’s a sort of fallen royalty desperate for revenge, a man who is decent and caring and loyal, but also given to following his heart rather than his head. He’s flawed in so many ways, and there are times it’s hard to respect him, much less like him, but he’s realistic. There’s also the issue of his tragic romance which I thought was going to be pivotal, with a late-stage betrayal of change-of-heart transforming the relationship and giving the story some life, but it never goes farther than convenient plot point. Otherwise, Zee and Edik weren’t really standout characters on their own, but I liked the portrayal of their marriage within the context of this found-family band of thieves.
That said, when it was fun it was tons of fun, with some great action scenes involving the promised heists and battles with fallen gods. It’s often intense, almost cinematically so, and the climax contained a few surprises that I thought worked very well. I wish it’d had a different tone, either less darkness and angst or more focus on redeeming those emotions, but that’s the reader in me who prefers hopeful, awe-inspiring fantasy to grimdark gloom.
https://sallybend.wordpress.com/2023/08/30/book-review-the-queen-of-days-by-greta-kelly-fantasy/