Queen High by C.J Carey is the anticipated follow up to Widowland.

While the writing is, once again, well done, the overall story feels uncertain, timid and lost. I didn't feel the same level of intrigue andin some parts the repititon slowed everything down.

There were moments where it really seemed like something extraordinary was about to happen but it fizzled out in favor of another London fact that wasn't necessary.

I would recommend this to readers who have read Widowland but with the caveat of it not bringing anything new or exciting to the dystopian genre.

Thanks to Quercus Books, Netgalley and the author for an ARC of this book. I am leaving this unbiased review voluntarily.

I know this book was released a while ago but I had to read the first book before I read the sequel and it took me longer to do that than I thought. So here are my thoughts... albeit a little late.,

This series is brilliant. The writing is brilliantly paced and reading it feels like reading a classic and a modern thriller all at once. The historical, literary and Anglophile references throughout the book appealed to the geek in me and I definitely was here for Rose and her feminist counterparts.

I don't want to give too much away, but I googled 'will there be a sequel to Queen High' as soon as I put the book down, so that should tell you what I thought.

Sequels aren't supposed to be better than the first book, but this one was and I wish I could read more about this world, Rose, Helena, Oliver and all the other wonderful characters whose triumph I want to see on the page quite desperately.

You need to read these books!

The sequel to Widowland, this novel is set two years after the events of the first book. Our protagonist, Rose, has somehow managed to avoid reprisals, despite being at the scene of the Leader's assassination. Spies are everywhere, no one can be trusted and someone has murdered a high-ranking SS officer in St James' Park. I enjoyed this thriller. It may have been wise for me to have re-read Widowland first, to re-familiarise myself with the characters and the caste system, but it wasn't long before I was fully immersed in this dystopian version of a post-war Britain, which has become a Protectorate of Germany. Sinister and dark. Loved it!

What a unique book! I loved the dystopian alternate reality, loved the notion of a Poet Hunter and loved the twist towards the end. Wallis Simpson has always been a. Figure of intrigue and this was a really imaginative take on the idea of her being Queen and ruler. Really readable, hard to put down and keeps you intrigued and guessing to the end!

What worked for me:
The plot twist (even though it happened 73% of the way into the book)

What didn't work for me:
Waiting for so long for the plot twist
The length - it could have been at least 50 pages shorter
Way too much repetition from book 1
Too many side characters

Read if you enjoy:
Dystopian novels
A sudden climax when you're almost at the end of the book
A cleverly thought-out world

I'm the kinda gal that needs closure so I'm glad I read this as I can now say I've completed a series. Congratulations to me. BUT if I knew then what I know now, I probably wouldn't have read book 1 at all. It's a shame as the premise is brilliant and so thought provoking. In fact, it would make for great discussion.
A caste system for women? A great talking point.

The editing of literature to make it suitable for consumption? A great talking point.

Those are just two of the many horrifying concepts explored within the book so you can see that there are many what-ifs to explore but considering that book 1 leaned heavily into the world building, I was hoping that book 2 would lean heavily into the action following on from the excellent cliffhanger of book 1. Instead, the structure of Queen High felt very similar to that of Widowland:

Slow
Slow
Slow
Slow
Slow
Slow
Excitement
Excitement
Excitement
The end.

While I appreciated learning a little more about German-occupied Britain, I would have liked book two to have been punchier. There is no doubt that CJ Carey is a purposeful, thoughtful writer. She has built this version of an alternate history masterfully after all. I just couldn't get on board with the pacing of the novel and the fact that for almost 3/4 of the book there was not a lot of anything new.

The brilliant plot twist makes this book a 3 star.

This is the second novel by Carey set in an alternate British history. Like the first novel, Widowland, this is set in a Britain where in 1940 the British government entered an Alliance which led to the invasion of Britain by Germany, the removal of King George VI and Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret and the creation of a Protectorate.


In the place of the deposed royals was placed Edward Windsor and his American wife Wallis Simpson, figureheads of royalty and yet powerless puppets of the Protectorate.


