When I requested the arc of The Queens of Innis Lear  I almost knew next to nothing about this book. I knew it was a retelling of Shakespeare's King Lear with a very strong female cast and to be honest that is all I needed to know. I love Shakespeare and as followers of my blog might know all-ready,, I have weak spot for powerful woman. You don't need to be a huge Shakespeare fan to enjoy this book, but I would highly recommend you look up the synopsis of King Lear before diving into this story.

 I myself absolutely loved it. It is my first 5 star read of 2018 and it just blew me away. I loved how the story kept largely true to the original story, but how Tessa Graton added several more layers and depth to the story. Even small parts of the original story were in-bedded in this retelling but got a whole new meaning in this fantasy context. And of course that is the main difference with the original the fantasy setting. 

Marvelously executed! I absolutely loved the detailed world-building.Lots of time is spend describing places and settings, but it never gets boring. Quite the opposite really, it brings this mystical world to live. I hope the printed edition will have a map because that would have made my reading experience even better. I kept feeling the need to look at the map so I could visualize even more. 

Apart from that The Queens of Innis Lear has a very intriguing, mysterious dark magic and believe system. In this first installment not everything is explained and revealed. But that what you do experience makes you long for more. I want to know all about how the tree magic works and how the stars are read. The magic system in itself goes wonderfully with the dark and mysterious world that is created. Its complicated with a serious amount of depth.

And the writing, lets talk about the writing for a moment. It was so hard not to fall head over heels in love with the lyrical and poetic writing style. You really could feel Shakespeare in the story, but more accessible. It is not as heavy and confusing as an original Shakespearean play might ready. Its a big book, but you fly through the pages, just wanting to know what is going to happen next. And for me that proofs how good this book really is, because I know what was coming next and still I kept craving more and more.

And then there are of course the ladies in this story. The Queens of Innis Lear.... The story is told from multiple POV's and apart from one they are all female; Tessa Graton did a wonderfull job giving each of the Lear Daughters their own voice. The characters are well developed and have their own background story; And yes, each in their own way are strong, independent woman who fight for what they believe in. 

I can hardly wait to continue on with the series! I wouldn't be surprised of The Queens of Innis Lear  would end up in my top 10 favorite books of 2018!

...Was that it? Was that the end of the book? Was that all that happened in this long, backstory-infested exposition-fest?

I'm so unbelievably disappointed.

The Writing and the Worldbuilding

The writing was excellent—truly. Tessa Gratton really has a way with words. Plots, on the other hand? Ehh, not so much. She seems to be of the opinion that you don't need a plot as long as you continue to "develop" your characters, and that said characters don't need plot to develop, but rather incessant backstory, every other chapter, for 500 pages. You can write as lyrically as you want, with as many crazy long paragraphs that go nowhere as your heart desires, but you'll never literally be Shakespeare, Gratton.

This book didn't actually do anything until the literal 50% mark, and when it did finally do something exciting, Gratton decided the best way to ruin it was to write the whole climax (or inciting incident? I can't tell anymore) in an omniscient, nonphysical narrator perspective, instead of any of the gathered characters present in the scene (all of them, to be exact; all of the perspective characters were in that scene), which only made what should have been exciting and intense feel distant, detached, unimportant, unfeeling. She decided that the only scene of any real, immediate significance was better off reminiscent of a movie playing on a TV in the background of a diner, with the audio turned off, and the subtitles lagging. That was what it felt like.

Besides that horrible choice, the book moved at a snail's pace—no, a glacial pace, but without the aid of global warming. It was a glacier moving steadily into an ice age. It was so slow.

Luckily, the world Gratton built was rather interesting, and I found my self intrigued by it.

The Characters

Disclaimer before I begin: This book was so character heavy, any character I might have liked at the beginning, became such a chore to read by the end.

Disowned Princess Elia of Lear: She was nice and trusting. I found myself relating to her a lot, and her loneliness with and without her family was palpable.

