⭐ DNF - 88%

In short, The Thorn Queen is a very slow book with not much action. Meylyne, the main character, is forced to travel far and long throughout Glendoch to save the sickly prince; however, her character development is lacking and basically non-existent. Add that with the horrifically slow pacing, dull action scenes, and a predictable ending, and this novel is the result. Unfortunately, this book was not for me!

Meylyne is not your typical twelve year old girl. She is half human, half garsyle and really, really bad at alchemy. When Meylyne finds herself on an seemingly impossible quest to save the prince of Glendoch, she must learn to have faith in herself and her crew of unlikely heroes tagging alone beside her. Unfortunately, the further she progresses into her mission, the more she discovers that Glendoch is counting on her to save them from The Thorn Queen. Will Meylyne and her companions be able to outwit the wizards, witches, and snakes that cross their paths, or will they face imprisonment in the Shadow-Cellars forever?

There were multiple times throughout this novel that I had to shake myself as a reminder that I am not, in fact, Meylyne. Holland did an amazing job developing her characters and setting- so much so that I was completely enveloped in the novel. Meylyne is a perfect female protagonist who finds herself forced to complete some big tasks, and I cannot wait to share with my daughter in a couple years. I find middle grade and young adult authors who can interweave heavy topics into a make believe fantasy world absolutely brilliant. Holland touched on the themes of acceptance, friendship, and self-worth through Meylyne and her friends, leaving the reader with a feeling of empowerment. Not only does Holland leave the us with a final twist in regards to the identity of the Thorn Queen, but she also leaves us hoping for another book to follow suit

This was an intriguing middle grade read. Full of magic and adventure it is a good easy read, perfect for younger readers who are just getting stuck into the 9-12 fiction category. The characters are fun and its very easy to get attached to them! A good setting with excellent world building, I liked this novel!

DNF @ 30%

For the first couple chapters of The Thorn Queen I was starting to wonder if I was hitting a reading slump. I was also having a bit of trouble focusing and caring about another book I was reading. So I added a third book to the mix that was lovely, powered through it and two more. That made me realize that it wasn't me it was Elise Holland's story that was the problem.

Don't tell, show
While this is a middle grade level read there is really no reason why it would have to be dull and boring. I feel like we are all broken records when it comes to this saying but it is sooo important when it comes to writing a great story; show, don't tell. If you are telling me what the landscape is in half page paragraphs then you are likely doing it wrong. Unless you have descriptions that are flowery and beautiful, like Tolkien or Sanderson in high fantasy write, it's likely that readers will yawn and skip the content. This becomes a problem as then people aren't really engrossed in your world. The easiest way to show and not tell descriptions of the landscape is to give us the feelings and description via a character's perspective. Whether they are talking to someone else about what they see or from a first person perspective.

Questing
Taking into account that the average fantasy set novel for children is in a traditional quest form; I have no issues with the proposed plot that Holland puts forward. However, the very first scene of The Thorn Queen is so different and engaging (in which our lead gal falls on a prince) that to suddenly change the story over to a quest that doesn't include said prince, or the world in which we first meet our lead gal, made the events that follow dull. I did really like the introductory scene and was excited for those first 10 pages; but unfortunately that tapers off. Especially when I realized we were going on a quest and not going to encounter the prince again for some time (at best). When setting up a quest story you have to be careful not to oversell the reason and then drop your characters into a boring journey. The exception to the rule is if you are carrying a ring to Mordor (lol); but even in [book:The Lord of the Rings|33] we have the Mines quickly after council showing that this will not be a boring quest for our fellowship.

Overall
It's possible had I given this book a little more time I might have gotten into it; but given that each time I picked it up I got a couple pages and wanted to switch books it just doesn't seem worth it. I can honestly say that I hope children don't receive this book as their first introduction to fantasy as they will likely be turned off by it and that would be tragic!

Please note: I received an eARC of this book from the publisher via NetGalley. This is an honest and unbiased review.

