Kill the Queen (Crown of Shards #1)

Since Game of Thrones is included in the first 5 words of the synopsis, its fair to say that in Kill the Queen Estep has shamelessly recycled high profile GOT elements, like the Red Wedding, Joffreys sadistic insanity, and assigning Fire and Ice . . . er, Winter and Summer, to her major royal line.

Its rare for an author to sell the female gladiator. It took Ilona Andrews a couple of novels to develop Kate Daniels to the point where she worked for me. Everleighs training and development timeline in KtQ is just silly. Im also exhausted by the number of authors who think Villains must be Universally Rabid Crazy Sadistic Nutjobs Period. Im exhausted by the special snowflake heroine (a disclaimer to being such a thing is actually used, without merit, by Everleigh at one point in the story).

Kill the Queen is what I consider a fast, brainless read that is usually offered by Indie authors at $2.99 to $5.99. I look for more originality and polish from a long-established author like Estep. I look for a better story when I pay $10.99 for a novel.

Wait until the next few books are released and they drop the price to KtQ to a teaser level before you make the investment!

I wanted to like this book but I have difficulty with the author’s writing style. Evie is supposed to be 28 years old but her thoughts and speech make her come across as about 10 years younger. Also, the author will drag out a point with redundant streams of thought and then rather than leave some meaning up to the inference of the reader, the author will explain things inside of relying on her story telling capabilities. I prefer being shown rather than being told, and this author does a lot of telling.

The main character is super annoying, doesn’t think very critically, and is prone to silliness in a way that is not endearing. Evie would be more likable if she weren’t almost 30. She’s whiny and kind of dumb. It makes no sense for her to focus so much on her childhood experiences with the villain (which werent that bad honestly) and not on the severely traumatic event the book opens with. I can’t help but feel this is a limitation in the author with a lack of research and refinement in skill.

Then the story, which starts out with potential, veers right off the path an into cheese town. I mean *MINOR SPOILER*** There’s a literal dance off. I just can’t.

And then, there is a lack of character development. The story is handled in small bouts of Evie’s stream of consciousness, some minimal dialogue, an action scene, and then fast forward through time and all of a sudden relationships have developed. Evie will look at characters and think “there’s sly zerelda, and strong Sullivan” etc, but we are literally never shown these things about the characters. We just hear evie tell us who these people are.

Minor Spolier
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Finally, you have Evie who knows she is in line for the thrown, who has presented herself as caring and selfless, but has to be convinced to save her people from a war? She literally was willing to die over a dance off but drew the line at becoming queen. And she admits to being confused all the time but NEVER does anything to figure stuff out for herself. She will eavesdrop and be all “hmmmmmmm what they’re saying seems important but I dont know what it means” and the just dismiss it without investigating. She is the worst.

“My mother has been his mistress since before I was born” (Chapter 26). This makes me question who proofread this book. I reread this multiple times, trying to see if there was something I was missing, but no, it’s not me, it actually doesn’t make sense. When a married man has an affair with a woman, that woman is usually called his mistress. The only way she wouldn’t be his mistress is if it was a one night stand, and even then there would be 9 months before the baby is born for a relationship to form. We already knew that he was raised among his half siblings, so this line is just a little ridiculous. I literally laughed out loud when I read it.

It takes ten chapters for the plot to actually begin. From the description we know that her family dies and she joins a gladiator troupe, but it takes so, so long to get to that point! I feel like the story should have begun at the massacre, and have the details added slowly for context.

The protagonist was sassy, smart, and funny. I loved the dynamic between her and the love interest, and when she succeeded I found myself smiling along with her. The plot is interesting and pulls you in. I needed to find out what happened next, but god it was just filled with cliches. When Evie is trying to convince the gladiator leader to accept her into the troupe, the leader doesn’t believe her story and says, “the only thing that would make it even more cliche is if you claimed that you were some long-lost princess, desperate to become a warrior so you can reclaim your kingdom from evildoers”… (-_-) … that’s exactly what the plot is. Calling out the cliche just makes it worse. Not only that, but the whole book the love interest calls her “princess” as a mocking nickname… not knowing that she truly was a princess.

All in all, I regret buying this book. It was not a good purchase. The idea is so good, and most of the writing wasn’t too bad. But the continuous cliches made me cringe, turning what could have been a good thing into just a joke.

Utter tosh. I intensely dislike heroines who constantly whine and moan about what a hard lot they have been given in life. This is one of those books. I got through about 50% of the book hoping it would improve and we wouldnt get YET another example of or reference to how horrible people had been to the poor widdle heroine BUT it just had to keep popping up. Page after page after page.
I also dislike books where the main character suddenly develops amazing powers and suddenly can take on and beat, in combat, seasoned soldiers and gladiators with no effort or ounce of training. Its super lazy writing.
Im even more disapointed that this book got good reviews.

I have been a fan of Jennifer Esteps work for some time now and I have been looking forward to this book since it was first publicised. I am so happy that I was not disappointed in any way. This book takes all of the very best things from previous series and none of the slightly niggly things.

The world building as always is superb and I love how the magic is softly woven into the every day existence without great fan fare during the introduction to the main character Everleigh, or Evie as she prefers to be known. Evie is a minor royal with supposedly little magic, whose parents were assassinated when she was 12. After being shunted round the kingdom she ended up at the main court, with her cousin the Queen. With no money, power, position or magic she was treated little better than a servant, who had to work for her living by apprenticing to the Royal Jeweller and attending all the annoying functions that no one else in the royal family could be bothered with. She is educated, but not particularly talented with a sword. She becomes very good at surviving the cut throat politics of the court.

At age 28, she thought she was close to reaching her dream of going back to her parents estate and opening up the house again, after saving nearly every penny she had ever earned from jewellery commissions, when she attends a function. The events of this function change her life it ways she never thought possible.

We see Evie as she makes new friends and learns new skills, as she tries to survive betrayal and loss.

Evie is a fantastic character, she is smart and determined, she can be cold, calculating and ruthless, but she has a heart. She cares for people even when she tells herself that she is allowing herself to be vulnerable. She battles and struggles with her weaknesses, working hard to overcome them. I liked the other characters in the book as they had depth and you know that future books in the series will flesh them out further.

I loved every page of this book and I cannot wait for the next one, even if I it wont be coming out until 2019!

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