The Priory of the Orange Tree is a wonderfully built high fantasy world in which dragons rule from either compassion or anger. Split between a very distinct east and west, the battle to ensure the world is not burned sweeps various characters into play - a traditional royal queen tied to tradition, and a system of dragonriders aiming for a peaceful resolution. It's a slow burn (no pun intended), and worth every twist. Highly recommended for fantasy lovers.

I was stunned and completely absorbed by this book. The characters were fantastic, and I was sorry to finish reading it! Definitely a world I would like to visit again!

This is definitely a book I will be recommending to my patrons. I love the writing and the story and most of all I love that it is a stand alone title, especially considering how long it is. It's a great high fantasy read.

This is a very slowly paced book and took me a while to get into, but I really felt myself immersed with the world and characters by the end. That’s really impressive for a stand-alone epic fantasy.

I LOVED this book & I need more standalone fantasy in my life! The Priory of the Orange Tree is a fantastic romp into a fully developed fantasy world. This book has fantastic character development, great plot development & is easy to get lost in (did I mention queer love ??). While the pace is slow at times, I think it delivers the promise of a fantasy trilogy in the neat package of a standalone. Highly recommend to epic fantasy fans.

10 out 10. This was phenomenal! I hope there's more to this world and we get more out of it. The world, the love, the characters, everything was so perfectly crafted. Highly recommend

In terms of epic fantasy, it’s rare for a stand-alone novel to have the same breadth and depth as a series. That The Priory of the Orange Tree does is no small feat. Actually, it’s somewhat disheartening that it isn’t a part of a series. I enjoyed these characters and this world so much that it’s sad to think I won’t be returning to them, that I’ve only been able to join them on this one outing. But what an outing. There are some problems with pacing and a few of the “big reveal” moments don’t hit home with quite the weight that I feel the author intended them to, but the depth of character and fantastic sense of place Shannon builds through the setting more than make up for it. What’s more, it has a satisfying end that, after 800 pages of build-up, feels like the conclusion of a larger series. I highly recommend this book.

This book immediately caught my attention with the beautiful image depicted on the cover of the book. I stayed for the amazing characters. I haven't quite finished the book, but so far, I am captivated by the characters as well as story.

A long book, but mostly good. It has attracted some attention in its section at my library due to the rise of "feminist fantasy" wanted. The ending felt a bit rushed, and I wanted some more fleshing out of the villain. I did not enjoy the alchemist's point of view or Tane (sp?) but Ead and Sabine's were wonderful. A bit generic but engagingly enough told. I enjoyed the f/f romance and would love to see more by Shannon set in this world.

The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon
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4 out of 5 stars
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Warning: Light spoilers ahead.
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Things I loved:
The plot: This book is a delicious epic fantasy monster with complex plotlines, political intrigue, and LGBTQ+ romances. The story spans multiple years, has unexpected twists and turns, and not everyone gets a happy ending.
The characters: The characters in this book are what bring it to life. The story is told from four different viewpoints, and Shannon did a good job at making each character distinct from the other while also maintaining narrative flow and an overall narrative voice/style. AKA, chapters rold from Ead’s perspective were distinct from chapters told from Tane’s perspective, but not so distinct that they threw you out of the story. Each character has depth, with vices and strengths, and had complex motivations. Shannon isn’t afraid to write characters that you, the reader, may not like, and I think that this really helped make the story come alive. Most of the characters defy being characterized as “good” or “evil” and rather fall somewhere in the middle. Also, Shannon isn’t afraid to have her characters make mistakes or do deplorable things, but still manages to make you sympathize with them and understand them as deeply flawed people.
The worldbuilding: This world is complex and I really appreciated the work Shannon put in to make each Country’s culture distinct. The various attitudes about dragons, the way that religions can grow and change, and the different types of magic were all fabulously done and were intriguing.