An interesting middle-grade level story. Definitely not for my age range. I plan on purchasing a physical copy for my niece who ..will enjoy this a lot more than I did. It was not the point of this story to appeal to me but to the age range. I feel this book did it well.

Downloaded from Netgalley in exchange for a free honest review. I've linked to where you can purchase a copy, the author's website for this book and the publisher.

I think kids 5th grade and up are going to enjoy this magical little adventure story. I like that there are so many of these tales that feature young heroines. Kids who love fantasy will love this story.

Magic, monsters, adventure! This book has it all. This adorable little story is a quick read and great for young readers. I know my nieces will love this book.
I noticed that around the ¾ mark the book gets bogged down by too many tropes. The plot is a bit convoluted for a children’s story. It started to lose my interest a bit.

This was a lovely novel filled with the magic of childish imagination. It's a little confusing at times to an adult, but these little holes and hiccups will be meaningless to a middle-grader. And yet, the novel deals with heady, mature themes. I appreciate it when authors bet on the intelligence and savvy of kids. They can handle almost anything and it's important we don't shield them from the truth. Fantastical stories like this create a great bridge for connecting big ideas to the real world.

What I Liked
The world is very cool, with layers of secrets and all kinds of magical creatures around. Meylyne is a kid with a parent of questionable morals and actions, and she's making do the best way she can. I'm surprised that this seems to be a standalone for now because there are a lot of things that could be expanded into a sequel. As an adult reader, the writing was sort of simplistic in places, but it's not a book for adults. It's for kids! And I think the writing level is appropriate for a middle grade audience.

What I Would Have Liked To See
More development of the magic (I'm just a tiny bit obsessed with magic). I felt like there was so much that could have been explored, but there wasn't time for it!

My Favorite!
Blue! (Even though the name Blue for characters is kind of getting crazy now, there are too many Blues, authors, stop it.) He was funny and kind of cheeky and I was glad he didn't turn into any kind of love interest.

TL;DR
Magic kid with troubled home life tries to save the world from ghosts and lava snakes. A fun adventure for readers in the 8-12 age range!

Huge thank you to StarPress and NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to review this book!

I think after this one I’m not going to request any more middle-grade books, all of the ones I’ve read so far have been underwhelming and The Thorn Queen wasn’t any exception. It’s honestly so hard for me to rate and review this book because this one is thoroughly stuck in “meh” zone for me and I’m still having troubles trying to figure out why; I didn’t hate it, but I didn’t really like it either. Honestly I don’t think it’s the books fault though, I think I’m just too old to be reading most middle-grade stories now, which is kind of sad.

Full (spoiler-y) review here: http://wmsreads.tumblr.com/post/178265751382/

A thoroughly enjoyable and quite involved children's fantasy novel. At times there is so much going on that it can be a tad difficult to remember which group of creatures was whom, but the story was rewarding and the world building was excellent.

The Thorn Queen: A Novel is an exciting children’s adventure where twelve-year-old Meylyne is forced into a quest to find a cure for the prince’s mysterious disease. During her quest, Meylyne befriends interesting creatures and uncovers dangerous secrets regarding the terrible war her home of Glendoch is facing. One of these secrets is the identity of the terrible Thorn Queen.

I’m a lot older than middle grade but I really enjoyed this book. I found some of the characters’ and creatures’ names a little hard to pronounce and remember at first but they were definitely new and inventive.

I thought Meylyne was a likeable character; she has flaws such as self-doubt, but this makes her a very realistic character which children can identify with. She goes on a powerful emotional journey and grows as a character.

There are many wonderfully interesting creatures and magical spells and artefacts that Meylyne comes across on her journey. There are plenty of perils which Meylyne and her friends must face, which is exciting but not too scary for children.

Elise Holland has created a richly imaginative world with a wicked villain and an admirable hero.

https://thebooknookuk.wordpress.com/2018/09/16/arc-book-review-the-thorn-queen/

The cover is both beautiful and alluring and the description is of a book that is exactly my kind of thing – heroic journeys, magic, witches, a mysteriously vengeful queen… oh yes!

But sadly this book didn’t quite cut the mustard.