Now it is 1955. This Britain is a place of segregation in a “divide and rule” scenario. All women are in thrall to the men of the Protectorate, in a caste system based on that of India. As such there are six classes for women. The highest were popularly called Gelis, after the woman most loved by the Leader, his niece Geli. Klaras – after the leader’s mother – were fertile women who had produced, ideally, four or more children; Lenis were professional women, such as office workers and actresses, after Leni Riefenstahl, the regime’s chief film director. Paulas, named after the Leader’s sister, were in the caring professions, teachers and nurses, whereas Magdas were lowly shop and factory employees and Gretls did the grunt work as kitchen and domestic staff. There were a range of other designations – for nuns, disabled mothers and midwives – but right at the bottom of the hierarchy came Friedas. It was a diminutive of the nickname Friedhofefrauen – cemetery women. These were widows and spinsters over fifty who had no children, no reproductive purpose and who did not serve a man. There was nothing lower than the Friedas, who have been placed in a ghetto area known as Widowland.


It is now 1955, two years since the killing of the Leader, assassinated in the Oxford Bodleian. As before, the story is focused upon Rose Ransom, a Geli who was involved in the assassination of the Leader in the first book. Rose is lucky to be alive as she was involved in the Leader’s death, but has been miraculously overlooked. She still works at the Culture Ministry where her work now focuses on editing Poetry, a form of writing that is felt to transmit subversive meanings, emotions and signals that cannot be controlled. Therefore, all Poetry is banned and Rose is appointed a Poet Hunter, someone who takes traditional poetry and rewrites it into matter more conducive to the new regime.


In Queen High, the rule of the Protectorate has continued to be reinforced. Now, more than ever, the Protectorate is a place of surveillance and isolation – a land of spies. A government propaganda drive to promote positive images of women has just been announced as for the first time in their rule a visit of the American President Eisenhower has been announced and the Alliance wishes to show England in a good light.


With Edward having died in 1954, Queen Wallis has a symbolic position as the last Queen of England. It is Wallis who will be spearheading the campaign, and Rose has been tasked by the Alliance Security Office with visiting her to explain the plan. When Rose arrives at the palace, rather than find an irrational and confused person, Rose finds Wallis surprisingly lucid, candid and desperate to return to America and enjoy the liberty of her homeland. She claims she has a secret document so explosive that it will blow the Protectorate apart, so will she be able to give the Americans her evidence before her secret is discovered and pull the trigger on the Alliance?


“A Queen High is one solitary queen in a lousy hand. A lonely queen all on her own. Some people call that hand a Nothing. Or a No Pair. Seems kind of appropriate now.”

There’s a lot in Queen High to like, especially if you’ve read the previous novel. What works best for me here is the wonderful little details that create a realistic scenario for the characters to move in. Whether it be the Rudolf Hess Airport on the outskirts of London, the amended inscription on the Cenotaph, or the designs by Albert Speer of a new London renamed (unsurprisingly) Londinium, this setting feels real. Seeing both London and Berlin, now Germania, in this new world was fascinating.


We are, of course, seeing the ruling party strengthen its hold on the occupied Anglo-Saxon Territories. Fifteen years on after the occupation, most music and books are banned, unless produced or sanctioned by Content Providers. The Aesthetic Hygiene Squad has been created to sanitise public work, which seems to still involve book-burning. There are Purity Drives, arresting fallen women who are trialled in public People’s Courts. Food is still rationed, unless you are one of the upper classes. Foreign communication is pretty much banned, with magazines and news from other non-German territories highly restricted. Rules are revised often on a weekly basis – at one point the Protector bans women from having their hair braided, as such a style can be used to send secret messages to others. All of this seems plausible in this Orwellian-style state, although there were times when I felt that some points are made a little too forcefully. I found the redefining of the BBC’s motto of “Inform, Educate, Entertain” to “Inform, Educate, Eradicate” something reminiscent of the Daleks.


What is also less credible are the inconsistent plot points that happen within this. It did rather dent my suspension of disbelief that Rose manages, despite being one of the few survivors of the assassination in 1953, to not only hold down a super-secret job in this novel, but be given one which is perhaps more important than it was before. Even the author admits, through Rose, that she is amazed by the unlikeliness of this happening, but attempts to explain this in an unconvincing plot twist and an unlikely coincidence.


