Thank you to the author, the publisher, and NetGalley for granting me access to an ARC of The Forgotten Kingdom in exchange for an honest review.

The Forgotten Kingdom by Signe Pike is the sequel to The Lost Queen in what will eventually be a trilogy, but it does read easily as a stand-alone title. (I haven't read The Lost Queen yet and I was not lost.) My research tells me The Lost Queen was a coming of age story about Languoreth and Lailoken told entirely from Languoreth's point of view (POV.) The Forgotten Kingdom continues on with adult Languoreth and Lailoken and Languoreth's young daughter Angharad all as different POV characters. It's an interesting take on Arthurian legend with many familiar names used (such as Uther Pendragon and a Gwen-variant), but the relations between traditional Arthurian characters have been remixed and reimagined to better align with real historical figures bearing those names. These are the battles and other conflicts that lead to the rise of King Arthur (Artur) and his Merlin (Myrddin), which we can assume will be the focus of book three.

As someone who didn't read The Lost Queen and wasn't already emotionally attached to Languoreth, it took a long time to enjoy the sections of this book that were written in Languoreth's POV. Her first chapter is full of internal monologue exposition info-dumping and a whole lot of self-pity, which was an unwelcome downer in mood after enjoying a child's perspective on the world in Angharad's chapters and the iron-willed POV of Lailoken. With that said, rest assured that Languoreth's chapters got better and no longer tempted me to skim by about a third to half of the way through the book.

I acknowledge and understand that this was a long book with a lot to say, but I desperately wanted the beginning to be longer. I wanted more of Lailoken learning to handle his niece. I wanted more of Angharad adjusting to life with the Pendragons and learning from Diarmid. I wanted to sit in on conversations between Lailoken and Eira as they got to know each other and fell in love. (Seriously, they were strangers in one chapter and lovers in the next.) The beginning of this book gives us enough of "before the war" to set up who everyone is, where they're starting from, and why we need to know. I don't feel like it gave us enough to make us care about certain characters. We get there eventually, caring about many of the characters, but I feel like one or two more chapters hanging out with the characters in the beginning could have done that before we followed Lailoken into battle.

The different perspectives in this book are well written in that it's immediately obvious whose perspective you're reading even if you skip the identifiers on the chapter title page. As mentioned, I loved the Lailoken and Angharad chapters immediately, and the Languoreth chapters grew on me. Angharad's chapters were my favourites. The timeline was not consistent across the POV shifts, however. Dates are given on chapter title pages but with three perspectives and several years' worth of time difference later on in the book, sometimes those leaps back and forth in time got a little confusing. Most of Lailoken's chapters, for example, follow the outcome of the first battle we see with relatively little fast-forwarding, but by the time Lailoken has only progressed a couple of months from that battle, we've already read a much older Angharad. Some POV shifts required the mental flexibility to realize which parts we had just read will actually be in the future for the character we are now reading.

I'm not overly familiar with Outlander (which this book has been compared to) but my mother loves those books and the NetFlix series, so I will definitely be urging her to pick up these books as well. That said, I do know from her gushing about the Outlander series that it's built around a modern character who travels many centuries back in time, and because of that I went into this book expecting something similar. Minor spoiler: There's no actual time travel in The Forgotten Kingdom other than the timeline jumping between POVs in the latter half of the book.

Overall I enjoyed this book. As mentioned, Languoreth's POV grew on me and Lailoken and Angharad were great from the beginning. My opinion of this title improved along with Languoreth's chapters. At this point, I rate The Forgotten Kingdom a solid 4 stars out of 5 and I look forward to book three. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in historical fiction or fantasy, particularly those who enjoy Arthurian lore and 6th century Great Britain settings.

Languoreth husband has waged war on her brother and has taken her son to fight against his uncles. Imprisoned in her room, her family torn apart, Languoreth doesn't know the fate of her children, including that of her daughter who left with her brothers to train as a wisdom keeper.
The Forgotten Kingdom journeys with these characters as they make their way back to one another,

I am so surprised by this series.
I said this about the first book as well, there is something about these books that reminds me of fantasy stories from my youth.

This is the 2nd of a trilogy. I went and read the first right before reading this one, which may have helped me keep track of things at the beginning.

I very much appreciated the different viewpoints you get in this installment. The first book was all Languoreth, and read more like a coming of age story set in early medieval Scotland. That was good, but this was better. You get Languoreth again, but also her twin, Lailoken (supposedly the basis for the legend of Merlin) and her daughter, Angharad, who is has mystical abilities. All the viewpoints were interesting, you get a much fuller sense of what is going on in the wider world than you would from just one perspective, and all in all,, this was a compelling read.

The chapters do jump around in time, so you have to pay attention to the dates, and keep in mind whether an event that has happened in one chapter has also happened in the next, because it may not.

My on.ly complaint is that the author jumps over a number of years at several points. I can see why - the book would have been massively long otherwise. But I did feel like we missed some key character development in places, especially with Angharad who jumps from a child to a young woman from one chapter to the next.

Still, a good story and I look forward to the next installment. 4.5/5 stars for me.

This is a sequel to The Lost Queen which was released in 2018. I really liked it and was eager to read The Forgotten Kingdom. The book got off to a slow start for me but it did pick up as the intertwined storylines of the characters took shape. It also took a while to recall the main characters and their backstory from Book #1.

It is an interesting plot of war, feuds between royal kingdoms and families, with a bit of mysticism mixed in. This novel is set in one of my favourite countries - Scotland - and the main characters are well described but I found it could have been shorter in length. The book would benefit, in my view, from a list of the characters and their relationships to each other, particularly given that it has been 2 years between Books 1 and 2.