So where did it fall short for me?

First let me say this – this is a book for the Middle Grade audience so I’m not expecting a great deal of complexity and character development so if there’s ever a lack of those components then I don’t consider it a big deal at all.

‘The Thorn Queen’ follows the ‘hero’s journey’ of our protagonist Meylyne who tries to find a cure for a prince’s aging sickness and meets new characters along the way before uncovering an even greater threat to her home world.

Every ‘hero’s journey’ tends to follow a similar route but I felt that this story got bogged down by the attempt to make this more of an epic hero’s journey with an extensive cast of characters, complicated world building and a multi-layered plot. None of these elements are problematic especially for fantasy but in a 250 page Middle Grade book it’s very hard to achieve successfully.

The main reason why this book didn’t work for me relates to something I said earlier:-

“this is a book for the Middle Grade audience so I’m not expecting a great deal of complexity”

I can’t believe I’m going to say this but… this book was too complicated. This made it very difficult to follow and I felt like it took me longer to read than it should ordinarily have done so I started to lose interest.

In terms of the characters – we meet a lot of them. Some of which only once, for an arbitrary reason, before never hearing of them again. I think the juggling of characters must have become an issue for the writer because there were times that Meylyne would travel places with only two of her three new travelling companions.

I believe if this happens enough times in a story where you have to remove immediate characters from the action to off-screen than it means that there are too many characters to handle.

We are also introduced to a vast world in which the characters constantly reference new names, places, magical and historical events and terminology. I felt that something new was added to every chapter and even as often as every couple of paragraphs. One character’s role was solely to act as the audience insert as he was always asking, ‘what is x?,’ and ‘who is x?’ which gave Meylyne the opportunity to drop some exposition.

With the Between World and Above World and the Cabbage-Windians, Garlochs, Grynches and characters called Groq, Grimorex, Trin, Train and Trisdyan, alchemists and queens and princesses and something called sphers… I got confused and then lost.

I got lost reading a Middle Grade book. And I’ve read all the Song of Ice and Fire books.

The plot also throws in some twists and turns leaving plot threads unresolved as the story moves into more complicated territory. Throwaway names that are mentioned once in the middle of exposition talk turn out to be much more important towards the end but there is little build up to it.

Overall I can see what the writer was trying to achieve but I would say either trim down the complex content or expand it, build it up and make it a longer YA piece of work. Then I could see it working.

And this is a mean spirited gripe of me but… there were far too many exclamation marks. I couldn’t handle it. An example… “We’re here!” she hissed. No. No no no no. If you are hissing you are speaking urgently but quietly. Why the exclamation mark? This happens a lot.

Unfortunately ‘The Thorn Queen’ isn’t one that I deeply enjoyed. In a market of Middle Grade fantasy I am sad to say that this doesn’t quite have the sparkle to make it stand out.

I would love to get the thoughts of the audience that this book is intended for because I am 33 and I needed a board with a lot of red string to work out where I was.

Usually I pick books for various logical reasons such as author, existing hype, the general description taking my eye. Here? I threw all that out the window... Look at that cover *squeal*

So, the short of it? I really enjoyed it for what it was, a middle grade novel about fallen kingdoms and an epic quest to save the world... Miss 9 loved it (she insisted on reading it once I was done.

Starting out I felt it was a little slow BUT once Meylyne started on her quest, I found the pace was quite enjoyable. I found the language used was more advanced than what I expected but still understandable for younger readers.

Themes of family, friendship and loyalty were discussed throughout as well as broaching the concept of every action having consequences. I felt it was a great novel for the 8-12 set of kids who are often skipped over.

As a sidenote, my little miss is constantly harassing me asking when there will be another one so bonus points for keeping her enthusiastic when she usually has a rather short attention span.

The Thorn Queen is a great middle-grade fantasy novel!

There is an extremely plucky and likable heroine, Meylyne, who reluctantly undertakes an epic quest to save her beloved home. Along the way, we are introduced to a wealth of interesting and magical characters that help her along her journey.