And this is not the only one. I was further surprised at how quick Rose manages to go from being office lackey to confidant of the Queen, flying with her in her private plane to Berlin. To cap it all, there is also one ginormous plot-twist at the end, which I won’t reveal here but of which its convenience may make or break the book for some readers.


And yet despite all this, I enjoyed the book a great deal. There’s some nice literary references throughout, and the expositions on the importance of poetry, like the discourses on the importance of literature in the last book, may ring true with many readers. There is (of course!) an ending which leaves it all open for another novel, which despite these issues I will be interested to read.


All in all then, Queen High is a book with an unusual setting that may entertain very much, provided you don’t think about the plot too carefully. It is undoubtedly an entertaining read, and the pages turn easily, even though at no point did I really feel that Rose was in great peril. Lots of marks for effort, even if it is not quite the success I had hoped it was going to be.

I'd read the first book in this series (Widow Land) for a book club and I hoped this would give me some of the answers I so wanted to that book's cliffhangers. The plot seems to be building and building and I would have liked some action earlier. That said, I enjoyed parts of this dystopian novel a great deal, for example, when one of the characters went to interview Queen Wallis.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a free advance copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

Well, this was a lot more like hard work than the opener of the series, Widowland, was. In showing the drudgery and oppression of a rarefied society, it's just repetitive in the extreme about the drudgery – forever reminding us what some women can and can't do, and what is not allowed for any of them. Not only that, the book is too similar to its prequel – after a hundred pages of what seems like wonderful world-building (and is, to some extent) but is merely one huge info-dump, we see our lead forced to enter the world she didn't expect to. Previously it was to enter the world of the Widowlands to see what clues could be had to the death of Hitler. Here she's thrown into the underworld of "Fahrenheit 451"-styled poetry circles, and, just in time for a presidential visit from America, into the circle of Queen Wallis.

Yes, this is still deeply entrenched in the rich world of alternative fiction, where the UK was more or less made an annex of by Nazi Germany. Germania has replaced Berlin as Hitler's dream capital, but two years ago, in the first book, he was finally killed off. So why oh why oh why, when we have so many people who could have been impacted by an extended Nazi world, do we have extended scenes where we're supposed to have sympathy for King Edward's widow, when all she does is come across like an alcoholic Mucky Meg"h"an Muckle whingeing about what had been taken from her, and talking of The Firm not understanding her?

More commonality with the first book is the complete lack of oomph about Rose, our heroine. We soon see the reason why her love of crosswords is crowbarred in most ridiculous fashion into a conversation, but what does she do about it? Does she solve any, like a naturally curious woman would; does she clamour for back-issues of the newspaper the key ones are in (seeing as her boyf is its editor, fer cryin' out loud)? No – in the entirety of the first half here she looks at some people and wonders if any of them look like the crossword setter. It's no wonder too little happens far too slowly here with that kind of dynamic, agency-filled lead. She still seems unable to research anything for the people demanding it of her, and she bloody well still seems unable to research anything for herself.

Rose's naffness really stops this being a decent feminist work, in my mind, and the alternative history and dystopian society elements have all been done before, and better. Heck, they were done better last time round in this series, let alone from any other author. And so much of the pleasure from previously is gone from these pages, when we see the same person go through the same steps and (lack of process) all over again.

One final issue really rankled with me. OK, it's deliberately set in a world where nobody says the name of Hitler, and the Nazi Party term is shouted down instantly, but this should be more about who they were and what they did, and less about breeding pressures on women and so on. In never once mentioning the real victims of the Nazi ideology, this actually feels quite disrespectful. I'd rather I were forced to empathise with some of the six million, and not the Windsors. But beyond even that is the fact the limp milksop of a lead is just not fun to be reading about any more.

And beyond even THAT is the fact I can review a book like this, and not mention once that it starts with a murder to be solved - a murder so seldom on these pages that when it does crop up you feel a right jab of surprise. This really is the least thriller-y thriller I can remember.

This book is the sequel to Widowland and while it’s written in a similar enjoyable way I found it not as good as the first. It follows on two years later and Rose has been promoted at her work where she rewrites poetry to conform with the regime’s values. Some of the opportunities she gets are way too convenient and not believable [especially as later it’s revealed that she’s been followed ever since ‘the event’ (hide spoiler)]. But it’s still a clever and entertaining read.

