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A review by alyssaarch
The Thief Queen's Daughter by Elizabeth Haydon, Jason Chan
4.0
The Thief Queen’s Daughter follows the adventures of Ven Polypheme and his friends, picking right up from where The Floating Island left off. This type of fantasy adventure story is what made me fall in love with fantasy in the first place. Thieves, danger, adventure friendship: this book has everything I love about a good fantasy. I’m beginning to absolutely fall in love with all the characters. The King is lovely and I can’t wait to read more about him and his quest for knowledge; Ven and his friends are absolutely fantastic. We learn a lot more about Ida, which I very much appreciated, and we get to learn a whole lot more about The Gated City, which was so much fun.
This isn’t quite as magical as the first book, but it’s still quite good. We see a lot less of magic and fantastical things and a lot more of pure adventure and thrills. With that, we also get a lot more character development. I still love the format of having this series be a “discovered journal” found on archaeological digs, and the illustrations perfectly complement the story. It looks like there’s some stuff being set up for an over-arching narrative that will reach through all the books in the series: the mysterious albatross is still in this book, for example, and seems to be watching Ven. I’m excited to see how that comes into play.
Overall, this is a wonderful middle grade fantasy that I’m so glad I picked up. The characters are great and the adventure is so, so much fun. Haydon is proving that she’s a master of the genre in both adult and middle grade. I’m excited to read the third book in this series.
Also posted on Purple People Readers.
This isn’t quite as magical as the first book, but it’s still quite good. We see a lot less of magic and fantastical things and a lot more of pure adventure and thrills. With that, we also get a lot more character development. I still love the format of having this series be a “discovered journal” found on archaeological digs, and the illustrations perfectly complement the story. It looks like there’s some stuff being set up for an over-arching narrative that will reach through all the books in the series: the mysterious albatross is still in this book, for example, and seems to be watching Ven. I’m excited to see how that comes into play.
Overall, this is a wonderful middle grade fantasy that I’m so glad I picked up. The characters are great and the adventure is so, so much fun. Haydon is proving that she’s a master of the genre in both adult and middle grade. I’m excited to read the third book in this series.
Also posted on Purple People Readers.