Review: The Queen's Rising by Rebecca Ross

The Queen's Rising by Rebecca Ross
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I received an ARC of this book from the publisher via Edelweiss+ in exchange for an honest review.  This book releases February 6, 2018, and I highly recommend it.

I really loved this! It isn’t as fast paced and action packed as typical YA fantasy, but I didn’t mind that one bit. It starts off slow and builds up to the action. I thought I knew how it was going to play out, but I was pleasantly surprised when the plot twist I thought I saw coming never happened. I love it when books aren’t predictable. I won’t spoil it for you either.

Queen’s Rising follows Brienna, a young girl who has been hidden away by her grandfather so her father won’t find her. We don’t know why it is important that her father doesn’t find her for much of the book, and I won’t spoil it for you now. Brienna is hidden at Magnalia, a school where talented students study one of the passions, wit, art, music, knowledge, or drama. Brienna struggles to find her place as a passion during her 7 years at Magnalia. She tries each of the passions and finds knowledge to be the best fit though she must study harder than the other students. Her teacher Master Cartier works hard to preparer her to find a patrion, which will signal the end of her studies at Magnalia. When she does not find a patron at her “graduation” she is left to continue her studies while the other students go off on their own adventures. Around the time of graduation, Brienna begins experiencing visions related to memories of one of her ancestors. These visions are tied to her ancestor and a lost artifact that once belonged to a queen. Brienna becomes entangled in a plot to restore the queen’s lineage to the throne. She must use the visions to find the artifact and place the rightful queen back on the throne of a broken country.

I absolutely loved Ross’ writing. It drew me in from the beginning. I loved the characters. The bad guys were bad, the good guys were good, and there were some ambiguous characters that you just weren’t sure about. I loved the visuals that were painted. My only real complaint, and it is very minor, was that all of the characters had aliases because they were all in hiding as the plot unfolds. I was confused at times as to who was who, but most of the time it was with side characters that didn’t really play much of a role in the story. I also loved that the story stands alone. It appears to be part of a trilogy, but I very much appreciate that it ends with a satisfying ending and I don’t have to wait until the next book to find out what happens. I want to read the next book because I want to know what lies in store for the world and the characters.


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