Great continuation to Rose’s story from Widowland. The world building of an alternative history is fantastic- you can really buy into the developments that have taken place before the novel and throughout. Interesting use of poetry as freedom of expression, I think more than in the first book.

Enjoyed the new characters - although I admit a couple I wasn’t sure if they were new or if I should remember them. In the context of shifting and repressed memories this may well be intentional of course. Queen Wallis is particularly good value as an introduction.

Yet again looking forward to seeing where this goes next.

Wow. Could C J Carey follow up on the success of the previous book in this series, Widowland?

Indeed she has. Rose Ransom is back in the land of the Alliance, a Britain more than simply as cupied by Germany post WW2, but one where every shred of the Time Before (WW2) is being erased.

Two years after the assassination of the Leader, Rose is cleansing poetry for the Ministry of Culture and leading the high life with Douglas Powell, editor of the Echo newspaper.

However things are not as the seem. When Douglas suggests Rose interview Queen Wallis, a series of events are set in motion that cannot be stopped.

Highly enjoyable sequel and I can’t wait for the next book in the series! Thanks to NetGalley and Quercus books for the advanced reader copy - my favourite book this year!

I was lucky enough to read a highly immersive book called Widowland last year and I was really happy to discover that it had a sequel. You should definitely read Widowland before jumping into Queen High, as it will give you a thorough introduction to the world that these books are set in and what Rose has already been through. They’re both very addictive books, so I’m sure you’ll enjoy them!

Since the Leader died two years ago, the Protectorate has become a land of spies. Rose Ransom is still a Class I female working as a ‘corrector’ of literature, making classic novels acceptable for the teachings of the Alliance. Now, she has been asked to turn her hand to poetry, which must be banned completely and Rose needs to seek out any cases of poetry that might be hiding. Meanwhile, President Eisenhower of the US is about to make a state visit and Rose has also been asked to ensure that Queen Wallis is fit to meet to him. But she’s met with a queen who is desperate to go back to her homeland and spouting claims of a highly sensitive document that could destroy the whole Alliance. Could this way of life finally be over for everyone?

Since the events of Widowland, paranoia has spread through the Alliance like wildfire. It’s a scary regime and it seems that very few people are above suspicion. However, in some ways, I could see reflections of our society within it. Surveillance is much more prevalent now and I think mistrust is too.

The classification system of women is stomach-churning, as the criteria for each rank seems to largely be based on looks, wealth and reproductive abilities. While it’s possible to move down ranks, it doesn’t seem to be possible to move up, so once a woman gets her social class, that’s generally her path for life. The Friedas are the lowest class of women and they live in Widowlands, which are run-down areas of town, segregated from everyone else. It’s a fascinating, infuriating notion but a fantastic device for illustrating misogyny and objectification in speculative fiction like this.

Rose is a 31-year-old Geli, the highest class of woman, but she is unmarried with no children. She is dating newspaper editor Douglas and she starts to imagine what her life would be like if she married him in order to avoid declassification. I felt sure that Rose wouldn’t subject herself to an unhappy marriage but the fact that she was considering it to protect her status worried me. I really didn’t want such a brilliant mind as hers become little more than a subserviant wife and baby-making machine.

The regime is doing everything it can to erase people’s memories of the Leader’s assassination and everything that happened before it. This kind of mass mind control is a terrifying notion that I wouldn’t like to believe is possible but that I’m not completely convinced isn’t. While this book is supposed to be an alternate history, certain parts of it felt very futuristic and I can definitely see some of these tactics being employed by future dictatorships.

The idea of poetry as a powerful weapon is one that literature lovers can easily get on board with. Poetry has been used to ignite revolutions, express rebel ideas and deep emotions for centuries, so it’s only natural that a regime like the Protectorate would want to take that power away from its people. Rose’s search for poetry leads her to the most desperate members and places of society and once again, her eyes are opened to the realities of what’s going on under her very nose.

Queen Wallis is recently widowed and she’s very unhappy at having to stay in the country. Even as the most powerful woman in the Alliance, she is still a prisoner of the Protectorate and subject to vicious gossip, like every other woman. Rose knows her pain and as she gets to know the queen, she wants to do everything she can to help her fulfill her mission to go home. One thing I love about Rose is her ability to see the world from positions that are wildly different to her own and she uses that selflessness for good.

