Three daughters battle for the crown in this epic fantasy. The house is divided and everyone has their own plan. These three strong women will have you questioning and then agreeing with their decisions. Can they bring back magic without destroying all around them? I couldn’t put this book down and I was so drawn into the world that was built. Hurry up and pick this book!

Love that this is a fantasy retelling of Shakespeare's King Lear. More Shakespeare retellings! <3
That being said, this book was SO wordy that it really dragged and wasn't always very fun to read. Thought about DNFing a few times because it just seemed so weighty and I went into it expecting something a little more accessible (isn't this YA?)

This book was well-written, it’s character-driven and the characters are well-drawn. There’s not a lot of action in this book, but I feel the Ms. Gratton did this to set up the story that will continue in future books. The story is filled with metaphors and symbolism that I found beautiful. It has betrayals, intrigues both personal and political, hidden motives and secrets. It is written with different POV’x (six is my count is correct) so the reader needs to pay attention.

King Lear is the ruler of an island nation that has two different types of magic; he follows the star-based magic of the stars which deal with prophecies and despises the other magic of the soil and root water and springs. After the death of his wife he covered most of the wells causing unrest. He is old, cruel and losing his mind. He has three daughters and each one is different; the two eldest Gaela and Regan are close and they have always ignored their youngest sister, Elia.

As the eldest, Gaela expects to inherit the throne from her father, she is filled with anger and rage, she trains as a warrior and intends to be a warrior-queen when she has the throne. She is married, but the only reason is because she need the men that he husband has; she despises him and has no intention of bearing his children or the child of any man. She sees her sister, Regan as more of a partner than her husband but she would destroy her if she thought that she would try to take the throne from her. Although she doesn’t believe in either type of magic she is content to let the people worship as they please if they obey her.

Regan, is a witch who uses the magic of the earth and water for her own purposes. She is madly in love with her husband and longs to give him a child but has been unable to carry one to fruition. Gaela has told her that it will be her child that will inherit the throne from her and while she has some aspirations for the throne it is only because of her husband; if she were queen she would be the figurehead and he would be the ruler. Both she and Gaela believe that father had something to do with the death of their mother.

Elia is the youngest child and the favorite of their father, she follows his worship of the stars and constellations. As a child she also had some knowledge of the earth-based magic. She had a friend, Ban who was the bastard son of the earl of Errigal who taught her about this magic. Her father disapproved of the friendship between the two of them and had his father banish him from Leer six years ago. Since this she has mostly forgotten what she knew of the other type of magic. She has no aspirations for the throne and wants to be a priestess to the stars. Over the years she has tried to get closer to her sisters but they have always rebuffed her efforts. She does not believe that her father had anything to do with the death of their mother and this is just one more thing they hold against her.

Ban has become a deadly soldier known as The Fox for the king of the nearby kingdom of Aremoria, Morimaros who wants to marry Elia. I think this will become a love triangle in subsequent books which is one of my least favorite plots. However, I did enjoy this novel and will probably read the next one.

4.25/5 Stars: **I received a free digital ARC in exchange for an honest, unbiased review. I sincerely thank the author and/or publisher for providing an ARC through NetGalley,.**

First lovely thanks to Tessa Gratton, Tor Books and Netgalley for giving me an oppurtunity to read this tale for free in exchange for an honest opinion.

I had no idea that this was in short a retelling because as someone who has not read Shakespeare "King Lear" since high school, and not for fun mind you, this lavish tale can be read on it's own and it's beautifully well done.
Gratton has done an amazing job in creating this world and the the POC cast within is also just so brilliant that this can be read independent from the Shakespeare tale as I read maybe 3/4 in before realizing why it sounded oddly familiar. Right from the prologue, my attention was snagged and I kept reading till I was done which doesn't happen as often any more. Gratton, has in her writing, taken the basics of the established characters, added her own twist in order to make them feel new and still respective of the originals as her world is a bit more bleaker and gray around the edges than what Shakespeare originally wrote.

After having some time to think about it, I still come back to the princesses as not only were they a focus of the book, Gratton allowed them to have individual voices and thoughts that really spearheaded who they were as individuals and women in the ever changing man's world they are trying to reign over and the fact that they are women of color, really made that feel more modern as they were not just separated from each other, but themselves as well as the inhabitants of the island.