The world building is rich and complex, which was a welcome surprise for a middle-grade story. Meylyne is a wonderful character that I think will really appeal to younger girls, as she is both uncertain in her abilities yet courageous enough to try things that she might not be comfortable for the greater good.

I was also pleasantly surprised that there was no unnecessary love triangle or awkwardly inserted romance to be found here.

My only real complaint is that this ended rather abruptly, with all loose ends tied neatly together. While reading I felt that surely this could become a successful series but I remain unclear as to whether or not this will be the case or if the author will let the story end here. In my opinion, it would be a shame to not continue the story.

I received this ARC as a courtesy from NetGalley & the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing a copy for review.

I really enjoyed this book. It's filled with magic, and magical beings and a crazy adventure! Meylyne, our heroine, is a half-human, half-garlyle hybrid. She is the daughter of the last Hearer and powerful sorceress in Glendoch. Glendoch has forgotten its magical past and now all creatures are separated from each other. There are Below World dwellers (snake-people), Between-World (where garlyles and such live) and Above-World (humans and animals). Meylyne breaks a very important rule by going into the Above World, and, to save her mother from the Below World, goes on a quest to find a cure for the Prince's rapid aging disease. Meylyne meets many creatures along her journey, including talking animals and ogres.

The plot was great, I was really interested to see where all this went. I did predict the twist, but not in it's entirety. I liked that Meylne really learned a lot about accepting herself, and her strength throughout the story. The world building was good, but I was still slightly confused as to how the land, and creatures actually looked. I don't know if this is going to be a series or not, but if it is I would like to see more world building. I think this is definitely a book that a lot of people would enjoy. The characters are all very strong and well done, and it's just a fun adventure.

Elise Holland has delivered quite the exhilarating adventure tale in her new middle-grade novel, <i>The Thorn Queen</i>. Readers will enjoy intricate world and character building, and the story draws inspiration from C.S. Lewis’ <i>Chronicles of Narnia</i>, 19th century fairy tales, and medieval tales of magic and sorcery.

<i>The Thorn Queen</i> is an epic middle grade fantasy adventure tale about young Meylyne, a female protagonist whose mother and father are from different parts of Glendoch - the Between-World and the Above-World, respectively. Because her mother is from the Between-World, our protagonist, Meylyne, must never venture into the Above-World because no one from the Between-World is allowed there.

Of course, Meylyne cannot help herself, and she sneaks up to the Above-World to see the royal procession of Prince Piam, where she gets into all sorts of trouble and must venture on a quest into the dangerous parts on the very edges of the Above-World in order to secure her own freedom and save the Glendoch’s prince. Along the way, she meets friends and discovers truths about herself that give her the power to save not just the prince but the entire kingdom.

Holland’s new story will captivate even reluctant young readers and keep them entertained and guessing until the very end. Don’t hesitate-put this on your list for your upper-elementary or middle-grade reader today.

I received this book from the publisher via Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.

I enjoyed this middle grade fantasy novel - it was fast paced and fun! I like that Meylyne was gutsy and Blue was super cute - I definitely wanted to find out more about his background.

I struggled a little with the world building and different names for stuff, as I couldn’t quite keep it all straight, I felt a map or glossary could help - however, the e-arc may just not have them :)

I didn’t love the adults in this too much - especially Meylyne’s mum!

I really enjoyed the action, but wanted a bit more time between to figure things out occasionally- but I think that was just me! I do like that it really moved along.

It is light hearted for a story about revenge/ saving the world, which I really enjoyed - the author really struck an excellent balance on that. And it really is fun, and a quick and easy read. If you like middle grade fantasy I’d definitely suggest giving it a go.

The Thorn Queen is a gorgeous MG fantasy that caught my eye while browsing on NetGalley. Just look at that cover! While I was expecting something castle-based and possibly Sleeping Beauty related, what I got was entirely different: an introduction to a really cool magical land, and an action-packed quest with a great heroine!