The Alliance segregates its women because it knows how much disruption they can cause, if they unite. By separating them, they eliminate the possibility of friendships forming across castes and from women like Rose seeing the truth of how the Friedas live. The fact that Rose gains all the information she has about the Widowlands via secret visits suggests that the men don’t consider that women might have curious, intelligent minds of their own.

Queen High is an explosive, powerful sequel to a book that imagines a pivotal point in European history differently while managing to mirror our present world. It’s a very intricate, engaging and exciting feminist speculative novel headed up by a heroine that you want nothing but good things for. I would love to see what Carey writes next, as a mind that can conjure up the idea of these books is a truly fascinating one.

Queen High by C J Carey is a direct sequel to her book Widowland, and if you have not already read that I highly recommend picking it up before reading this, not just because it will give you the background you need to get the most from this book but because it is a cracking good read in its own right.
Set in a dystopian alternative Britain which became a protectorate of Germany during the second world war , where the royal family has been usurped and the widowed Queen Wallis is a titular head of state with no real power, the book tells the story of Rose Ransom , a key figure from Widowland who is keeping a low profile following the events of that book. As a woman in the protectorate her life is highly regulated with her designated social class determining everything from suitable employment to food rations and even clothing and hairstyles. She despises her work in the " Culture " department where she is responsible for editing or rather censoring the great works of English prose and poetry.. The promise of a state visit from US President Eisenhower drives the Alliance into overdrive , determined to root out subversion and resistance, and Rose finds herself drawn into the hunt.
Once again Carey delivers drama and tension in spades as well as wonderful characterisation and some really interesting what if scenarios. This is a fast paced book that I would recommend to fans of dystopian or historical fiction, especially if they like that history with a bit of a twist.. I also appreciated the feminist storytelling and emphasis on women's roles and how attempts to separate and segregate them based on the most ridiculous of criteria is a powerful tool in the wrong hands. I did think this book was a little busy , with a little too much story , it could have been streamlined a little so that it read more smoothly, but that is a very minor criticism of a book I really enjoyed.
The ending left me eager for more, so I am hoping that the author is busy penning book three, I for one cannot wait to pick it up.
I read and reviewed an ARC courtesy of NetGalley and the publisher, all opinions are my own.

“Anyhow, long story short, I won that game. We all had bad hands, but I had the best of them, a Queen High. Know what that is?… A Queen High is one solitary queen in a lousy hand. A lonely queen all on her own. Some people call that hand a Nothing. Or a No Pair. Seems kind of appropriate now.” Queen Wallis to Rose Ransom.

My thanks to Quercus Books for an eARC via NetGalley of ‘Queen High’ by C J Carey. I was also invited to take part in its publication day blog tour.

This is the sequel to ‘Widowland’, which was one of my top reads in 2021. As a result just some general details about the plot in order to avoid spoilers for those yet to read the first book.

It is now 1955 and two years have passed since the shocking events at the conclusion of ‘Widowland’. Life goes on for Rose Ransom under the strict caste system imposed upon women by the Protectorate.

Rose continues her work at the Ministry of Culture rewriting literature to correct the views of the past. Her remit has expanded to include poetry. All poetry has been banned as it is considered capable of transmitting subversive meanings, emotions and signals that cannot be controlled.

There is an underground movement of gatherings where people read poetry. As part of her covert work Rose is sent to infiltrate meetings and gather information. While reluctant she really has no choice but to become a Poet Hunter.

In addition, the American President and his wife are about to make an important official visit and the Protectorate wants to impress them and assuage any concerns there might be about the treatment of women in the Alliance. As a result Rose is sent to meet with the widowed Queen Wallis to ascertain her state of mind before the presidential visit. Rose quickly finds herself once more caught up in monumental events.

I admire Carey’s ability to tell a riveting tale of a dystopian society. I had lavished ‘Widowland’ with praise for its powerful storyline, the attention to detailing the everyday lives in the 1950s Anglo-Saxon Alliance, and its celebration of the power of literature.

In ‘Queen High’ these qualities continue creating an intelligent and thought provoking novel that is also very exciting. I found it engaging and certainly a worthy sequel to ‘Widowland’.