This review was originally posted on http://fictionistmag.com/

I've never read a Shakespeare play other than Romeo and Juliet -- and I wouldn't really even count that, since it was one of those high school group readings where we basically ran lines together.

I picked up The Queens of Innis Lear because it sounded intriguing and had crossover potential (it's an adult high fantasy book, but it got attention from those who read YA as well). I kept reading because it was intriguing. The writing style threw me off a bit at first, but it ended up drawing me in. It's descriptive, a little wordy, but still interesting and not hard to read.

The Queens of Innis Lear follows King Lear's daughters, whose mother passed away. They aren't necessarily friends, as they each believe their father will name them the next King of Innis Lear -- I would guess that the use of 'King' no matter the gender of the monarch is a Shakespeare thing, but I'm not sure. The book follows these sisters as they follow each of their paths to the throne.

This book wasn't a can't-put-it-down experience for me, probably because of the writing style and the slow nature of the plot, but it was definitely an enjoyable experience. Though I have no knowledge of the source material, it was a refreshing departure from my usual YA fantasy, and I will be looking for more from Tessa Gratton in the future.

So this took me a bit of time to get through. And I didn’t realize it wasn’t the full book so I saw it at the store and was very confused so now I have to buy it and read the book so I can figure out what happened! Gah! Hahaha but I guess it was good so far from what I read! I feel for poor Elia though.

From the excerpt I received through NetGalley, this book is intense. I can't wait to get my hands on a full copy.

I received a free ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This book is good - really good. I want to be clear about that from the start. This book is also dark. It is both, but the second one may be a little problematic for some readers. Those who are combing reviews looking for bits and pieces of information to tell them a little more about the story, I say the following: you will not be sorry that you read this book. But you might need to read it in small chunks if tragedy is not your thing.

This book is based on Shakespeare's 'King Lear' which is a brilliant play about people I kind of hate. Never, until I read Game of Thrones, had I so viscerally loathed characters. This book takes all that and adds a fantastical twist to the whole thing which is both genius and so bold that I found myself in awe of the writer at various points for giving it a shot at all, let alone pulling it off. What I really loved about this book was that it brought depth and complexity to characters that can seem flat when reading Shakespeare - this is less of a problem with King Lear (see above re: love to hate) but fundamentally, plays are meant to be SEEN, not read. "Queens of Innislear" is able to overcome that by virtue of being a novel, but there's no resting on laurels here. The characters are put through the wringer in a great way, but I'll admit it's hard to read at times (because what's happening is wrenching and tragic, not because the prose is bad. The prose is excellent).

Technically, the book is excellent - well written, well paced and well edited. The characters are diverse, multidimensional and do not mess around. This is a worthy read, and I'm glad I had the chance to experience it.

This book sounds so intriguing. The language is beautiful. Unfortunately the beginning was confusing and turned me off completely. Just not for me.

This was a preview of a book vs. a full novel, so it's enough whet the reader's appetite. This novel is an updated take on King Lear, one of my personal favorites. Following it's source plot, The Queens of Innis Lear tells the tale of three sisters and a mad king. Where it veers away is that this book is full of magical realism. It's an interesting take that has garnered many comparisons to Game of Thrones.

I did enjoy this book, and I loved Gaela especially. She’s everything I wanted to be when I grew up, when I was a teenager.
However, I feel like she was the only character we really got to know throughout this story. Elia, despite being the sister around whom the plot mostly revolved, has very little screen time and even less personality. Regan is barely in it and has one hell of a one-track mind.
I also felt like the story presented very little action or conflict, and a lot of it was told in flashbacks that did not present any real information that furthered the story in any way. Most of the book was about people standing around and talking.
So I would definitely recommend this book, but it isn’t quite what I was hoping for.

Definitely not for me.
The writing and the world building is confusing and I felt that a lot of infodump is just thrown without a good execution

This was an absolutely brilliant adaptation of Shakespeare's 'King Lear'. Many adaptations of any major work lean very heavily on the original, making it almost necessary to have read the original in order to understand the new work. Tessa Gratton's 'The Queens of Innis Lear' does not make this mistake. Her novel soars quite independently, the link to the famous play only serving to highlight her original take on it.

