3.5 ⭐️

I enjoyed reading the book overall I liked the main storyline. The story needs more characters development, there is so much potential it is just lacking some things.

Thank you NetGalley and Starwater press for allowing me access for an honest review.

I received this book as an eARC via NetGalley courtesy of Starwater Press and let me tell you….I am reeling. I have so many questions!! This book is a twist on Camelot where half-fae Morgan Pendragon is tasked with finding and retrieving Excalibur for her brother and King, Arthur. Most of the book is the traveling, but I was not bored, surprisingly. It does end on quite the cliffhanger, but I cannot wait for book 2. I need to know the answers to all the questions I have! Definitely would recommend as long as the next book doesn’t disappoint. Based on this book, I have high hopes for the next installment!

ℚ𝕦𝕖𝕖𝕟 𝕠𝕗 ℝ𝕠𝕤𝕖𝕤 ~ 𝕣𝕖𝕧𝕚𝕖𝕨 ♡

4 ⭐️

First, I would like to thank @briarboleynauthor and netgalley for the eARC opportunity. This review is my own honest opinion!

This book surprised me! I read the blurb and found it very intriguing, so I figured I'd give it a go. This is an Arthurian interpretation with FAE. Yes, you read that right!

We got one horse, fae, who did this to you, secrets, lgbtqia rep, hidden identity, forced proximity, hidden powers, and more!

The writing was easy to read, and I have absolutely no complaints when it comes to world-building. The characters felt alive, and the world was interesting and a little mysterious.

Draven 🥵 is the perfect broody, mysterious, dark-haired warrior. He could tell me to shut up, and I'd actually do that for once in my life.

I liked Morgan, too. She's always been different, and she's used to hiding herself. I wish we saw a little more growth from her, but I have no doubts we will see her rise in the next book! I have a feeling she'll be a bad ass fmc by the end of it!

This is a slow burn romantasy. There's not much spice, one scene with some delicious details, but we get steam throughout the story. The author does promise more 🌶 in the next book!

I've never read any Arthurian retellings before, and I don't know much about it. After reading QoR, though, I'm excited to learn more about King Arthur, Camelot, and Excalibur!🗡

I highly recommend this book if you're looking for a fantasy with adventure, romance, and plot twists! The ending was absolutely wild, so I'm very pleased to announce that book 2 comes out on 30th June!!

Queen of Roses is available at KU.

𝗣𝗹𝗲𝗮𝘀𝗲 𝗰𝗵𝗲𝗰𝗸 𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗴𝗴𝗲𝗿 𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘀!

MC Morgan Pentagon was born by the King and a Fae Woman. Because of her mother, she was rumored to carry the blood of the fae in her veins. The King removed her mother, dubbed her brother King, and she was promised to the goddesses when she comes of age to be a high priestess. A role she was not ready for.

A princess of royal blood and the future high priestess of all of Pendeath, who likes to blend in and also sneaks around to help her people as one of them? My kind of story. I enjoyed the detailed world building of the story.

As a high priestess, vowing to the Three, you must also vow to celibacy for at least 30 years. Until one day, her brother, the King, sends her off onto a deadly mission.

Lots of action once the troop was on the road, but I'm left with a lot of questions and in need of answers in book 2.

Spoilers:
I am so glad she stopped drinking the medicine and we got to see her blossom into a fae.
I'm glad she killed Vesper, I had a bad feeling about him from the start.

The romantasy book I needed!!! A doomed love, dangerous mission, a kingdom going to war, and a princess who’s birthright was ripped from her grasps. Danger, magic, and slow burning romance is everything this book has and made me obsessed that i didn’t want it to end. Really good read for those who like SJM, The Folk of the Air series and FBAA series! Thank you Briar and NetGalley for the arc!

I loved Merlin on BBC, so I was ready to dive into a Camelot twist. But the characters felt very underdeveloped and I kept waiting for more relatable moments with them.

