This was a wonderful follow up as a second book in a trilogy! I absolutely love Pike's writing style. It is a great historical fiction read that I don't think much is written about. The characters grew more real to me and I am invested! Can't wait for story's conclusion with book 3!

This was my first book by this author, It was pretty enjoyable. I would give this book a 3 star rating! It was a pretty Quick and easy read!

The Forgotten Kingdom tells the story in three parts, Langoureth, Lailoken, and Angharad, a family divided by kingdom and by land. The Forgotten Kingdom shows the rich Arthurian mythology and the power behind family.

I gave The Forgotten Kingdom three stars, enjoying the history and the Arthurian mythology that filled the books and filled my imagination as I read The Forgotten Kingdom. I loved reading about the different myths and legends in this realm. Reading about Langoureth and Lailoken again was fantastic and I found myself remembering book one: The Lost Queen and the story of Langoureth and the connection between our twins. To read about all the different hardships that the whole family had to endure was heartfelt and emotional.

While I enjoyed the history, the mythology, and legends of The Forgotten Kingdom, I just found that I wanted the pace to slow down a bit. Each point of view was a different year during the story and I just found that to be a little too confusing. I felt the plot was disconnected from the plot and character and felt that the plot was a mess.

I did enjoy this second installment to the series but I just found that I wasn't as gravitated towards The Forgotten Kingdom. I enjoyed the setting of the kingdom and how much emphasis there was on the power behind the throne and the decisions that were made. The mythology and legends that were included were enjoyable and I loved reading about the history.

Thank you again to NetGalley and Atria Books for inviting me to read The Forgotten Kingdom and providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Unfortunately this book was not for me. I’m sure I’m in the minority in this opinion, however I did not click with the writing. The pacing was too slow and it did not hold my attention.

The Forgotten kingdom is the second book in the series. I really enjoyed this book so much. It was such a complete page turner for me, I couldn’t put it down. . Both books so far have swept me away. The research that went into writing these books definitely shows in this amazing Historical Fiction Fantasy novel. I loved it. I highly recommend it.

The Forgotten Kingdom continues the saga of Langoureth, her family, and her kingdom, focusing mostly on the battle between Langoureth’s husband and The Dragon Warriors, of which her brothers and lover are members.

I’d say about 2/3 of the book focuses on the battle and the fallout from the perspective of Langoureth and her brother Lailoken, covering just a few months in time. The remaining 1/3 focuses on the life and religious training of Langoureth’s daughter Angharad and covers the span of about 7 years. Because of the timeframes covered, the book feels a bit bogged down in the middle and the pacing suffers a bit for it.

I definitely cared about what happened to the characters, especially the main three. The author is excellent at exploring the character’s thoughts and motives without it feeling repetitive. We also get introduced to a few new characters in this book and I immediately cared about them too. We also see a few characters from the beginning of the first book and I was so glad to see them again!

I switched back and forth between print and audio. The audiobook is narrated by the same Langoureth as the first book, with two additional narrators for Lailoken and Angharad.

You can tell that the author has done considerable historical research for these books and a lot of thought has gone into making them as accurate as possible. I’m definitely looking forward to the third book in the trilogy as Langoureth comes into her power.

A wonderful sequel to The Lost Queen. I'm very much looking forward to the third installment in the series!

This is the sequel to "The Lost Queen" by SIgne Pike and I cannot wait for book 3 to come out!

This is action packed, takes place right after the first book, and continues to follow the story of Languoreth, her twin brother Lailoken (inspiration for the legend of Merlin), and her daughter Anghorad. In this novel, we hear from more perspectives and jump between several characters and timelines (not in a confusing way though).

As with the first in the series, there is history, romance, battles and war, religion, a host of amazing characters, and such picturesque and detailed descriptions of the British Isles in the 6th century.

The author's notes in both books add a whole other dimension to the books too.

Loved it! Thank you so much for the ARC!

Book two of The Lost Queen series is over and I’ve got that “how will I go on” feeling thinking about waiting for the third one. I’m devastated. I hate waiting.
I love this book/series because Signe Pike does an amazing job world building and story telling in a way that is easy to follow (if you don’t let yourself get hung up on the many strange names/places).I have enjoyed reading about each character we’ve gotten to know so far, chapters written in their voices. Its a story telling element that I really enjoy in books like this when there are many characters and places to get to know over the course of a series. I think my favorite storyline in this book was Angharad, who really stood out as an important character. I cannot wait to continue following her and the rest of the characters through time and history in book three.

