The Queens of Innis Lear

I'm completely blown away by The Queens of Innis Lear. This is one of the most well written books I've ever had the pleasure of reading. The prose was absolutely gorgeous and the story was so well crafted and complex. It's told through multiple perspectives and I thought every single character was compelling. Everyone is morally gray but you definitely understand why the characters make the choices they do.The intricacies of all the character relationships and politics was brilliant.Do I think this book will work well for everyone? Definitely not. It's very character driven, the pacing is pretty slow, and there isn't much action. The prose is also very flowery and dense. If these are things you tend not to like, you may not want to pick this one up. However, if any this sounds appealing to you PLEASE read this book. To me, it was a masterpiece.

“It begins when a lord of the island reads ambition’s reward in his stars, and rallies the strength of iron and wind to defeat his rivals, uniting all under one crown. He calls himself Lear, after the wizard who cleaved the island.”The Queens of Innis Lear by Tessa Gratton is possibly my favorite read of this year. This book got deep into my head, and I did not want to leave Innis Lear or its people. I am going to have huge book hangover from this one. It is a tale of family, betrayal, love, power, and how choices effect generations. I desperately want to revisit this world and I hope so much that there will be another book in this world. This was my very first read by Tessa Gratton, but if her other books are anywhere near as well written and addictive as this one then she may become a favorite author. One billion stars and hearts for this one.

A fantasy retelling of King Lear? Being compared to A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones? Sign me up! Was it the 5 star novel I was hoping for? No, but it was rather close.The writing is excellent. Tessa Gratton knows what she is doing and she does it well. The plot could have been fleshed out more - it was more about the characters and incessant backstory, rather than moving the plot forward. To be honest, nothing much happened for the first 50% or so of the novel, which really is a waste.The characters could have all been fascinating, but they just...were by the end. Princess Elia and Ban the Fox were people I wanted to see more of, but most of the novel didn't focus on them. Princess Gaela, could have been amazing. But, ultimately Gaela was extremely disturbing at some points. Princess Regan, could have been amazing, but her story didn't really go where I hoped it would go. There are a lot of characters running around, but their stories don't really go anywhere interesting.Overall, it's a great concept - it just wasn't what I wanted it to be.

The writing was enchanting it drew me in immediately. I enjoyed the story as well. The only reason I give it 4 stars and not 5 is because it was told in different characters points of view. Normally I don’t mind this but it seemed the author would end these character’s points of view right when you were getting into their story, then switching to another character and not necessarily from the current time frame but to the past. This made getting into the story a bit difficult and frustrating. I feel like this took away from the story.

I've read all of Gratton's books. Most of them have been young adult, and so this was quite the departure. The language in this book, the imagery, the feelings, were amazing. I felt like I fell into the book each time I opened it.There was intrigue, love, duels, back stabbing, and all the twisted plot pieces necessary for a good novel. But her verbiage and ability to string together sentences was astounding. I felt like I was reading a book on the level of Game of Thrones, but with an ending, or something from the world of Shannara, but without the long drawn out marches of which Brooks seems so fond.I highly recommend this book and author. Watching her literary talent bloom over the years has been quite the impressive escalation.

I loved the writing style. It reminded me of the European folklore and fairy tales. Beautiful. The characters were complex and well developed.

I hoped to love this book.Instead I wanted to stop reading several times.. The author spent a great deal of time repeating the same idea. The overdone descriptions often contained obscure vocabulary. The story was a long chew with very a unforfilling end.

Three daughters, star mysteries, a forest that feels and chooses the rulers of the land. Magic wells, superb writing. Recommended by Robyn McKinley and of a caliber that joins McCaffrey, McKillip and McKinley in quality.Love, treachery, families, fate and power all combined to make a happily long story that the reader is lead through by the writer with beauty of language and depth of plot. Loved it and will look for more by this author.

If you have been looking for a Shakespeare retelling that is both respectful to its source material while also carving a path for itself within the fantasy genre, then The Queens of Innis Lear is for you.The Queens of Innis Lear tells the fantastical tale of the kingdom of Innis Lear, its prophecy-obsessed King, Lear, and his three daughters: Gaela, Reagan, and Elia, as the crown is passed from father to daughter(s) leading the players and the kingdom to the brink of all out war.Gratton's prose were absolutely breathtaking that I almost forgot that I was reading a 575 page monstrosity. As King Lear is my favourite of Shakespeare's tragedies I had a firm grasp on the play, its characters, and themes when going into this that I couldn't help but appreciate all of the Easter eggs that were sprinkled throughout the novel . The reason I am saying this is if you want to appreciate what exactly Gratton did, do yourself a favour and at least read the SparkNotes version of the Shakespeare play.The fantastical elements of The Queens of Innis Lear was quite inventive of Gratton. In the novel there are those who believe in the stars and those who believe in the trees. There are of course consequences to using either of them, leaving the reader conflicted, as it is for everything in this novel, and by the end my reading l I felt that I had ingested some rootwaters of Innis Lear, left to pick up the pieces of whether the magic was worth using at all.Much like Shakespeare, Gratton's story is truly elevated by its morally gray cast of characters. The three queens were absolutely stunning to read about. Usually I am not one to enjoy novels that flip from the present to the past but each detail included about the queens was necessary for the conclusion of the novel. As with the play I disliked Gaela and Reagan, feeling sympathy only for Elia, the only one actually doing things for the good of the people rather than corruptly for herself. Plus, the love triangle between Elia, Ban the Fox, and Morimaros made for an explosive finale. My only issue with the characters is that there wasn't enough eye gouging. I'm weird with my appreciation of the play and hyper focus on the torture technique of eye gouging.

