Title: The Hundredth Queen
Author: Emily R. King
Type: Fiction
Genre: YA, Fantasy, Romance
Imprint: Skyscape
Publisher: Amazon Publishing
Date published: June 1, 2017
Format: Digital
Page Count: 300
Source: NetGalley
A digital copy of this book was kindly provided by the publisher through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.
Summary: As an orphan ward of the Sisterhood, eighteen-year-old Kalinda is destined for nothing more than a life of seclusion and prayer. Plagued by fevers, she’s an unlikely candidate for even a servant’s position, let alone a courtesan or wife. Her sole dream is to continue living in peace in the Sisterhood’s mountain temple.
But a visit from the tyrant Rajah Tarek disrupts Kalinda’s life. Within hours, she is ripped from the comfort of her home, set on a desert trek, and ordered to fight for her place among the rajah’s ninety-nine wives and numerous courtesans. Her only solace comes in the company of her guard, the stoic but kind Captain Deven Naik.
Faced with the danger of a tournament to the death—and her growing affection for Deven—Kalinda has only one hope for escape, and it lies in an arcane, forbidden power buried within her. In Emily R. King’s thrilling fantasy debut, an orphan girl blossoms into a warrior, summoning courage and confidence in her fearless quest to upend tradition, overthrow an empire, and reclaim her life as her own.
– MY REVIEW –
I went into reading this book with the only previous knowledge being that it had received some high ratings on Goodreads. Considering that the description really appealed to me, and was the reason (in combination with that gorgeous cover) to request this title, the fact that the reception for The Hundredth Queen had been a positive one was definitely encouraging! I fell behind on my reading schedule due to my travels (I was away for 21 days with barely any time to read), and therefore got to this book a little later than I’d planned. But I was quite happy to finally dig in once I did!
The first things that I noticed when I started reading this book was that King has interesting turns of phrase, a pleasant writing style, and that The Hundredth Queen is written in the first person. Some of you may know that I am not the biggest fan of first person, but in this case I will say that it was interesting to get Kalinda’s perspective on everything that was taking place. It was also interesting to experience all of the secondary characters through Kalinda’s eyes, and I believe that the romantic plot benefited from Kalinda narrating in the first person.
This book’s plot was fairly complex, which was definitely a plus, and there were a lot of plot twists as well! For the entire last third of this book, I was not sure what the expect from the author, and I was literally on the edge of my seat for the majority of that section. I really had no idea what turn the plot would take, and that’s honestly how I prefer it. The moment I finished this book, I requested the sequel to read and review, and I really hope that I will be approved because I am eager to see where this story is headed!
– ABOUT THE AUTHOR –
I have this one on my TBR list and I’m so glad to hear you liked it! It sounds like fun to me too.
Yaaay! Always love when that happens with books in my TBR too 🙂
Thanks so much for reading and commenting, and I hope that you enjoy the book when you get to reading it! 😀
I hope you’re able to get approved for the sequel once it comes out! And best of luck with catching up on your reading challenge 🙂
Thank youuu! I hope so too, hehe. Also thanks! I need all the luck I can get 😛 I’m ahead on my yearly goal, but I’m getting close to the deadlines for reviews and it’s stressing me out!
Yesss I’m so glad you mentioned that because I totally forgot to talk about that in my review hehe. I hope that people read all of the comments and see this! Haha. King really did a great job overall. 😀 I am curious to read the opinions of readers from the Middle East and India though!
Thanks, haha!
I’m really curious to see what readers from the Middle East and India will say as well, I really wanted to talk about the cultural aspects of this book but since I honestly don’t know much about it and am not from there I didn’t want to say anything that would be problematic or wrong!
I know exactly what you mean! Same boat 🙂 I really hope that some people from that background will leave some comments and leave us some insights!
Lovely review Flavia! This is one of my next reads 😉
Lovely review. I believe that I have this one on my TBR list, but if I don’t, I’m probably going to be adding it…though who knows when I’ll be able to squeeze it in to my reading schedule. There are just so many ARCs piled up at my house right now. Darn BookExpo and BookCon.
Good to know I’m not the only one with an insane reading schedule 😛 I love reading a lot of books, but it does suck when you want to fit in a really awesome-sounding book and just CAN’T! I wish I had Hermione’s time turner in times like this 😛 And awee I didn’t get to go to BookExpo or BookCon but that might be for the best…because I already get a ton of them in the mail hahaha.
Also thanks so much for your kind words and for reading my review! 🙂
My reading schedule is not usually this packed. I typically only have a couple ARC/galley reviews each month. But with BookExpo, BookCon, my NetGalley approvals, and just other anticipated releases, right now is basically chaos. I think my schedule is full until the end of October.
Ahhh I see! Mine is usually quite packed because I’m just….insane. It’s more like I set out to read 2 ARCs and 2 TBR books that I have sitting on my shelf. But then I find myself with WAY more than 2 ARCs….and the books on my shelf don’t get read as I struggle to get through the ARCs alone haha
Yeah, right now I’m really hoping I can fit in all of my BEA/BookCon ARCs and hopefully be able to also read at least a few books off my TBR list. We’ll just have to see what happens.
Best of luck and happy reading! 🙂
Happy reading to you as well!
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