The Queens of Innis Lear Book Review

The Queens of Innis Lear by Tessa Gratton

From Goodreads: A kingdom at risk, a crown divided, a family drenched in blood.

The erratic decisions of a prophecy-obsessed king have drained Innis Lear of its wild magic, leaving behind a trail of barren crops and despondent subjects. Enemy nations circle the once-bountiful isle, sensing its growing vulnerability, hungry to control the ideal port for all trade routes.

The king’s three daughters—battle-hungry Gaela, master manipulator Reagan, and restrained, starblessed Elia—know the realm’s only chance of resurrection is to crown a new sovereign, proving a strong hand can resurrect magic and defend itself. But their father will not choose an heir until the longest night of the year, when prophecies align and a poison ritual can be enacted.

Refusing to leave their future in the hands of blind faith, the daughters of Innis Lear prepare for war—but regardless of who wins the crown, the shores of Innis will weep the blood of a house divided.

Hey everyone, how are you all doing? Ready for another book review? [P.S. If you’d rather check out a video of this review, you can do so riiiiiight here.]

I got a copy of The Queens… in my May ‘Stargazers’ box from Book Box Club. The cover was really stunning [blue and gold is my favourite cover combination] and I love the way the stars look in the distance on the jacket. The spine is also really pretty, so I think we all need a moment to appreciate how effing spectacular this book looks. Also, as I will mention again and again in this review, it is also H.U.G.E. It only clocks in around 560 pages, but it weighs quite a bit and it also feels like I read a lot more than I usually did, if you get what I mean?

When I first picked up this book, I figured it sounded like a cross between Three Ddark Crowns by Kendare Blake and King Lear by Shakespeare. And boy, was I right. This book is actually a King Lear retelling, with some new and unique plot twists and alterations along the way to keep you on your toes. There’s also some magic thrown in there, as Innis Lear struggles to maintain the balance between the magic of the earth, deemed ‘worm’ magic, and the religion of the stars, which Lear treats as much purer.

Those bits were cool. I liked how the book tries to build on characters that we didn’t see much of in King Lear, including Regan and Gaela [known as Gonerill in the original play] and Ban the Fox [whose original name in the play I won’t disclose because spoilers]. Anyhow, these characters got more development than they did in King Lear and I liked that Gratton took some time to tinker with them, giving believable and sympathetic motives to even the antagonist character of the story [who shall now be referred to as They Who Shall Not Be Named].

The descriptions were also very pretty and verrrrryyyy flowery. Some of them were astoundingly beautiful and I love how the prologue opens with the repeated line It begins with… for each paragraph to make it sound almost like a fairy tale. Some of the writing choices were simply gorgeous and I liked how the lines flowed. However, it also didn’t strike me as a particularly YA book. I know it’s one of those ones which seems to be falling in the awkward gap between YA and Adult fantasy, with some bookshops selling it as Adult while book boxes and reviewers are labelling it YA, but for me it was not a YA book. The descriptions are really nice, but as I said, sometimes they are very flowery to the point where the pace becomes a bit stagnant and drags. And with 560ish pages, it really shouldn’t be doing that. On top of that, the language is sometimes almost Shakespearean, and while it is not too much of a problem, it does make the book seem a lot larger than it was. Maybe it would have improved for me if we had a shorter book, or one which sacrificed some of the description for action. I don’t know, it just didn’t work for me. As much as I love me some pretty description [The Raven Cycle and Strange the Dreamer are my all-time favourite YA novels] sometimes you can have too much of a good thing.

Additionally, some of the motivations for the characters and the plot twists and things were a bit… ill-considered. I’m posting a non-spoiler review here, so I won’t give too much away, but there’s the whole discovery about the mum that I was just like nope, nope, this is really dumb, why would THAT happen? There’s other things too, such as Gaela’s husband doing stuff and things with Ban and I just don’t really get it? If someone could explain some of the plot to me, that would be wonderful because I’m not certain I enjoyed what it did.

Overall, I rather enjoyed this book, even though it pretty much destroyed my buddy read with the other Book Box girls and it took me a whole week to wade through. I loved the concept but maybe the execution could have been a bit tighter. I’m going to give The Queens of Innis Lear a 6.5/10 stars.

If this book sounds like something that’s up your street you can purchase a copy for yourself through Waterstones, Amazon UK or using my Book Depository affiliate link here. This link will give me a small amount of money each time you use it to buy books, meaning I can upload more bookish blog posts and adventures in the future by buying more books!

Want to join the discussion? Have you read the book and agree or disagree with my review? Or maybe you’re considering picking up a copy for yourself? Either way, feel free to leave a comment below and let me know your thoughts!