Princess Gaela of Lear, Wife of Astore: This freaking psychopath is so freaking annoying and angsty, like, we get it, you wanna be a man so you can be king and all that, and you're willing to do whatever it takes, even a hysterecomy, and you wanna murder your dad because he probably murdered your mom, maybe, idk. I don't need 50 thousand backstory scenes to understand that. I only needed like 2, maybe 3. But...you're an heir even if you're not a man, so can you just, like, cool it?

Princess Regan of Lear, Wife of Connley: She was interesting, but not enough time was spent on her and her relationship with Connley, or the psychologocal ramifications of repeated miscarriages, so she ended up feeling less ~sneaky and manipulative~ and more ~Regina George wannabe~

Ban the Fox, Bastard of Errigal: He was so interesting and cool, but Gaela was Gratton's legitimate child or something, because this poor Jon Snow got ignored way too much. I wanted to know what he was doing! He was actually cool!

Aefa, daughter of the King's Fool: She was fun, but didn't really do anything.

King Lear: He was effective, I guess. Classic mad religious zealot king.

King Morimaros of Aremoria: He was fairly interesting and I'd have liked to learn more about him, but unfortunately, for all the time spent in backstory in this book, it wasn't equally distributed *cough cough* the author picked unfair favorites *cough cough* Why did she like Gaela so much?? *cough cough*

Conclusion

I knew this was a retelling of King Lear by Shakespeare, but apparently it was a retelling of Act 1 only. I haven't read King Lear, but this made me want to, just so I can see if Shakespeare actually sucked this hard, or if Gratton just isn't very good.

If she isn't planning on making a sequel, I'm going to stab someone and then get 50 thousand backstories, and then probably a hysterectomy—you never know when you're gonna be king! But hey, even if she does, I probably won't read it. Not with a first book like this.

Thank you to Netgalley for giving me the opportunity to read and review "The Queens of Innis Lear
by Tessa Gratton" Morally, I can't read or review this book. I can't support someone who harasses others.
Sexual harassment is a real thing happening in our society today and I do not take it lightly. I will be removing this author from my Goodreads completely.
https://medium.com/@channelingbrave/these-comments-appeared-on-a-slj-article-comment-thread-regarding-sexual-harassment-in-the-kid-lit-a25e3aef85f1

Excerpt received only. So this is based on what I have read. A good start, with both lovable and hated characters. This one does contain traces of incest and wannabe transgender. Out of all the queens I only liked Elia, although her character appeared to be small and more wallflower. Ban was my favorite. I felt sorry for the husbands married to the two sisters. At some point I’d like to read the rest.

'The Queens of Innis Lear' is a retelling of King Lear set in a world of magic, political intrigue and badass female characters.
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I had a chance to read a long excerpt from #netgalley and holy crap. I loved it so much. The writing is gorgeous and breathes right off of the pages, the world building is i n t e n s e. and so is the magic system. And this is by no means a short book, so I'm extremely curious as to what the whole book will hold.

I haven't ever read King Lear by Shakespeare but i had no trouble with the book but I'm sure if i had it would've been all the more fun. apart from the intricate writing, the characters were my favourite part. They seem so layered and carefully thought out. and most importantly, they are all so flawed and you know I love me some screwed up people. It's undoubtedly my most anticipated release this year.

This was everything i have been looking for in a book. A well written fantasy full of depth and intregue. With a game of thrones feel, this is easily one of my top reads of 2018

The blurb on this story was intriguing but the story itself fell on its face. It was a complete mess of mixed stories that left you hanging. In fact, I wondered if something happened to my copy because the way the story ended was like someone tore out the second half. Confusing and muddled mess.

I was given this book for free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I didn’t see this was only a preview before I requested it.
So far it seems intriguing, but I only read a couple of chapters. I won’t leave a full review until I’ve read the whole book.
I’m looking forward to reviewing the book when it’s closer to its final stage.

It's impossible for me, make a review on 190 pages. The book it's composed minimum by 576 (Amazon). It's impossible. I will read this few pages but I don't write a review on a book incomplete.