This book opens with our protagonist Meylyne up a tree, breaking rules – this is a good sign straight away that she’s going to be my type of heroine! She is soon forced to go on a magical quest to find a cure for the prince’s illness, but on her adventures she discovers that she’s actually instrumental to saving the world. She meets all kind of strange magical people along the way, including an ogre, a society of lion-folk, and a sentient tree, and she discovers that embracing her true self is an important part of being a hero.

Meylyne is a very enjoyable heroine. She’s headstrong and brave, but she’s also desperate for her mother’s approval, and really, really insecure about her half-human, half-garlysle heritage. Watching her grow in confidence made really good reading. I also really liked Hope, the stalliynx, which is a sort of a horse-lion cross which doesn’t really use verbs. His matter-of-fact nature and the way he spoke really reminded me of Appa from Kim’s Convenience, actually, which made for a hilarious picture.

This is a complex world, with many creatures and objects that are not easily understandable at first glance, particularly because the author throws consonants together like fruit salad without regard for pronunciation – I could definitely have used a glossary, and I would hate to have to read this out loud! You’re thrown straight into a world of humans and garslochs and garlysles and snake people which isn’t easy to grasp immediately. As far as I can tell these creatures are entirely unique to this work, rather than lifted from folklore, so I didn’t have reference points for them and could have used a bit more time to have them introduced. There also seems to be some kind of link to our world. One character seems to have been transported from our world, and also, even the people who are native to this world explicitly speak English? Like, not in a ‘the common tongue is rendered as English for the sake of the reader’ way, but literally: one character asks another character to speak English rather than lion.

There’s plenty of excitement and action as Meylyne and her companions travel across the land, and it’s easy to get caught up in their journey, especially when twists begin to happen and Meylyne begins to question everything she knows. Unfortunately, looking at the storyline on a larger scale, Holland seems to pick up and drop plot-points as they are needed, without necessarily resolving them, so Prince Piam’s mysterious illness is not solved, and nothing is ever done about Blue’s lost memory. The entire end of the book becomes about defeating the Thorn Queen, which is thrilling for sure, but kind of doesn’t have much to do with the original plot. As I say, it’s very fast-paced and entertaining to read, but as a whole it’s disjointed and the happy ending is pretty abrupt. There were SO many elements of this that I wish had been dwelt on longer!

I think I would have liked to see this story expanded over several books, which would have given each development an appropriate amount of time to occur, and would perhaps have brought Meylyne’s personal journey to the fore. The poor girl is barely given time to react to anything, and I certainly could have seen her being a much better character in a slower, more emotional, Tamora Pierce-y series. That being said, this is enormous fun to read. I think it just makes it to four stars!

Something a little bit different than I've read in a while, but I've requested several e-ARCs on NetGalley of books which are aimed at the children I work with, rather than myself. I feel it's always important to keep track of what's being released in children's fiction, as often it can tackle concepts which are challenging but important for the children we teach.

Meylyne is a twelve year old Garloch (half-human, half-Garlsyle) alchemist-in-training, who is unexpectedly set upon a quest to save both her mother and her kingdom. Meylyne's parentage is explored throughout the book, and I love that while she begins the book ashamed of her heritage, through the support of other characters she comes to see that her differences are, in fact, something to be celebrated rather than something to be ashamed of.

I was also really pleased to see that the protagonist is female, and would definitely recommend this book for young girls, however I feel that young boys would also greatly enjoy it. 

The storyline and pacing of this book were great for middle school aged children who are likely to lose interest if left too long without an interesting occurrence, and there were several plot twists which would be highly surprising for the intended audience! 

There was quite a lot of series-specific language in this book, so it could perhaps benefit from a glossary for younger readers, however I felt that the majority of the terms were sufficiently explained within the novel.

With some additional world building, this book could have been fantastic for both children and adults alike; as it is, I feel it's still a great book for middle school children, but may feel slightly flat for adults.

Overall, The Thorn Queen was an enjoyable read, and the ending appears to be leading into a sequel, so I'm excited to see where the series goes from here! 

Definitely a book I would recommend for children aged 8-11 who are interested in Fantasy.