6th century Scotland: check
Epic battle scenes: check check
Another can’t-put-down-until-it’s-finished: CHECK CHECK CHECK

The second installment of Signe Pike’s The Lost Queen trilogy does not disappoint. There is even MORE action and drama in this one, and I can’t fathom the hours of research she must have done to make this such a success. I can’t get enough of Languoreth and was thankful that this didn’t leave me in such a cliffhanger like The Lost Queen did. A few things were different for the second installment, most noticeably now we also have the viewpoints of her brother Lailoken and her daughter Angharad. While multiple viewpoints can get distracting for me as a reader, I thought Pike did this seamlessly making it enjoyable rather than a chore I had to keep track of.

I CANNOT WAIT for the final installment and will be the first to pre-order it (unless of course the publisher is kind enough to provide me with an ARC as they did the first two - fingers crossed). Plus, the covers are so gorgeous I might just end up buying them so I can look at the pretties.

I absolutely LOVE this series. If you haven't picked them up yet, do it. The writing is beautiful and captivating, and what I love most is how much you grow to love (or hate) the characters. The amount of research that Pike put into these books is insane, and she does an incredible job putting that research into a story that keeps you wanting more. If you love historical pieces, Celtic history or epic fantasy, this is the book for you. Really, you can read it as a standalone as well, but the whole story is worth your time.

I really wanted to love this series, but it is ultimately a no from me. I feel like this is a situation of it's me and not necessarily the book. I just found the series to be slow to the point that I lost interest and just didn't care. I think that if you're a superfan of Celtic history then this will definitely be up your alley otherwise not so much.

Stunning follow up to The Lost Queen. A mixture of Camelot, Avalon, and Celtic mythology that is to die for!

I suspect that this series will break me like Outlander broke me. I fell in love with the characters like they were my friends, my family. I lived their emotions with them, their joy, their rage, their sadness. I didn't realize how much I missed historical fiction before reading these two books. I do not like to read about wars, but learning about them is so much interesting that I only want more.

Can't wait to see what book 3 will bring (and already my heart is breaking because it'll be the last book of the series).

I will 1000% buy myself a physical copy of this one. I want to cherish it.

Many thanks to Atria Books for the complimentary e-copy of this book through NetGalley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

Okay, so I saw The Lost Queen trilogy being talked about online, and someone said it's like 'Outlander meets Camelot.' I immediately thought nope, don't do it. You've heard such high praise about other books and more often than not, you've come away disappointed. And, I did it anyway. I dove in, and lo and behold, I was not at all disappointed. Signe Pike writes beautifully, and these characters get to you in the best possible ways. They also get to you in the worst possible ways because I can pretty much guarantee that things are going to happen that you aren't going to like, and it's going to make you mad. Maybe that's just me? It's entirely possible, but all I know is these characters sucked me right in and held on tight. This author is definitely a master of her craft because it's been awhile since I read a book set this far back and felt like I was there, witnessing everything. I'm not going to give anything away, so I'll just say this is a must read story. If you enjoy historical fiction or fantasy, you don't want to miss this one.

I really wanted to like this book but unfortunately I could not get into it. I do not think this was the one for me. The premise was super interesting, but towards the end to me it just fell apart.

Wow was this sequel a page turner! I loved the first book but this one was a whole new level!
The new faith of Christianity is at battle with the old ways. This was very interesting to read about and probably one of the most compelling parts of the story to me personally.
I loved all the characters also. We follow Languoreth, Lailoken, and Angharad. I loved Angharad’s perspective was my favorite by far because she is in training to become Wisdom Keeper and her path is a very difficult one but also very interesting.
Can’t wait for book 3!