Very highly recommended.

A follow up to Widowland, a dystopian thriller about a Nazi run United Kingdom after World War 2. It follows on from the assassination of the leader and the further repression of the female population. It is also indicative of the resilience of humanity and the enduring power of literature.
An excellent continuation from Widowland but also an outstanding stand alone read. Highly recommended.

Widowland was one of my top reads of 2021 but with its electrifying ending, I never dared hope for a sequel. And yet. And yet. To my great astonishment, this cover image popped up on Netgalley and I leapt on it like a hawk. Further surprises followed. The franchise is still helmed by Rose Ransom who has miraculously survived the previous novel. It was with some trepidation that I actually started to read the novel however. Could Queen High possibly pack the same punch as its predecessor? And how on earth was Rose Ransom still alive?


The action picks up in 1955, two years after the Event, the term which the population have come to refer to the assassination of the Leader on British soil. Retribution was violent and widespread but somehow Rose Ransom walked away seemingly scot-free. She is still at her job in the Culture Ministry, still correcting literature to bring it in line with the ideals of the Party and has now been moved over to dealing with poetry too. The Protector remains in power but following the death of Edward VIII, it is Queen Wallis who rules alone, the last of the House of Windsor. Or is she?

In a plot strand reminiscent of Fatherland, a man has been found mysteriously dead in St James' Park. Detective Bruno Schumacher has been tasked with solving the murder, with extra pressure since the Alliance is due to receive its first international visitor, a figure no less than President Eisenhower and his wife. Yet he finds no shortage of people who might have wished for the death of August von Falk, a man who was head of the mysterious taskforce Aktion Regnans. Bruno himself has a certain lack of enthusiasm for the search, he is more interested in speaking to the Geli Rose Ransom and she is proving elusive.

Rose has a mission of her own. In fact she has several. The ministry have charged her to seek out an underground poetry network and to eradicate it. Her new lover Douglas has arranged for her to interview Queen Wallis, ostensibly for a biography and to brief her before the Presidential visit but in reality to inform on the Queen's supposed eccentricities and questionable opinions. But behind all of these, she is fighting against the Party's insistence that the Event be forgotten and that everyone black out the past. Rose wants to remember what happened that day in Oxford and her inner rebellion is growing.

Queen High takes on an unexpected significance following the death of Her Majesty the Queen, an event which Carey could not have anticipated occurring so close to release date but which she surely realised was on its way. It was interesting to imagine her as she is portrayed in this alternate reality, a fugitive figure fighting for her birthright as the true monarch. Her appearances of the page are fleeting but it is unmistakably her. A fellow rebel explains to Rose that Elizabeth is a countrywoman so has been content to bed down in stables and barns where necessary. I tried to imagine her late Majesty if the axe had indeed fallen and sent her on the run. I felt that Carey's description carried a truth. It is easy to dismiss the Royal Family as hopelessly privileged and out of touch. The behaviour of various of the younger members tend to confirm this. But the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh both had personal experience of political peril during their formative years. The Queen had steel at her core, steel which held her strong through three quarters of a century of leading our country. She vowed to give her whole life in service to her people and she would not have abandoned us to evil-doers. I rather liked the image of Elizabeth the steadying hand recast as an insurrectionist, perhaps giving rousing speeches more akin to her namesake from five hundred years before.


Wallis Simpson in her later years
I can see why Carey returned to the world of the Alliance. Her world-building is intricate and incredibly detailed. It did feel a waste to visit there but once. We walk with Rose around London as she points out landmark after landmark which has been altered by the Party to suit their beliefs. The headquarters of the BBC has as its new slogan, 'Inform, Educate, Eradicate'. Nelson's column has been taken to Germany as have the Crown Jewels. The whole city is about to be razed and rebuilt as Londinium, the brainchild of Albert Speer. But still Queen High felt less finished than Widowland, finishing on an ellipses rather than a definitive full stop. Separated from the action, poor Rose seemed slightly adrift. In Widowland, her reading had opened her eyes. Why then has she fallen back asleep?