I adored the different characters Gratton creates, especially the three sisters. They are fascinating portrayals of desire, drive, anger, love, control, anger and so much more. She crafts them beautifully and within a few chapters I was absolutely lost to them. I am desperate to read more about them, to see how Gratton develops them, grows their characters, motivates their actions. This is all supported by Gratton's beautiful prose which strikes a perfect balance between magical and grounded. Whether she is describing Innis Lear's nature and magic or her characters' internal struggles, she brings it to the reader in a stunning and real way. I can't wait to read the rest of this novel!

Queens of Innis Lear is a retelling of Shakespeare play King Lear. The book is spread out in 5 pats, similar to the 5 acts in the play. The names of 2 of the daughters were changed (not sure why).

Goneril (Lear’s eldest daughter) is Gaela in the book

Regan (Lear’s second daughter) is still Regan in the book

Cordelia (Lear’s youngest daughter) is Elia in the book

The location for the book is the Island of Lear, not England. The island in itself is an amazing character, with its own language that only those with magic can hear and understand. Seeing the turmoil that the land was going through during the story was in my eyes a story in itself.

Lear doesn’t believe in the magic of the land, he rather the follow the magic of the stars, since they never change, ever constant. The stars predicted his wife’s arrival, the birth of 3 daughters and the death of his wife. He chose to let the stars dictate his life and how he should go about handling his people. After the death of his wife, the strain started building between his daughters and himself.

Outside of the daughters and Lear, there are a number of characters that play roles in the story, even if they are the outside characters whose impact doesn’t play vital parts. I found I had a soft spot for Ban the Fox, the bastard son of Earl Errigal. He never wavered over the use of his magic. He uses it while being a soldier for the King of Aremoria. Ban I felt was the most to gain or lose in the entire story, and I honestly cannot blame him for the part he had by the end.

There is quite a bit of political intrigue, masked motives, secrets, betrayals and magic in this book.

I won’t lie this is a very word heavy book, and at times it can drag. I felt that there were parts in the story that didn’t need to be there, it was just there for descriptions sake. The action didn’t show until the last part of the book, so if you are expecting action right away you will be sadly disappointed.

There were times I was considering DNFing it, but I just had to see how this book was going to end despite knowing how the play ends.

It made for a good fantasy story, even if you don’t know anything about the play, it’s worth picking up. The promise is there. Just make sure you set enough time aside to read all of it, not a quick read.

Although I only read the Netgalley extended excerpt of this book (about 200 pages I would say?), I definitely need to pick up my own copy of this story soon! Gratton's writing just gripped me from the beginning, and I found myself thoroughly immersed in this retelling of Shakespeare's King Lear.

Gratton paints a delightful, diverse, feminist spin on King Lear as we follow the stories of three sisters with a father who believes that destinies are written in the stars. The characters and their motives are complex, and I think Gratton weaved the superb magic system and character development perfectly alongside the plot. I can't wait to see where else the story takes Gaela, Regan, and Elia once I pick up a full, finished copy!

“Tell me: what is this crown in my lap made of?”
“Love and rubies.”
“The bronze is for the love, then?”
“The bronze is the island metal, the rubies its blood. What else is love but mettle and blood?”
“The crown of Innis Lear is not made of love,” said Gaela Lear, soft and challenging. “It is made of dying stars, and lying mouths.”

Originally at 3.5 stars, I’ve bumped it up to 4 in consideration of the overall elements of the book, but this may be subject to change. I read a preview of the book, which seemed to be about half the book itself. It halted abruptly at a rather key moment – where Elia finally decides to take action – and I really need to know what happens next. My full review, and final rating, will follow once I have completed the book.

Something I didn’t realise until actually starting the book is that this is a loose retelling of King Lear, but far richer in detail and with its own unique take on the characters and subject matter. I LOVE King Lear, and was so excited to discover its presence here upon reading. What is better than getting an old favourite, done in detail, with a touch of magic thrown in?