Things I didn’t love:
Lack of dragons. For a book that centers around dragons (fear of or reverence of), this book had surprisingly few pages featuring dragons at all. Even the most prominent dragon, Nayimathun (who also happens to be my fav character), is absent for a majority of the plot. While this does make sense as part of the overall world and plot, I was disappointed at how little time with dragons we actually get in the 800+ pages of this novel.
Sabran. I just never liked her or connected with her character. While I really enjoyed her romance w/ Ead, I never really understood why Ead fell in love with her in the first place. Even Ead seems puzzled by that- at one point in the book she muses about the fact that Sabran is spoiled, willful, and demanding, but that she still has somehow fallen in love with her. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed watching Sabran grow throughout the story, and think she will be a better leader at the end of the book than she was at the beginning, but I never really found her that inspiring or her character all that interesting.
The writing style. This was actually the biggest detractor from the novel for me. I don’t think Shannon is a bad writer, but I found that her paragraph transitions in this book were sometimes abrupt and confusing. There were multiple times where I would turn the page and then turn back, thinking that I had somehow skipped a page by accident because the topic of the paragraphs had so abruptly changed. This really threw me out of the novel, marred the plot’s ability to build urgency/stakes, and made me feel disconnected from the storyline. That being said, this might be more an issue of personal preference than any real deficiency in the Author’s writing, and while it was personally annoying, I was still able to devour this monster of a book in about a week and enjoyed it a great deal.
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Overall, I would definitely recommend this book for lovers of epic fantasy featuring complex characters and detailed world-building.

An absorbing tale with intriguing worldbuilding and characters that compel you to keep turning the pages. I appreciate that a big thick fantasy novel as wide in scope as this is framed around its female characters!

This has been a YEAR for super smart, backbreaking tomes with dollops of queer representation and #OwnVoices cultural inflections. I guess I fall on the side of "I'm glad this book exists, I'm just not glad that it snapped its binding under its own weight even before the library had finished cataloging it." Because yes, that actually happened with this one. The book is so damned heavy and modern bookbinding techniques are so shoddy (I mean, compared with the pre-80s processes, at least) that the book cracked inside both front and back covers as soon as our library director pulled it out of the box to put in the system. Knowing that getting a second copy wouldn't fix anything, we decided just to do the glue-and-clamp-and-book-tape thing and hope for the best. But that gives you a sense for how ridiculous this book is in physical form.

Shave about two hundred pages off throughout the first two thirds of this book, though? There, my friends, you have a perfect, rich, and still-overwhelmingly-long standalone fantasy novel. A heavier editorial hand might have prevented a few of my bruises and pulled muscles, but with that said, I'd rather have this book in its present form than not at all.

I absolutely loved this book! The way Samantha Shannon built this world with such intricate western and east Asian influences was phenomenal. I loved seeing the mythology and folklore that she used in building this world, especially with the religions and dragons (which were one and the same!)
Another aspect that I adored was the sapphic content in this book. I love seeing female-female relationships that get the build up and development that straight and male-male couples so often get! The romance really did have me smiling from ear to ear, I loved it so much.
I have already talked this book up to so many of my colleagues and patrons! It is a long one to get through, but it's unbelievably worth it.

This book is truly incredible. Epic fantasy at its finest, but also so unique and fresh in a well-established genre.

I was familiar with Samantha Shannon from her Bone Season series and was looking forward to seeing what she would do in a new setting. I was not disappointed. The Priory of the Orange Tree delivered on so many elements: lush and complicated world building, believable political intrigue, a complex religious system and (something I deeply appreciated) the many different characters all used in believable and non-confusing ways. Too often an overabundance of characters leads to a muddled plot, but Shannon steered her actors with precision. I also enjoyed the dichotomy between the court environment and the more war oriented experiences of the dragon riders, This was a well crafted and unique book, and though it is a stand alone, it makes me look forward to what else Shannon writes in the future.

