The world in this book is simply massive. There are several sections of the world, and they are all connected by portals and gates. I liken it to an MMORPG world like World of Warcraft if you’ve ever played one. You can take a portal and travel from an ice realm to a desert realm. These characters travel all throughout this world in order to visit various important people and make plans. I’ve seen some people say that this was a bit confusing. As a person that doesn’t really care about seeing a linear path of the character’s through the book world, I didn’t find myself very confused. I just enjoyed my experience reading about where the different characters were without trying to figure out exactly what path they took to get there.

This copy was kindly gifted to me from the publisher in exchange for an honest review (submitted on Instagram)

You can find this review and all of my others over at www.readbookrepeat.wordpress.com

Actual rating of 3.5

Luvenia Rousseau lives life terrified. She is terrified that any day now, the tyrant Queen that rules her war-torn land, will demand her collectors come, come for Luvenia, for her sister Ester, and her mother and brother. Every day she wakes up wondering, is today the day? She already lost her father, she can't afford to lose anyone else. So when her brother comes home after being away for months, they think that things will be okay for a little while, but it is not so. When Luvenia's family is torn apart, she thinks her life is over, close to death and ready to give up, she is given a second chance at life by a dear friend she didn't even realise existed. Luvenia finds herself spirited away to a magical place called Aureland. There she meets a powerful and kind Queen who is battling against the very enemy that threatens Luvenia's existence. Together they will train and work towards a brighter future. Together, they can conquer anything, can't they?

I was really interested to read this book as it's premise sounded incredibly interesting. And honestly it was. We meet Luvenia and her family as they struggle to get through life day by day, living on the most basic of foods, wearing clothing that at times can barely keep them warm, and smuggling strawberries for sale out of their prohibited strawberry patch. Life isn't great, but they're living, so that's the main thing for them. Until Luvenia is forced to face the truth about herself, and her family as the evil Queen Pietro tears her family apart.

Luvenia, in the beginning, was an incredibly strong character, she worked hard for her family and herself, and she made sure that she took care of them. After the attack from Pietro and her collectors, Luvenia is transported to a world that she didn't even know existed. This world is the polar opposite of her homeland, Orford. Aureland is magical in all sense of the word, so I was really interested in seeing how Vampa was going to meld the two together into a coherent story. And for the most part, I feel like it was done incredibly well. I still don't entirely understand the whole world set up, but I'm pretty sure I've got the gist of it. Aureland is only accessible through certain portals, so I see it as almost a parallel universe of sorts. I still don't understand how certain people knew of the world though I believe it has something to do with the whole Keeper thing. Keepers are people with magical abilities, and when parent's know that their child has these abilities, they can send them to Queen Nuria in Aureland in order to be trained in the way of the Keepers, at least, I think that's how it works...

So I guess you could say that at times it almost felt like there was a lot of info dumping because the world is incredibly complex, I just don't think enough time was given on the mechanics of the world for me to be able to truly gauge how it works. As said above, for the most part, I get the gist, but there's still a little more to explore here, and I'm kind of hoping that it is done so in future instalments.

Once Luvenia makes it Aureland, her character changes completely. Which, in a way, I can understand, she went through an incredibly traumatic event and had a lot of deep seating issues from before this to deal with as well. So, your girl isn't going to be totally well adjusted after just going through a tragedy. I enjoyed the way her character was so established in the beginning, broken down completely, then rebuilt into who I believe she was really meant to be. Her friends, Darius, Thera and Khyan are all interesting characters, though I feel like they weren't really given the time they deserved. I know about them, and I have an okay feel for who they were intended to be, they still felt a little flat and almost walled off for me. I just don't think I really got to experience them in their full intended light. Some emotional things happen, and while I was like "Aww, that's a bit sad" I wasn't really moved as emotionally as I feel I should have been. A little more time spent and depth given to the characters could really make this story shine how it deserves to.

The narration was okay, though I did notice at times there were single words that were written in the wrong tense. This story is written in third person past continuous (I think, I could be totally wrong here), though at times there would be one word thrown in a sentence in present tense. I also feel that third person may not have worked so great for this story as it felt like we were kept at arms length. I'm thinking first person really would have put us in the action and into Luvenia, allowing us to feel a full spectrum of emotion. I also found the narrative to be more telling than showing for the most part, which made me feel like I was simply reading a story, not experiencing it as I would have liked. There were a few lines used in the narrative that gave it a more flighty, cheesy kind of feel, but that could be the author's intention as well.

All in all, this was a fairly enjoyable read. It kept me coming back for more, and for the most part, I was invested in the story, it's characters and where the plot was heading. I'm looking forward to continuing the story as it ends on quite the cliff hanger, even though I had a feeling this would happen, I didn't see it being THIS way. And that is all I'm going to say on the matter. You'll have to read it to find out what I'm talking about :)

A great dark fairy tale of loss and hope. A wonderful world that J.L has imagined, with great characters.