The novel follows the basic premise of the original tale where the three daughters of an old king – Lear – are summoned to his side and asked to prove their love to him. He swears to divvy up the land depending on which answer he likes best. Chaos ensues. (I don’t want to spoil it!) Gratton has plucked some of the juiciest lines from the play and placed them within the mouths of her own characters. This intertextuality is most noticeable in this iconic latter scene, the ‘Zenith Court’ within the book, with the dialogue matching closely. It was nice to have this distinct marker; and both heartwarming and heartbreaking to have one of my favourite quotes and moments practically verbatim within the story:

“Nothing will come from nothing. Try again, daughter.”
“I cannot heave my heart into my mouth, Father. I love you… as I should love you, being your daughter, and always have. You know this.”

The original daughters, Goneril, Regan and Cordelia, are reborn as the titular Queens of Innis Lear, the princesses Gaela, Regan and Elia. The female characters are the best part about this novel. They are each so well-rounded and with their own unique perspective. Gaela is a battle-ready commander who wants to be King, not Queen. She loves her sister Regan more than anything on earth, and Regan loves her too. Regan is feminine, but cruel. She’s trying to have a child with the man she, surprisingly, loves – but is struggling with a series of miscarriages. Elia is the youngest and most beloved by her father – that hasn’t changed. But in this novel she’s a Star Priest who truly doesn’t know who she is.

I love the OG Goneril from King Lear as a character, so I was amazingly happy to find I highlighted SO MANY of her moments in the book.

When she fought, Gaela knew she did not need any root blessing or star prophecy. She was born to be king.

“Make or break yourself, Gaela Lear, and take this island with you.”
“I will break myself in order to make myself,” Gaela whispered, shivering suddenly with pain and promise.

Her bond with Regan is the true star of the book – where Regan is so incredibly complex, I’ve only just been able to scratch the surface of her characterisation.

All Regan knew was that her sister had the stars of conquerors in her sky, and such men did not love well. Gaela thought she was beyond love’s reach, while Regan believed herself to be composed of nothing but love.

Whilst I liked Elia, I don’t 100% agree with Gratton’s interpretation of the character of Cordelia. Hopefully she improves, because she was being really wishy-washy – which I don’t think is actually Cordelia in the original King Lear.

“Who are you?” he’d hissed, before shutting the door again. Right in her face.
Who are you? Elia wanted to scream that she did not know.

Her best friend and maid, Aefa – the Fool’s daughter, is another story. An original addition, she’s pretty awesome. Fiercely loyal and devoted to her mistress, she provides a whole other frame to the tale. She also seems bi – which is awesome.

The representation in this book is brilliant. It echoes the modern changes in theatre and stage Shakespeare that we’re seeing currently, with the roles being diversified and allowing such differences to bring out better things in the original works. There was also this little gem on the discussion of Gaela’s womb:

“This is not what makes a woman, or the lack of which that makes a man.”

The main characters are explicitly diverse, and it just goes to show how easy it is to do in a high fantasy setting.
The prose, whilst heavy, isn’t too much – and is absolutely beautiful. I have PAGES highlighted through my copy. The imagery in here is stunning and really makes up for some of the book’s shortfalls.

Both earth and stars were needed for magic: roots and blood for power, the stars to align them. Without both, everything was wild, or everything was dead. Here, it was dying. Ban couldn’t – he wouldn’t let it happen. Not to the trees and wind. Not to this hungry island that birthed him. The only thing in his life to never let him go, to never choose someone else.

The book absolutely crawls. The pace is very slow, which can be nice if you like that. I was really slogging through at certain points – particularly with the dense language – but such language, and certain character moments do make it worth it. Gratton certainly gives the narrative room to breathe, but during the first half I felt like barely anything had happened. Particularly because I’m intimately familiar with the original King Lear, I was despairing at one moment, realising I was nearing the final pages of my preview and had barely passed Act 1, Sc. 4. The book certainly fleshes out the story though, giving you character perspectives and insight into multiple characters. It provides a narrative and different actions for their invented ‘offstage’ movements from within the original tale.

This pace highlights that this book is a different story. Things that differentiate it are the entirely different world, certain characterisations and relationships, new characters, the magic system, and the overall depth. But the fundamental difference is that King Lear is, undeniably, Lear’s tale. The Queens of Innis Lear is his daughters’.

