A review by dscholl
Beneath the Keep by Erika Johansen

4.0

I really enjoyed this story but it has so many contradictions to Queen of the Tearling trilogy. Some things are small, like the the Mace was when he joined the Queens Guard. The prequel puts his age at 20, while in the trilogy he says he joined when he was 15. Another inaccuracy was Kelsea’s scar. In this she gets it from an assassins blade, in the trilogy it’s a burn. Also, Elyssa is described as being vain and simple throughout the whole trilogy, but we see a vastly different side to her in the prequel, which is nice, but everyone acts in the trilogy like she was always that way, not that there was a change.
In addition, the Mort invasion should have been mentioned in the prequel if we follow the timeline correctly. And Elyssa wasn’t the one to decide to put Kelsea in hiding or to put her in the care of Barty and Carlin, that was the Mace and Carroll. These little discrepancies really bothered me. I enjoyed the prequel and the trilogy, but keeping continuity is really important.