Thank you to Simon and Schuster Canada and Netgalley for the advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

4.5/5*

Thank you to Simon & Schuster Canada for sending me an advanced reader copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

When I first read The Forgotten Queen by Signe Pike, I completely fell in love with the world she had created (full review here). While keeping track of character names could be a bit difficult, Pike weaved an epic of a story centred around a forgotten character in the Arthurian myths: Merlin's sister (I've Anglicized names here to make it a bit easier to follow). There were so many storylines to follow by the end of The Lost Queen and I was desperate to know what happened next in Languoreth's story. Thankfully, The Forgotten Kingdom comes out this September and we can finally continue the adventure!

Strong Multiple POVs
I was happily surprised to find that we get three POVs this book: Languoreth, Lailoken, and Angharad. This was really important to the story because there are so many different plotlines to follow to fully understand what is happening in Languoreth's world. While The Lost Queen was a strong single POV novel because the story itself moved around Languoreth, The Forgotten Kingdom needed the additional POVs of Lailoken and Angharad to allow the reader to really understand what is happening since Languoreth is stuck in the capital for most of the novel. I particularly liked that we got Lailoken's POV this time because I loved getting to see what is happening with Uther (aka Arthur) Pendragon and the Dragon Warriors. Each of these characters have a strong story to follow.

Love The Different Relationships
With multiple point of views comes multiple romantic and platonic relationships for readers to enjoy. Personally, I loved getting to see Lailoken and Angharad's romantic relationships develop, although we're definitely in the early stages of Angharad's (I'm so excited for the final book of the trilogy to come out so we can hopefully see this develop further!). On the flip side, we continuing getting to see Languoreth try to manage her love for Maelgwn while trying to remain a faithful wife. It's such a hard position to be in because she has so little choice in her life until much later in it. The way each of these characters develop over the course of the novel (which covers roughly 7 years, although there are some time jumps) and the different relationships each of them develops with other characters is wonderful!

​Some Missing Moments?
There were some moments where the story changed character POV and it felt like there was some moments missing in between. A specific moment that confused me is at the very end when Languoreth's POV has us waiting for everyone to return home and the next chapter is Angharad's POV when everyone is together in the great hall. Did I miss a chapter? Should we just assume that the characters all casually came home? This didn't happen often, but every so often this jump would happen that left me flipping back pages to see if I'd actually missed something...

Overall, this is a great second novel in the Lost Queen trilogy and a strong standalone novel. It doesn't fall into the dreaded "middle book" category, but instead continues Languoreth's journey to becoming a queen, as well as introducing the strong storylines of Lailoken and Angharad. Pike has done a wonderful job writing this book and I'd highly recommend it to anyone who loved The Lost Queen, to those interested in a strong historical fiction series, or those looking for novels with excellent female heroes in the midst of Arthurian history.

​The Forgotten Kingdom comes out September 15, 2020, which means the wait is almost over for this book to hit shelves! Are you excited to read this sequel?

I received an ARC from the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I really love this series. There's just something so magical and effortless about it. What's even cooler to me is that most of this stuff is based on actual historic events. I can't imagine the amount of research that went into these since the references to the characters themselves must be few and far between. When I read this, I felt like I was stepping into a whole other world and getting a fantastic history lesson at the same time.

I must confess though, that I think I liked the first one just a touch better with the only reason being, that I was able to get into it a bit quicker. Because it had been so long between reading this one and the first one, I was a bit disoriented when I started reading The Forgotten Kingdom. It also took me awhile to adjust to the date/time jumps. I cannot get enough of Angharad. She is a phenomenal character and I enjoyed watching her grow up and read about her journey. I cannot wait to see where her life takes her next.

Overall, this book was great. Once I got over that hump, I couldn't put it down. I am eagerly awaiting the last installment in the trilogy though at the same time, I don't want this series to come to an end!

As expected, I thoroughly enjoyed this sequel to The Lost Queen. It has been a long time since I have become so enamoured with a story and become completely lost in a book (in the best way possible). I have simply fallen in love with the characters and each plot point unfolds beautifully. Putting the book down is nearly impossible. It is no wonder I love this book as I am a history buff and an admirer of everything Celtic. I eagerly await the final instalment of the trilogy which I am sure will have just as lovely of prose. I cannot say enough good things about The Lost Queen and The Forgotten Kingdom and recommend them to anyone I come across, especially working in a library.

I’m so happy that I fell upon this series and Signe Pike, certainly a new favourite author of mine. After finishing the first in the trilogy (The Lost Queen) a month ago, I felt both excitement and dread – excitement for finding something that so deeply resonated with me, and dread, knowing that I would have to painstakingly wait for the future installments of this series.

I was quickly swept back up into the enchanting world that Signe writes, so engrossed by her writing and story that I hadn’t realized I finished over half the book in one sitting. It’s such an incredibly immersive and captivating tale. There was such a whimsical atmosphere to this like in The Lost Queen, and it drew me in completely. I haven’t felt the desire to just sit and spend all my time reading a book in quite a while. It's the kind of book you can get lost in - my favourite kind.

Signe Pike creates such an emotional experience for her reader, through the use of multiple PoVs in this installment, which is different from the previous book, where we followed Languoreth alone. Let me tell you, I cried at multiple points throughout the story. There is so much love and so much heartache, and she writes the characters so well that you can feel the raw emotion they are experiencing throughout their journeys.

This was so well-researched, and I truly enjoyed reading the Author’s Notes at the end of both The Lost Queen and The Forgotten Kingdom. Signe Pike sheds so much light on this forgotten part of history, and it is clear that she cares very deeply about these historical figures and their hazy, unclear pasts. She breathes life into these complex characters, and it is a joy to get to know them and the world they might have lived in. I’m so excited to delve further into this series and I look forward to reading more from Signe Pike.