But what I have loved about this series so far is how it champions the female experience. The Friedas of Widowland decry the mission of the Party to divide the women by placing them in the nightmarish caste system - indeed it is these older women who carry the fire which can set the revolution alight. If a Klara (mother) is not allowed to speak to or even meet the eyes of a Leni (office worker), how can the two of them possibly discover common ground? We see this played out across our society today. We are encouraged to see divisions - the mother versus those who are childless or child-free, the young versus the old. Education, class, career choices - the media herds us into tribes just as surely as the Protector does here. And that is even without diving into the more toxic debates around the definition of womanhood. So there is a power in Carey's consistent message that we should speak for ourselves, to 'take the pen in our own hands' (thank you, Jane Austen) and refuse to have our story written by men. Like Widowland, Queen High celebrates the power of the story and of the song. You can never control what people find within.

If the previous novel felt like a standalone, Queen High gives clear signals that unfinished business remains. There have been few thrillers which have held my attention in quite this way and I will be eagerly awaiting the next instalment. Carey's imagining of this alternate Britain is fascinating, from the spiky-natured Queen Wallis the unwilling occupant of the throne to the palaces plucked bare by the occupying forces. The chilly atmosphere of Alliance Britain lingers after the last page and despite its unfriendly setting, it makes me long to visit once more. Just as Rose Ransom examines the classics of literature for subversive messaging, I have a feeling that there is a subtext or two of interest within this series the modern woman. Celebrating revolutions powered by females and fiction, Carey's dystopian Britain is a true delight.

I have yet to read "Widowland" which is an omission that I fully intend to rectify shortly.

This was a jawdroppingly good book which I devoured in one sitting. I think it would probably have helped if I had already read the first book but my enjoyment was not hindered.

Such a cleverly plotted and written book with a real sense of time and place and characters that you really cared about given their authenticity.

A total pleasure to read.

Widowland was a good alternate history that is based on a what-if: what if England and Germany were united and the nazi ideology ruled. It meant a different history and a women divided into caste according to their phisical perfection or fertility.
This book starts after the events of Widowland and we met again Rose, still working on modifying literature in order to made it ideologically harmless.
Even if the leader died the regime is still in place and Walli is the widow queen.
The plot that starts from here is complex and gripping. There's a lot surprises, twists and turns.
Some parts requires a bit of suspension of belief but I found the book highly entertaining and gripping.
It's the kind of book that keeps you hooked and never drags.
I think that there's going to be another part that I can't wait to read.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to Quercus and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine

This is book two and, although there is a sufficient amount of catchup for those who need a gentle reminder, I think you will be best off reading book one - Widowland - first.
So... two years have passed since the assassination of the Leader. The German Leader, since after the war Britain has been ruled by Nazi Germany. Women are still subject to a caste system and Rose is still working in the Culture Ministry where she has now started to focus on poetry which has been banned as it is deemed too likely to be used to send messages. In fact, more than just focusing, she is actually getting involved when she is tasked to infiltrate a group... She's not a fan of this but little does she know that this infiltration will have its positives when she is reunited with old "friends".
She also crosses paths with Wallis Simpson, widowed Queen, who is looking forward to the visit of Eisenhower from her own homeland. She has a secret and wants Rose to help her expose it, in order that she could become free.
This is a very busy book, more so if you haven't read the first, but you have, haven't you, or you wouldn't still be reading this review! Britain is not as we know it, ruled by the Germans and with women very much the lower gender, and subject to a caste system that is so strict. But, as with any ruling faction such as this, any system such as they maintain, there are rebels. Rose is a great rebel. She has already proved that in her first outing and she continues that here. She is a great character, as are the rest of them. We also have another great character who makes a comeback late on in the book. One that I am very excited to see what happens to. One that I am sure will make their mark on things. Spoilers prevent me from saying any more, but yeah... can't wait for book three!
My thanks go to the Publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book.

Queen High is the sequel to the fab Widowland story, and it does not disappoint. A dystopian alternative historic story, Britain sued for peace with Germany in 1940, and is now ruled by Nazi Germany. The lives of British women are ordained by a caste system based on their looks, and designed to keep them in their place. Picking up 2 years after Widowland ended, Rose is still working at rewriting literature works and life has moved on from the 'event'. However, she has not forgotten........in spite of attending regular memory washing sessions. An intriguing and exciting story of what might have been. This book is a scary picture of what Britain could have become. A great story keeps you reading late into the night.