Luvenia Rousseau lived with her family on the edge of a war torn country led by Queen Lilith Pietro that ravenously hungered for power, even at the expense of the common people. Collectors would take people off the streets to be sacrificed, especially if they were zealots of the old faith, whom the Queen blamed the plague and war on. When her family farm is attacked by Collectors, Luvenia literally stumbles across a gate leading her into an enchanted realm. Keepers are people with fantastic powers, and Luvenia is determined to get stronger so she could go back to find her sister.

There is amazing world building here for the start of the novel. The scenes with Luvenia's family and neighbors, details like the types of handmade soaps that were available, and the tension in the atmosphere because of the Collectors were very well done. The actual raid on the Rousseau farm is heartbreaking, and I felt for her and her sister. Once she crossed over into the other kingdom, there were many beautiful and fantastic places full of magic and magical creatures. It wasn't enough to stop her breakdown as she recalled the devastation at the farm and her drive to find her sister, which the others seemed to berate her for.

Characters seemed to suddenly become emotionally attached to others, or make surprisingly accurate guesses and connections between situations. That's probably to keep the pacing rapid, but when I think about how they all interact with each other, it doesn't ring true. It doesn't make sense for people to make the intuitive leaps that they do, or for characters to suddenly do well or fail for plot purposes. I can hand wave the emotional attachments that occur, because that definitely happens. You can know if you click with someone or not, and what seems like the inevitable romantic triangle setup doesn't actually happen. The end of the novel clearly sets up for more novels in this world, with more questions raised than answered.

This is a DNF for me. I just could not get into the story. The writing had me confused, and there really wasn't anything that popped out to keep my invested.

And I don't know about you, but I've seen this exact cover before??

I am definitely not one to normally pick out fantasy type books. I read the synopsis of this book and it did catch my attention. It took my awhile to really get into the book, however, the story of the characters is deep and easily liked them. There were a few twists that I wasn't expecting. I still am unsure about this book and I often got a little lost on where the story was going. I give this book 2.5 stars for me.

I was given an ARC copy from Netgalley in return for my honest review

I DNF'd this novel at 35%. I couldn't really get into the politics and world-building. While the start was solid, it quickly became very dull for my preferences and I couldn't force myself to read any more.

ARC provided by author via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All the following opinions are my own.

Rating- somewhere in between a 2 and a 3

The Queen’s Keeper by J L Vampa is a high fantasy novel primarily featuring a cast of young adult/new adult protagonists. The story revolves around the main lead Luvenia, who is your average poor peasant girl living in a small village in a kingdom under a tyrannous rule. But, of course she’s not average because this is exactly the kind of situation that makes you a hero, almost exactly like when you’re japanese and you’re born with pink hair and are a cartoon, you just know you’re an anime hero/villain. Anyway, this girl is just living her life and trying to get by in a world wrought by famine and tyranny when her brother decides to go ahead and betray their family’s hatred of the queen and join the armed forces. He joins the special section of the army called the “Collectors” to be exact, and I honestly am not 100% sure what these special soldiers do yet but okay. The mom dies, the father’s been dead for a while, the sister gets taken away and Luvenia is rescued from her pursuers by magical beings who transport her to a magical land and begin to help her train herself and heal herself before she can go looking for her sister. She falls in love in middle, because of course she does. And there’s an attempt at a love triangle also, because of course there is. The book ends with a battle scene and an expository moment that reveals a secret that I predicted 50 pages into the book, and it’s like, some kind of big plot twist and stuff.

Oh, and there’s a bunch of politics stuff going on like forging alliances and internal revolution and all that jazz. And it’s definitely made out to be like it’s something important but it really doesn’t feel like it? I don’t want to go into explicit detail because I don’t want to spoil the book, but I’ll get into my entire problem with the politics and stuff in just a second.

The first issue I had with this book was that it felt very rough and unedited. It had these really, potentially likeable characters, but it didn’t do anything with them. The pacing was really off and not consistent at all, and there were these moments where you could totally get into the book but then it would be broken by one wrongly used word or sentence and it just threw me off as a reader. I almost DNF’d this book a bunch of times while reading it, but I just kept going because I still felt like it had a lot of potential and that it would get better. (spoiler alert: it didn’t. Not really). I just feel like this story had a lot of atmosphere and some really good plot points and characters to work with, and it could have been an amazing read if only it went through the editing process a couple of times.