Great beginning to the novel. I was very disappointed when I hit the end of the excerpt so I know I was pretty involved in the story. I never had the opportunity to read King Lear so after doing some research, I jumped head first into this imaginative retelling and enjoyed the rich descriptions and interesting characters. I plan on reading the second half of the book when it's released.

I did not know this was an excerpt and not the full book. I am curious to read the full book. So far I'm enjoying it, and I'm definitely going to read the full book once it is published.

Not a full copy of the book, why would you not even post a warning about this? Unable to read and review properly because book is not completed. Only half of this was sent to me, so not able to give a review.

I did not realize this was only an excerpt of the novel when I first downloaded it. I feel I cannot give a full review without having read the complete novel. At the moment I like it, as King Lear is one of my favorite Shakespeare. I like the unique magic system and the characters are quite intriguing.

When I requested this, I didn't expect it to be an excerpt. As a result, I'm not going to review this book, I started to read it and I read 30 pages out of 190 pages. The premise is rather well done but since I do not have the complete book I do not I have no time to read this extract and I prefer to have the complete book before giving my opinion.

Oh my gosh, this book is amazing. I didn't think it was going to be as good as it was. If this is an excerpt then I can not wait for the full book. This book if full of magic and mythology that is seeped throughout the book. I did not understand all the magic and myth at first but soon was able to put it all together. The betrayal of the youngest princess was shocking as was the madness of the King. The two elder sisters are hatching a plan and trying to implement it into the kingdom. Personally, their original plan sounds like the best one except it keeps the youngest sister out of anything but being a star priest. Which by the end of the book you will wonder if she will continue to be a star priest. She has discovered her strength and just when you start to find out her plan the book ends.

This book will be one that I will buy in full once it is published. I highly recommend it if you like fantasy novels. Plus, the characters are so well written I have already got a crush on "the fox" and can not wait to see what he is up to. I am rooting for the youngest sister and feel that the eldest sister is in the wrong and will cause great upheaval to the kingdom, but you don't get to find out if that happens or not.

As soon as I read the summary for the Queens of Innis Lear by Tessa Gratton, I knew I wanted to read this book. When I started this one, I had high hopes and for some reason, it just didn’t grab me as much as I had hoped it would - I will say I liked the story but didn’t love it.

This book had some really solid character development in Elia, Gaela, and Reagan and I enjoyed the chapters from Ban’s point of view. There just seemed to be a lot of points of view and just when I was getting pulled into one piece of the story, the chapter ended, and I had to shift again to another perspective.

I love fantasy and I thought for sure I would love this book but for me, the story seemed to drag at times and I didn’t really latch onto any of the daughters to support throughout – I suppose if I had to choose I would pick Elia because she is the only one who didn’t appear to have ulterior motives to her actions. I did appreciate the backstories with them though as it helped to explain Gaela and Reagan’s feelings toward each other and Elia. I also liked getting the background on Ban and Elia’s friendship and was really hoping we’d get a bit more with these two.

In the end, I found this one to be just ok. I’m sure this is a case of “it’s not you, it’s me” as I’ve seen a lot of people raving about this book, but it just wasn’t what I wanted it to be and seemed to drag at times. I most likely won’t pick up the next book but don’t let my notes deter you if you are at all interested.

When I requested this, it did not say it was an excerpt. I am highly disappointed as this is the third time this has happened on NetGalley, and I've learned it is no fun for me. As such, I will be unable to review this. I hope to get my hands on a full copy soon as it does sound fantastic.

The premise of this book was intriguing but not enough to keep me engaged the whole way through.

I’m so sorry, but when I requested this it was lead to believe that this was the full copy, but upon picking up last night, I soon realized that it is only a partial. When I requested this the Preview Excerpt was not there. I’m so sorry, but I don’t review partials on my blog or goodreads, but I will say that I did enjoy what I was able to read, and I’m looking forward to the finished copy!

This excerpt makes me want more, more, more! I love the writing, the concept and the nods to Shakespeare.