Seduced by the sumptuous U.K. hardback cover of The Queens of Innis Lear, I fell into the 568 page tome, only to find that it was actually a tomb.By page 78 I was still struggling to pick up the sense, the feel, the direction of this story, not having read the Shakespeare original.My goodness what a lot of words and sentences! But they have to mean something, have an “adding to” capacity to the characters, the mood, and the story, not just be there without purpose.Personally I like a long book, I have just read a trilogy, and each book had over 700 pages. And it never felt onerous as the action was interesting, the characters deep and the story really captivating.The thing that really lost me with The Queens of Innis Lear however, was that almost every other chapter was, like “2 years ago/ 10 years ago /5 years ago/20 years ago”, quite randomly time-wise, perhaps relative to the story, but I had started to skip those sections in order to try and hang onto the plot. Scooted to the last few chapters - before I lost the will to live - which at least carried the story succinctly to its conclusion.If this had been more concise, directed, it could have been an exciting read. The good bones are there. I’m sorry, as the author sounds an interesting person.P.S. Even the gold is rubbing of the cover.

An enthralling story of love and betrayal with a vivid landscape. The writing pulled me into the story. The book builds through a patchwork of the current storyline and back story in the past.

The book arrived quickly and in excellent condition. I have wanted to read this for ages, and I wasn’t disappointed.

There’s a lot to admire about this retelling of King Lear with its representation of female characters of colour and beauty and non-gender conforming characteristics. It also has a strong setting in a world of strange and powerful magic, with a rich history and intricate politics. But that didn’t stop it from being a struggle to read at times. The pace is slow, the narrative constantly swapping between a range of characters as well as taking trips into the past. However, it is also beautifully written with lovely lyrical passages and even bits of Shakespeare dotted here and there.My biggest problem was the characters – and the fact that I struggled to like any of them. Oldest sister Gaela is full of rage and passion, but is also ambitious and selfish and more prone to hate than love. Middle sister Regan is beautiful and cunning, also ambitious and rather single-minded in her selfish pursuit of her goals. But those are the older sisters and we aren’t supposed to really like them, though I did at times feel for both. Gaela because of the prophecy over her mother’s death and how that impacted everything about her, and Regan for her desire to be a mother and the love she had for her husband. None of that stopped them from being difficult to like, but they’re the bad sisters, so that was mostly expected.Elia was worse, because we’re supposed to like her, to get behind her, to want her to win. But she’s so whiny and passive, letting everyone make all the decisions for her because she just wants everyone to love each other – while she herself doesn’t want to love anyone because… of some suspect reasoning. I had hopes for her as the book progressed, but even when she seems ready to take control of things, she still waits for everyone else to make the decisions and gets annoyed when others step in to her passive void. Yet everyone loves her because she’s Elia, the youngest fairytale princess, and that’s how the story goes.Away from the three sisters there’s Lear, who is mad and has little personality beyond his Shakespearean role. There is also Ban, who for most of the book was the one character I liked. He’s the antagonist in all, as apt to take action as Elia is to sit back and wait. He’s not good and he’s certainly not innocent, but he is interesting. His magic is dark and earthy and I really liked how he made things work. But, alas, as the book went on I liked him less. Mostly it was when he got mixed up with Regan that I lost all liking for him. With everything he knew, everything he’d been, that sudden swerve made little sense to me – except to serve the narrative. We also have Mars, the foreign king, who falls for Elia for no obvious reason and is a real whiny wet blanket considering what he’s supposed to be. He and Elia deserved each other, they could talk in drips.Other characters pop up here and there, with the men usually being lacklustre and ineffective and the women having a little more life. I would have liked to have seen more of Brona, the Witch of the White Forest, but sadly we spent more time with Elia’s maid and best friend who kept trying to show how great Elia was, but left me unconvinced.Which is a shame, because the world this is set in is rich and detailed and I loved the magic. There’s the cold and distant star magic of charts and prophecies, and the worm magic of trees and dirt and life and root water. Whenever the magic got involved everything became more interesting, it’s just a shame the characters kept getting in the way. The plot too has plenty of potential, taking what it needs from the play and embellishing – particularly with regard to the lost queen. But the pace is slow and tended to drag, and with all the tension that builds and builds, I found the ending slightly anticlimactic. Which left me feeling rather flat about the whole book. The idea was interesting, the magic and world is great, but in the end it just didn’t quite live up to all it might have been.