ARC provided in exchange for an honest review. Thanks to the publisher for the opportunity to review! ♥

I found this to be a really lyrical and poignant re-imagining of King Lear, set in a magical land where wizards cast blood magic to harness the power of the land and the ailing King just wants to follow the prophecies of the stars. First things first. This is not a quick read - the book is a hefty one and the narrative is paced languidly, which gives the reader the time to get to grips with the many characters but does not make for an unputdownable page turner. I really appreciated the detail and depth that Gratton has gone into and once I understood that it was not going to be fast, I settled in to a really beautiful character study that showed the nuance in everyone's nature. I found Regan the most interesting of the 3 sisters and her motivations were not always clear, which I thought was a wise move on the author's part. Elia had an edge to her that I found appealing and Gaela was a fascinating woman, living a man's life in a male-dominated world. Ultimately, this novel won't appeal to everyone. There will be people who struggle with the slow pacing, but for me, I thought it was a fantastic book and I will look forward to reading Gratton in the future.
I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.

The full copy of this book was not included so I cannot live a finished opinion.

*Review based on ARC preview (200 pages) from NetGalley.

Beautiful, lush writing, excellent characterization, plus a super interesting world and kingdom made me fly through this short sample. Ok, the preview wasn’t *that* short, roughly 200 pages, but it stopped right in the middle of something I wanted to learn more about, definitely making it seem shorter than it was.

Griping aside, I adored what Gratton did with this novel. Essentially a reimagining of King Lear, but there’s a feminist twist that makes it fresh and unique while still holding true to the original. I am a sucker for any and all retellings, and that’s what drew me to this book in the first place. The pacing isn’t overly quick, and I actually prefer the slower pace of this book because there are so many intricacies, so many details, and I want to devour this beauty as slowly as I can.

Bottom line - I loved everything I’ve read in this short preview, and I’m certainly going to dive in to the full novel in the coming week or so. Gorgeous and lush writing with a feminist twist on an old classic makes TheQueens of Innis Lear a definite winner for me.

I received a preview excerpt of this book from the publisher, through NetGalley for a voluntary review.

I was very intrigued by this story from the Shakespeare version of King Lear that seemed to set the tone of this book and from the beautiful cover and synopsis. As I began the excerpt, I felt that the language and imagery that was invoked by Tessa Gratton was beautiful and described the lands well. I was drawn to her style of writing as the development of the characters began as you met Gaela, Reagan, and Elia. I was drawn to Gaela’s strength and confidence, but quickly got lost in what story was being told about her and why she made the decisions she had made. I did like that there was an LGBT element intertwined in the story to give a different perspective of the Gaela’s character. You see her struggle with becoming who she is meant to be and the physical and emotional pain she is anguishing over as she speaks to the White Witch to come to a conclusion. This might explain why, from the very start she was very power hungry and vowed to take the Kingdom from King Lear with the help of her sister, Reagan who would birth the heirs to the throne. I also grieved and felt the pain Reagan experiences as she tries to carry out a pregnancy to fulfill both she and her sister’s wish to provide heirs to the throne. I have to say I enjoyed the character of Elia and felt drawn to her the most, simply because she was kind, misunderstood, and seemed to have not been able to be an active participant in her own life due to outside influence from her father and her sister’s. The King was a bit of a madman, only consulting in the stars for every decision made which made sense as to why Gaela would ascertain that she should be ruler and strived to take it. Of the other characters, I really liked Ban Errigal and would like to have seen Ban and Elia together, however if Shakespeare’s King Lear’s story line was to crossover to this book, it would be difficult to hold the same opinion if he followed through with the tragic plot with his brother and father.

Honestly throughout the book the positive connotations of the beautiful imagery and character development tended to grow dull and cumbersome as the book wore on. I felt that Tessa Gratton certainly wove a beautiful story and her writing style was very unique and well written, however I have to admit there were large sections of the story I would re-read or come back to read to ensure that I was following along. There were flashbacks that were wonderful to give perspective on each character, but even those sometimes felt as though they weren’t as conducive to the story as they could have been or that it drug out the storyline and wasn’t required. I would be interested in finishing the complete book to provide a final review and will look to read it in the near future to do so.