I’ve always felt drawn toward the Arthurian legends. There was just something about the way in which the stories combined tragedy and romance that called to my own melancholia, and I was especially drawn to those retellings that leaned away from the fantastic and into the historical. I was loved reading and re-reading books like Bernard Cornwell’s magnificent (and heartbreaking) The Warlord Chronicles and Marion Zimmer Bradley’s groundbreaking The Mists of Avalon (before it was made clear that she was a monster). These books, I felt, managed to capture what it must have felt like to live in Britain after the Romans left, as the old civilization crumbled and the barbarians swept in to replace them, that sense of dislocation and sadness that always accompanies the passing of an old world and the birth of a new.
Thus, when I read the first book of Signe Pike’s series, The Lost Queen, I was hooked, and I knew that it was going to hit the same spots as Cornwell and Bradley and others like them. Here was that rare gem, a book that immersed you in the barbaric world of post-Roman Britain, where the various tribes struggled against one another, each attempting to gain supremacy, all of them heedless (or uncaring) about the danger posed by the invading Angles. What’s more, it featured a truly badass heroine, in the figure of Languoreth, a woman whose fate is to become queen yet feels the call of forbidden love.
The second novel, The Forgotten Kingdom, picks up where the previous book left off. Lailoken and Angharad have ridden off so that she can begin her apprenticeship under her uncle’s guidance. However, war is coming, and soon she is separated from him, and she spends most of the novel learning more about her powers under the guidance of various tutors and priestesses. Lailoken, meanwhile, manages to survive a brutal battle, only to have his sanity tested in ways that he never dreamed possible, while Languoreth must try to fashion some measure of peace and contentment with her husband, even as she still yearns for Maelgwyn, the Pendragon.
All three of the main characters — Lailoken, Languoreth, and Angharad — come alive in Pike’s deft hands. She allows us to see the ways in which these three people, so alike and yet so different, are all very much caught up in the tides of history, and each of them has to face intense tragedy as they try to prepare their people for the great conflict to come. None of them are as simple as they might appear on the surface, and none of them are either entirely good nor entirely evil but are, instead, complex people with competing loyalties and interests. Despite their shortcomings, we come to appreciate their strength, their sheer ability to survive in this unforgiving world of blood and violence.
However, Pike’s greatest strength as a novelist is in her power to capture the physical sensations of this world. With Lailoken, we encounter the brutal and visceral terrors of war; with Angaharad, we encounter the strange and terrifying world of the gods and spirits; and with Languoreth, we see the myriad ways in which politics shape the lives of everyone they touch, even a powerful queen. What’s more, we actually feel as if we are walking the same breathtakingly beautiful Scottish countryside as the characters, looking up at the bleak mountains, wandering through the shadows of the forest, and gazing raptly at the savage beauty of the lochs. Having been to Scotland several times, I can say that Pike’s haunting prose took me back, and for that she deserves a lot of credit and gratitude.
And, of course, one of the central conflicts in this novel, as with its predecessor, is that between Christianity and the faith of the Keepers. Given that all three of our protagonists are adherents of the old ways, it’s no surprise that it comes down pretty squarely on the side of the Keepers, while the Christians (such as the man who would become known as St. Mungo) are usually painted as zealots and butchers. There is an important exception, however, in the character of Brother Thomas, a monk who takes Angharad under his wing. He shows himself to be a good man, one who doesn’t let his religious blind him to the fact that there others who do not trod the same path as he does, and I hope that we get to see a bit more of him in the concluding volume to the trilogy.
The central premise of this series, that the Arthurian legends have their basis in ancient Scotland — as opposed to Wales, which is the more commonly accepted origin story — is an intriguing one. Pike has clearly done her homework on the issue, and it does seem like there’s good reason to believe that the Scots may have played a larger role in the development of these stories than most people think.
There are, naturally, some fantastical elements — particularly when each of the characters touches upon the spirit world — but, as Pike notes in her author’s note, she really does see this as primarily a work of historical fiction. I totally agree. In fact, I think that these books, more than many others, really do immerse us as readers into the mindset of those dwelling in this particular period. They are people of profound feelings, to be certain, but they also have a certain detachment when they look at the world around them. Given the horrid traumas that they endure, and given the precariousness of life in their world — people die in war, or in childbirth, or simply by accident — it would make sense that they would view the world around them with more practicality than we moderns do. At the same time, of course, they are also in a world where gods and spirits are very much a part of the landscape, and their psyches reflect this.
All in all, this is a worthy continuation of the story begun in The Forgotten Queen. Both historical fiction buffs and those who love the Arthurian legends will find much to enjoy here. If only we didn’t have to wait so long for the third volume!

This is the second book in The Lost Queen trilogy, and it did not disappoint. This book picks up right where we leave off with book one. I have become super invested with the character, and was so happy to be back with them. This one is told in multiple POV, which I love. It ends on a cliffhanger, which makes me excited for book three! I would recommend this trilogy!

This follow up book was a great addition to the series, and carried on the beautiful historical background of the first book. One thing I really loved was how beautiful and lush the descriptions were — I felt like I was right there with the characters. And, the characters themselves were so compelling and strong, and I really enjoyed the character arcs. All in all, I loved the historical setting and thought it was incorporated so well into the amazing story of these characters.