The Priory of the Orange Tree

, #1

by

Hardcover, 849 pages

Published Feb. 26, 2019 by Bloomsbury Circus.

ISBN:
978-1-4088-8346-4
Copied ISBN!

View on OpenLibrary

(5 reviews)

A world divided. A queendom without an heir. An ancient enemy awakens.

The House of Berethnet has ruled Inys for a thousand years. Still unwed, Queen Sabran the Ninth must conceive a daughter to protect her realm from destruction – but assassins are getting closer to her door.

Ead Duryan is an outsider at court. Though she has risen to the position of lady-in-waiting, she is loyal to a hidden society of mages. Ead keeps a watchful eye on Sabran, secretly protecting her with forbidden magic.

Across the dark sea, Tané has trained to be a dragonrider since she was a child, but is forced to make a choice that could see her life unravel.

Meanwhile, the divided East and West refuse to parley, and forces of chaos are rising from their sleep.

7 editions

reviewed The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon (The Roots of Chaos, #1)

The Priory of the Orange Tree

I held off on this one for a while due to the length, but I'm glad I finally gave it a go.

There are a LOT of character introductions throughout the book, and listening to this on audiobook, I had to frequently pause to try to remember who was who. I would probably recommend pairing with the book itself to help with tracking if that's usually an issue for you as well when listening. It got a lot easier once some of the characters started dying haha.

I'm not usually one for high fantasy just due to the overall reading time that is usually involved. But I really appreciated that you have the whole story wrapped up in this book. While it is a part of a trilogy, this is very much a standalone book. I think if I had realized that, I would have picked it up sooner. Definitely …

reviewed The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon (The Roots of Chaos, #1)

Many nice ideas

Many interesting ideas and some strong leading female characters, but the plot felt contrived at times or needlessly confusing, with inconsistencies (like distance and travel time), and some parts of the worldbuilding felt too simplistic -- also I wasn't too impressed with the quests for magic objects. Edit : also worth mentionning is that in the 800 pages, there really isn't much happening at the Priory of the title.

avatar for KnittedMushroom@bookwyrm.social

rated it