This was a very fun fantasy romance. I enjoy most things Camelot-inspired, and I think this provided a really interesting twist on a classic story. I did want a bit more depth from the characters, but am hoping that this comes with future installments.

3.5⭐️
Enjoyable and loads of promise.
I think with more character development this would be a 4/5⭐️ read as the plot is great!
I love the fae bits woven into the medieval background.
The pacing is good throughout.
I just wanted more from the characters as it’s an amazing cast of misfits and morally grey personalities!
Thank you to NetGalley for the E-ARC, this is a voluntary review of my own thoughts.

Thank you netgalley and Xpresso Book Tours for allowing me to read this book. Omg this book was so much fun and insanely captivating! I liked the romance aspect but honestly my favorite part was never being able to predict what would happen next! I cant wait to find out the path Draven and Morgan continue to explore together! I felt connected to so many of the characters and was on the edge of my seat throughout the entire journey to Excalibur. I could not keep up with all the twists and turns and the ending left me truly speechless so I need book 2 right away! I have so many questions that will hopefully be answered in the next book!

Holyyyyy Sh*"" this was an amazing book. I found this author on TT and was approved for an arc. Also I'm not okay after reading this. It's been a month now and I'm still in book hangover and everything I pick up pales in comparison. This was esr the king Arthur retelling I've been waiting for. Dark, Queer representation, slow build far romance. Omg it has it all. The writing was beautifully fluid and the scenes were detailed and amazing. I can see the world the writer created in my head as it was so immersive. I have yet to stop talking about this book and I doubt I will bc it's that good.

This book was so much kore than just a pretty cover. It was a story woven to entrap you in its pages. From start to finish it was truly an amazing read!

I really enjoyed this! It did take a while for me to get invested, but I love a quest trope. Draven was a broody, secretive bodyguard assassin - loooove. Morgan was a strong, resilient MC with a lot of room for growth. I'm excited to see where her magic goes next.

I honestly don't know anything about Morgan Pendragon or much about Camelot lore, so it was all interesting to me.

Queen of Roses was slow burn for the main couple with a bit of side spice.

I wish the sequel was out already because I want to know what happens 😂 Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC!

3.5⭐️
Thank you NetGalley for the ARC

I really enjoyed this book. It was fast paced, I liked the plot, and the characters were interesting!
There are times it was predictable, but it wasn't bad. I still really enjoyed it.
Looking forward for more in book 2

The King Arthur/Camelot spin is fun because it doesn’t predictably retell the story. Morgan as the MC, is a fantastic take, and I look forward to her learning more about who she is. Morgan’s friends, Lancelet and Galahad, have great development as side characters and I appreciate their scenes. Queen of Roses reflects many elements from other currently popular fantasy novels (primarily, From Blood and Ash), which is probably the only big detractor. To its credit, the characters in this book are not as annoying as other similar characters in this genre.

This was far darker than I expected. I’m surprised the trigger warnings weren’t more up front and center. It has the fantasy and romance I wanted, but also the typical world-building tone of a Book One. I liked this book, but wished there was more development of certain plot lines, magic, and Fae lore. For instance, I wanted to know more about who Morgan is as a person besides her trauma, and what growing up with Arthur was like. Mostly, I wanted to be more convinced of the stakes, and that Morgan was worth rooting for.

The way this ended was the perfect cliffhanger. Three quarters in, I was beginning to question if there was something big that could get me to read the sequel. Now I have so many questions about everything that happened in those last few pages. I’m glad the next book will be out soon!

Thank you to Starwater Press thru NetGalley for giving me the chance to read this! You’ve definitely got me hooked on this series.

I am always excited to read a retelling, and I was particularly excited for this one as I have never read a retelling of the tales of King Arthur and Merlin and Morgana before. However, I just couldn’t keep reading this book past 41% for a few reasons. I felt like there was no clear dividing line in this story between historical accuracy and modern-day inflections. For example, despite it being set in the distant past, female promiscuity and gay relationships were normalized, however in the same world a female character is literally branded with no consequences for the male attacker. It felt a bit like Boleyn wanted to have her cake and eat it too with injecting two radically different moral codes into this one society. This was something that personally bugged me whilst reading, and after a while it became too irritating to continue.
This book also, although based on a fresh origin story, felt very similar to other books of the same type (the From Blood and Ash series specifically) which isn’t a bad thing if the characters are intriguing enough to still warrant reading about; unfortunately for me, these characters just weren’t.

