The Shadow Queen by C. J. Redwine
YA Fantasy. 390 Pages. 3 Stars
Synopsis:
Lorelai Diederich, crown princess and fugitive at large, has one mission: kill the wicked queen who took both the Ravenspire throne and the life of her father. To do that, Lorelai needs to use the one weapon she and Queen Irina have in common—magic. She’ll have to be stronger, faster, and more powerful than Irina, the most dangerous sorceress Ravenspire has ever seen.
In the neighboring kingdom of Eldr, when Prince Kol’s father and older brother are killed by an invading army of magic-wielding ogres, the second-born prince is suddenly given the responsibility of saving his kingdom. To do that, Kol needs magic—and the only way to get it is to make a deal with the queen of Ravenspire, promise to become her personal huntsman…and bring her Lorelai’s heart.
But Lorelai is nothing like Kol expected—beautiful, fierce, and unstoppable—and despite dark magic, Lorelai is drawn in by the passionate and troubled king. Fighting to stay one step ahead of the dragon huntsman—who she likes far more than she should—Lorelai does everything in her power to ruin the wicked queen. But Irina isn’t going down without a fight, and her final move may cost the princess the one thing she still has left to lose.
My Review:
So, my podcast has been glitching with an update, and since I like to listen to music or a podcast while I work and drive, I decided to give audio books a shot. Picked this one up because my library had it and it’s been on my to-read list for an eternity.
So, this is a YA Snow White retelling in a kinda neat fantasy world. I loved the different nations and cultures within those nations–the magic wielders and the dragon shifters. I also liked how the magic system revolved around the will and heart of a person and thing. (Some bits of the story felt a bit reminiscent of OUAT, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing.) As far as retellings go, it touched a few key elements–the evil stepmother, the poisoned apples, the magic mirror, the huntsman, etc. The way the poisoned apples were used was interesting, I thought, though I did sort of expect them to come up in the final battle like the traditional tale. The huntsman aspect was also pretty neat, in my opinion. But my favorite shout out goes to the seven dwarves. I kept wondering when they were gonna show up! And when they finally did and I finally realized who they were, I was definitely surprised. I do wish they’d been integrated in more…smoothly? And involved in more of the story than just the final climax; we never really got to know any of them very well at all, which saddens me, but they were definitely clever and I enjoyed that.
As far as twists go…the story wasn’t really…surprising by any means. The dwarves were literally the only thing that surprised me. The plot was pretty basic and kind of generic. There was a missed opportunity, I thought, for a small twist with the whole “bring me her heart” thing, but maybe it would have been too obvious? Either way, we spend the whole book leading up to this final battle with a bunch of smaller battles and nothing really epic ever happened. Like, from the very start you knew Lorelai was going to win and Irina was going to lose. (Not really very spoilery honest to goodness. It was that obvious.) I never really questioned whether or not she’d succeed and that was kind of disappointing. Truthfully, the story wasn’t much of a page turner. I mean, I was interested enough to finish it. There were bits of it I liked and I did want to see how it all turned out, but it just sort of fell flat for me, retelling or not.
We had a few MCs: the princess, the prince, the guard who saved them from the queen, the king from the other country/huntsman, his two sidekicks, and a few miscellaneous side characters to round out the cast. The princess was fun. I liked her determination and sense of duty and responsibility. She also had some pretty awesome moves like running up walls that were neat. Her younger brother, the prince, was the best!! I loved Leo! He had a really cool mimicking talent that I’d have loved to see explored more. Like, can you imagine the implications and possibilities that would have?! He was a ball of fun and very exuberant. He was probably my favorite. I liked the idea of the guard and the two sidekicks were a bit of fun. The queen was pretty standard. Her motivations started to give her depth, but the backstory was still pretty surface level and generic. The huntsman/king had a noble heart and I loved him for it. I loved his relationship with his sister and the hardships he faced, the mission he was on, his self-sacrificing spirit. He had more depth than most of the other characters, in my opinion. His struggle was one I was interested in and emotionally connected with. The characters, though not terrible by any means, were just sort of bland. They were either hot or cold, never in between. They repeated themselves a lot and did a lot of threats. I mean some action happened, but there was so much “I will win!” or “I won’t hurt you!” or “If you touch her, I’ll kill you!” over and over again. Though I was mildly invested in the plot and found the characters interesting enough to keep following, I wouldn’t say they were characters I’ll remember and root for for the rest of my life.
Some of the pieces just didn’t really feel cohesive to me. Like, Sahsa, the bird, was really cool–and she actually did serve a purpose–but she was also kind of…random. Like she showed up and then she didn’t. I loved the idea of her bond with Lorelai, but she was pretty surface level. Not really super important to the plot. Just kind of there–outside of the like scouting she did for the MCs and some fierce loyalty and a little comedy. There was also a lady the queen punished by making her produce magical poison apples, but…after the one scene she was in, she’s only mentioned once more. And then we’re left to wonder whatever happened to her after that. And Kol’s two best friends are MIA for half the book. It’s just a bit patchworked, rather than all tied in together as one story with integral parts. Even a character who died–fan favorite–didn’t really have much purpose in the death. I mean, it was probably the most emotional part of the book for me cause I was like, wait what? Did she just do that? Yup. She did. And I was sad. But other than the fact that one of the MCs thinks about it half the time and grieves *shrug* It didn’t really serve any purpose. Oh! And the ogres! What was that all about? That felt so left field and was 99.9% off screen. Just felt like another disjointed piece thrown into the pile that served some small purpose, but had nothing to do with the overall story itself. No real threat. No real danger. I didn’t ever doubt the success of the heroine, as I said above, so I never worried about what would happen.
Like I said, the book wasn’t bad. But it wasn’t stellar by any means, in my personal opinion. It would be good for like a quick, generic YA fix. Kind of like how you go to Hallmark when you want a cheesy romcom? I’m hoping the rest of the series is better. At some point, I’d be interested in reading the sequels, but I’m not exactly in a hurry.
Oh! I did want to add a quick note about the narration, since I did listen to the audio book. I thought the woman read it well and it was pretty easy to distinguish the characters by voice–which I just think is super neat. She delivered the kinda cheesy lines with all sincerity. I was definitely rolling my eyes at some bits, but I thought she did good.
Content: There was no foul language, but there was a mild YA romance. A few kisses here or there, but nothing past that. There is a weird thing where the shifters turn back into humans naked–and a couple of times that is brought to attention, but there’s nothing explicit at all. There is a little bit of violence (it is a revolution) and some of it is a little graphic, and some dark magic with some slightly disturbing scenes. There’s some torture, some death, some cheesy teen love and predictable protective father figure/personal guard, etc. Personally, I’d probably recommend the book for 16/17+
More:
Book 2 in the Ravenspire series is The Wish Granter
Book 3 is The Traitor Prince
Book 4 is The Blood Spell
You can follow the links above to find out more about the rest of the series! I haven’t read any of the sequels yet, but to the best of my understanding, these are standalones and can be read in any order–though, personally, I always choose to read things in order if I can.