Coming to the plot things I was talking about, it felt like the book tried to focus too much time on building the setting and the atmosphere - I still wouldn’t call it world building because there wasn’t that level of intricacy in there- rather than the action of the book. Now, I can see how this would be a good thing considering there are going to be more books coming out, but you kind of have to gauge what you’re giving up in exchange for atmosphere here. The most interesting part of this book was the politics, but because it was not given enough time on page, it seemed very rushed and became really confusing (or I’m just, like, really slow and stupid but either way xD). A lot of the time I had to understand who was who and what was what in these “action” scenes from context and my previous knowledge of the story. As I said earlier, even the military system in Orford is not clearly explained. I don’t know what makes “Collectors” so special. I don’t know why they’re not just called her army or her soldiers. I guess I do know that collectors take people from their homes but, like, armies do that, too! Especially in a world where kings are a thing, you know?

Coming to the characters, like I said before, I really felt like they had immense potential. I even came to like/be fond of a few but not in the I’ll-remember-you kind of way but in the you-don’t-suck kind of way. They were kind of well-developed, but they were not well-developed enough, and I felt like that totally affected their dynamics. The friendships and the romantic relationship in this book feel a little forced. There’s no actual chemistry between the characters and it definitely made it seem super awkward when the characters interacted with each other. I was particularly not fond of the romantic pairing in the novel. It made me cringe the two times they kissed because it felt so unnatural and abrupt. Ugh. And that forced love triangle that wasn’t quite a love triangle! WHOOP! TOO MUCH!

Now don’t get me wrong. It’s not that these dynamics were impossible between characters, it’s just that they were all lacking that chemistry that makes these dynamics work and that’s all I have to say about it.

Overall, I didn’t hate the book or anything. It was an okay-read and I can see why some people seem to really enjoy it, but it just didn’t cut it for me. There were a few elements in the story that I enjoyed when thought of disjointed bits of imagination floating about, but other than that this story was pretty unmemorable and unimpactful for me. I’m sure if this weren’t an ARC, I probably would not have read it completely and that makes me just a little disappointed.

Starting out, I had a hard time connecting with this book. I'm glad I stuck with it though. I didn't end up loving it, but there were parts of it I liked quite a bit.

I thought there was some decent world building, which is critical in a fantasy novel. While it takes awhile for Luvenia to get to Aureland, a magical realm that parallels the one she grew up in, once she does the author does a great job of exploring it and painting a rich portrait of all of the wonders it contains. Likewise, there is an equally vibrant cast of characters surrounding Luvenia that are easy to invest in.

I think ultimately more of my issues were with the writing. There seemed to be a number of gratuitous adverbs and phrases that struck me as a precious like, "the queen drummed her feminine nails on the arm of her throne." Conversations seemed a little emotionally stilted. Characters would be talking for a few lines and suddenly they explode or scream seemingly out of the blue (not just Luvenia, whom we could assume is maybe immature?) This lent an aura of melodrama to a lot of the interactions.

Interestingly though, this book takes pains to chart Luvenia's internal journey from a child who's bent on revenge to a woman who commits herself to a higher calling. While some people might find these passages trying because they're anxious for the book to get back to action and adventure, personally I found these passages rather beautiful and inspiring.

Luvenia's time in Aureland is transformational both physically, but also emotionally as she's basically engaged in therapy conversations with the queen. Some great nuggets of wisdom come out of these conversations like, "As you sit here abusing yourself over things you have done or not done--things now out of your control--and shoving who you are down into a deep, dark cave, you are halting the very process that shall liberate you." It's great advice for us all--on a quest in a mythical realm or not.

Thanks to the author and NetGalley for granting me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

I absolutely adored this book. It kept you guessing in parts and was so hard to out down as you absolutely needed to know what happens next. I can't wait for the next book in the series as I really want to follow the character's stories.

This story checks most of the boxes for me in that it has a well-describe ,unique setting, strong character development, and is well paced. The main character, Luvenia, is strong, smart, likeable. - a good female role model The supporting cast, for the most part, is engaging as well. I had some difficulty with the sudden changes in POVs even though they do offer important insight into the story - they came without warning and required some deduction on the reader's part as to who was narrating. In addition, I found the plot to be confusing at times with the mention of lands and characters that are not explained or introduced in a clear way. A map of the lands as well as a list of characters would've helped immensely.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC of this book.

This is the story of a girl who has faced evil, lost almost everything and struggles to keep going. Luvenia Rousseau (a.k.a. Luvi and Veni) has carried the guilt of her father's death for years, watched her brother betray the family, witnessed her mother being beheaded, and knows her sister is being held captive by Queen Lilith Pietro. After a narrow escape, Luvi finds herself in Aureland - a beautiful and hidden Kingdom that many interesting and magical beings call home.

Luvi may have escaped the collectors that destroyed her family with her life, but her heart and sole bare unhealable scars. There is also a war brewing and this leads Luvi on a personal journey between light and dark. While her character can be difficult to read given the varying levels of anger and grief, she is everything you would expect a teenage girl to be after everything she has been through.