Morgan Pendragon is the oldest child of Uther Pendragon, but her mother was rumored to be fae. As soon as her cruel father declared her brother Arthur legitimate and his heir, he also promised her to the temple. Arthur has grown up as cruel as their father and now orders her to travel and find him a fae weapon of legendary power. Along the way, she sees more than the kingdom of Camelot and learns that the fae weren't driven away from the world after all. Her potentially fae blood could find Excalibur, but it also makes her a threat to the kingdom she loves.

The warnings say this is a series that has a tame beginning, but this is a world that owes more to Game of Thrones than the courtly Arthurian legends most are used to. We open book one of the duology with a scene of domestic violence, Uther killing Ygraine in front of a hidden Morgan. This tells us what life in the kingdom is like right away. Arthur tends to be aggressive and cruel, reveling in the power he has and the worsening conditions of the people that he created. Everything must be done at his command, and minor issues are an affront to his sense of power and self. He's vicious, prejudiced against the fae, women with authority, homosexuality, magic, and even the three major goddesses of the land. Instead, he venerates a god of war that once was worshipped with bloody rituals and sacrifice. He was fully aware of the cruelties heaped on Morgan's head because of the rumors that she was part fae and shares in the same belief that she's a born traitor and after his throne.

Once on the road, the tone of the book doesn't change right away, but there's an uneasy alliance with the assassin leading Morgan to Excalibur. Of course, this brings on the forced proximity and enemies-to-lovers trope, but it's a slow burn and complicated by the addition of another guy into the group. We know who the better match is, but Morgan was sheltered enough in some ways that she has no idea what healthy relationships look like. She sees the outside world and learns how much worse Camelit is, and the final third is where the stereotypical fantasy adventure party enters the dungeon and battles magical creatures. The ending is something of a cliffhanger; we don't know why Morgan is so important or why her heritage was hidden, who last-minute additions really are, and what to make of changes in her love interests. I'm sure these questions will be answered in the next book of the duology, but it left me a bit unsettled to have so many unanswered questions about what was really happening.

I really enjoyed reading this book! I loved that there were action scenes, the inclusion of animal "helpers", and many side characters that joined along for the journey. Morgan as a character really grew on me as the book went on, I loved how she got to discover things about herself and her power. Her growth from trauma and abuse is something that many people can relate to. I would like to see more between Draven and Morgan, it would create more buy in from me at least, to believe that there is something between them. But i'm sure that will most likely be explored in Book 2.

I did not finish this book. I made it about 40% in before calling it.
I loved the blurb of the book and I thought I would really enjoy this, but I just felt like it didn't keep my attention very well. I also love a fantasy retelling of classic lore/literature, however, I wish that the character names would have been different than the original Arthurian tale.
I am rating this 3 stars, because I do not feel that it's fair to rate a book I didn't finish, but NetGalley requires a star rating.

So I am betting I am like most of the readers for this one. We grabbed it because of that last line. Great for fans of Holly Black, Jennifer Armentrout, and Sarah J. Maas. Well that was nothing but lies. This story had so much potential but it fell so short. From the characters being under development to the plot being a mess at times. I wish that I would have loved it. Because with some simple tweaks it would be amazing.

This was honestly a really fun easy read. A Camelot retelling with a unexpected fae twist. The story read a lot like From Blood and Ash and What Lies Beyond the Veil, but if you enjoy those stories (which I did) then I would recommend this book. Although a bit predictable there were still some aspects that I was not expecting which made the story refreshing. A very promising debut fantasy novel by Briar Boleyn and will definitely be reading the next one! (Although hoping for a more original story)