What is not to love about this book?! Epic fantasy? Check! Diverse cast? Check! LGBTQ+ romance? Check! Talking dragons? Check again! It's 800+ pages but the story never drags, packed full of action, political intrigue and a bit of romance. Highly recommend.

In short: If you like your fantasy epic, with lots of characters, complex world building and DRAGONS, you will love this book!.

This book took me a while to get into, but once I did, I had to know how all the pieces came together. If you love Jacqueline Carey, Naomi Novik, Anne McCaffery, etc, you will like this feminist bent high fantasy. There is some LGBT representation, but it's not a romance, and sexual content is not explicit at all. I felt the first 30% could have been condensed a bit, but the payoff was worth it.

This book utterly blew me away. I had read the author's other series and thought her world building was fantastic, although at times a little convoluted. However, The Priory of the Orange Tree shows Her growth as an author in terms of plot, character development, and descriptions. It tell the story of two main women, Ead and Tane, who grow up on opposite sides of the 'known world' and how they will eventually be pushed together to help battle a thousand year old foe. Oh and did I mention talking dragons? And so much representation in terms of gender, sexual orientations, and race. It never felt contrived or like trying to tick boxes (as least to me), but just as a a description of the world they lived in. The part that most stood out to me was the female representation. It isn't until reading a book like this that you are realize how it is such a norm that all extra characters are men in most books. Yes, fantasy novels will have women but they are usually the royals or the servants. Not the warriors, advisors, ambassadors, pirates, rulers! It was just so refreshing, and again felt totally natural. I loved this massive book and even though there are a lot of characters and at first it felt confusing being dropped into this world, I trusted the author and let her lead me through this story, knowing that it would all make sense eventually. One of my favorites of the year.

It is very hard to review this book, mostly because of its length and its complexity. While I did end up liking the book, there were many moments when I struggled to make it through to the end. This is a very plot driven book, with many, many characters, and not enough action or dragons in it. It also needs a map.

The story is told through four characters. Ead, Tane, Loth and Niclays Roos. They all spend almost the entire book apart and on their own adventures, which at times I struggled to see how they were going to come together in the end. Then except for Queen Sabran, there were hardly any other characters that were given much page time. There were some young ladies of the bedchamber that Ead interacted with that were also around, and some other secondary characters in the other story lines, but for the most part there were many, many other characters that showed up for brief periods and then were gone, never to be seen or heard from again. Way too many to keep track of, which is why there is a list at the end of the book.

Ead and Sabran’s story line gets the most attention, and there is a romance between them. Ead was a good narrator and I liked her story arc. She kept her assassin skills well hidden but was always there when Sabran needed her.

Tane was the dragon rider and probably got the least attention. It was her story that I wanted to keep reading about, as she was the only one interacting with the dragon. But something happens to her and then she disappeared for a few hundred pages. And except for her dragon, all of the others that we see are the bad ones. So, yeah, I was promised dragons and dragon riders and I felt that this was not kept.

Loth and Niclays stories were interesting, but not that interesting. I liked Loth and despised Niclays. I was really rooting for Loth to have a romantic interest, but it never happened. Nicalys was a horrible person most of the time, but I did sort of feel sorry for him.

As with most epic fantasies, this plot was very complex. There was a lot of politics involving many countries which is why I sort of needed that map. Much of the politics revolved around religion and whether or not that country believed that all dragons were bad. The Priory of the Orange Tree was a very interesting part of the story, and it would be interesting to see more stories about them.

As I said, I did end up liking the book, but I so wanted to love it! I just found it to be lacking in action and dragons, there were parts that just dragged on, and some character development would have been nice. Those of you who enjoy plot driven fantasies are going to love this though.

What a lovely epic fantasy. Priory is much better than a lot of current fantasy because the political part keeps moving.
The beginning was a little slow, but that was due to the deep character development.
Samantha Shannon has a flair for world building; for making a place truly come to life. This is evident throughout Priory, while also not the main focus. The focus is the complex, interesting, maddening, bold characters.
Definitely worth the read. :)