There is a range of different characters, including Khyan, Theralin, Nuria, and Darius, all with different journeys but similar scars that motivate them to chose light and fight for good. This is presented in such a beautiful and honest way. No matter how bright the smile or how happy we may seem, there can be all sorts of pain, but that can also be the foundation for there infinite strength. You never truly know just how strong you can be, both physically and emotionally, until you are faced with a fight. 

These very powerful messages are woven into a story of war and paired with many beautiful quotes that are scattered throughout the book. There is one in particular that I loved:
If you are not careful, you will lose your life to 'if only'. You cannot go back and change a single moment." - Nuria
This is something we all need to remember. We cannot change the past, only learn from it and use it as a guide for the future, so there is no point wasting time with 'if only's when you could be using that time to do good and be happy. 

The book was well planned, flowed well and has set up the series beautifully. Although the main character was Luvi, this was told in the third person to allow the story to flick to other characters to show scenes she was not a part of. This gave us the chance to learn more about the plans to take down Lilith as well as get to know the other characters a little better. I did think the pace was a little off as there were a few scenes that dragged on a little and others that whizzed by a little fast, but the overall story was enjoyable and the ending had me desperate to read more.

This book took me awhile to get in to and I don’t know if I will be going back for the sequel, but towards the last quarter of the book I did enjoy it a bit more. I felt that the main character wasn’t fully developed though with her mood changes and how drastic they were.

This is pretty far outside of what I usually, read, but I felt like reading something a bit unusual so I requested it. There's a dark, gothic vibe (some reviewers have compared it to Alice in Wonderland) and that's probably the most shining part of the book.

I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. Thank you NetGalley.

This isn't my typical genre of book, that's for sure.. but iw as intrigued by the unique storyline.

this book took me to quite a magical realm.. I was hooked after the first few pages and couldn't wait to finish it!

this was a fabulous book.

A dark world filled with hidden hope and a little magic. This book is unique and unlike anything I’ve read before.

I unfortunately was not able to finish this book. I did not like it.

The characters were the strong point for me. I liked the way Luvenia and her family interacted with each other. They clearly loved each other.

I would have pegged this as a first draft. I actually thought this was an arc on netgalley. Instead, I think it’s been published in this version, with the pub date set in 2018. I think what I read needed much more polish before publishing.

The writing was clunky a lot of the time, and I think certain parts were telling instead of showing, as well as going far over the top to try to prove a point. A character would do something, or have a physical reaction that was sufficient enough to explain an emotion, and then we would get an explanation for why they felt that emotion. All the extra explanations were not needed.

There were a lot of attempts to add tension that I feel were overdone, and really took me out of the story. We know something bad is going to happen for so long, and what the bad thing is. When the bad thing really does happen, it won’t be a surprise. I feel like I could tell exactly what was going to happen later. The foreshadowing was far too heavy handed.

All in all, not my favorite. I didn't hate it, though I did find it full of common scenes/tropes.

Evil Queen, heroine that needs revenge, familial betrayal. QK was a fast paced if not convoluted and a bit boring several times. Nothing was ever explained who was the strange messenger at the beginning of the book. It was so heavy and depressing with absolutely no comic relief to ease the heaviness of the tome. A bit of editing would have helped as I skimmed excessive descriptions. I was engaged with the storyline, but probably not enough to read the follow up. I voluntarily reviewed a copy from Netgalley.

Powerful messages are cloaked in the shadows of intrigue and tension of a interesting, fantasy world.

Luvenia lives in a world torn apart by war. When she discovers that everything she believed herself is only a lie, and that she has much to fear, her life becomes harder than before. She must fight not only for survival and to discover the truth, but also to overcome the darkness inside of her.

It took me a bit to get into this novel. There are intriguing characters which draw in and offer all sorts of secret twists and turns. The world is inviting and easy to fall into...so magical and exciting! Even Luvenia carries the perfect amount of common, while making mistakes and learning from them. She's up against quite a bit, and it's fun to cheer her on and get to know her. As for the evil queen—well, that side is dark and I loved every moment with her.

There are tons of important messages wrapped up in this rich fantasy, which will leave readers with food for thought about themselves and the world around them. Some even encourage and inspire, and offer hope as a good ending should.

While there is much to love in these pages (especially for fantasy friends and fans of heroines who struggle and grow stronger with every page), the editing and polishing was weak. While the POV changes allowed new angles and important insights, some happened without warning. And often I felt like I was being told things, when I would have loved to experience or see them. Still, it's a grabbing read with much to enjoy. As said, fantasy friends who love strong heroines who have much to learn are sure to enjoy this one.