If you’re not big into long reads, and you’re perfect novel is roughly 250-300 pages long, uh…you might have a hard time here. But if you’re willing to give it a go, there’s something oh-so-satisfying about a self-contained, one-volume fantasy epic. There’s a beginning, a middle, and an end. There’s no Game of Thrones-esque situation where you’re endlessly waiting for the next book which may or may not be over 1000 pages. The whole story is there, in one big volume, no waiting for sequels. I didn’t realize just how sequel-fatigued I’ve been until I sat down and made my way through this book. No mentally steeling myself for a cliffhanger followed by a two-year-wait. I haven’t felt this way about an epic fantasy novel since Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. Who knew you can have an entire world confined to one volume! Hurray!

Priory is nothing less than epic. In one book, Shannon manages to create an entire world, complete with over a thousand years of history, various conflicting religions, generations upon generations of royalty, dozens of nations, and a sea full of pirates. Pirates! There is pirate action in this book! Are you not convinced? I mean, there’s dragons - and not just one sort of dragon, either. Also, did I mention the whole book has a very, very strong feminist bent to it? How much more convincing do you need? If you like dragons, if you like epics, if you can make it through 800 pages, then you need to read Priory of the Orange Tree.

This book is a masterpiece. What easily could have been a series of smaller books is instead, a tome of epic proportions. Dragons, queens, magic and so much more, this book is truly enchanting.

I loved this book and was still thinking about it two days into my next book. I am sincerely hoping there is a book 2! As I told my husband, it's like Game of Thrones only with less dying and fewer naked people.

Pros:
Great world building. Everything was beautifully described.
All of the characters are richly built and very interesting
I loved that there were different types of dragons/wyvern
Good guys turn into bad guys and bad guys are actually good guys and it's all great fun to figure out!
Going to be honest, I don't read a lot of LGBT romance but I feel like this was very well done.

Cons:
The North, East, South, West land and character traits were kind of predictable but it didn't hurt the story.

DNF at 23%

I'm just not feeling this one. With a book this long, I expect to get swept away in the story and at least feel something for one of the characters, but I don't.

It's an interesting premise and the politicking is intriguing, but I just don't like the writing style and I don't care for a single character enough to continue. The writing and characters remind me a bit of The Kingdom of Little Wounds, a book I despised (and finished when I should have DNF'd).

DNF'ing this one is a huge disappointment since this was one of my most anticipated reads of 2019 (that cover! that blurb!), but I'm not enjoying it enough to continue.

I know a lot of other people will love this book, but I don't think it's for me right now. Maybe later, but I'm not sure. I'm not willing to invest the time in it to continue slogging away at something that's not entertaining.

I received this ARC from NetGalley for an honest review.

If you're looking for an original epic fantasy with dragons, political intrigue, magic, and a group of great mostly female main characters then this is the book for you. "The Priory of the Orange Tree" isn't perfect, but it is a huge STANDALONE fantasy that is stuffed full of great world building and character details. I know other reviewers have commented that they wish that this had been split into two or three books, but I actually loved that this was a complete story. There are definitely places where the story could have been expanded, and places where I wanted to know more, but it was just so refreshing to read a gigantic fantasy novel and know that I wasn't going to have to wait years and years and read thousands more pages to get to the end. I also appreciated that while serious at times, this is not a dark gritty fantasy. I've gotten tired of the style of dark fantasy where you end up not sure any of the characters are worth rooting for. "Priory" is a welcome return to a less cynical tone, with a refreshingly diverse cast of characters.

(In tone this actually reminded me a lot of the type of fantasy novel that I liked when I was younger--so, things published before 2000--in that it's full of lots of adventure, clear good and evil characters, and fantasy trappings like dragons. The major difference with this book is that many of the main characters and major powers in the book are either female, lgbt, or both. It was really refreshing to see a traditional epic fantasy with a vastly different character set).

Brilliant world building; multi-dimensional characters; magic; friendship; plots; secrets; romance; and battles between good and evil.... this book has it all.
The Priory of the Orange Tree is the best new fantasy to be written in years, which is a statement I do not lightly make.
I'm eagerly awaiting the next installment in this series.

Exactly what I expected from a Samantha Shannon book. Great world building, complex characters and a kick-ass plot.

I was dying to get my hands on this book and unfortunately it's just not doing much for me. I read a lot of fantasy and this sounded like something I would really enjoy. The plot moves very slowly and there's little indication of what's going on besides assassination attempts on the queen. The queen herself isn't particularly likable. There are four different points of view, and after 150 pages, we haven't spent enough time with any of them for me to get a feel for them or what's going on. I've tried to read this for the last five weeks and have only made it 150 in. I'm disappointed with this one. I'll probably still order it, since I think some of my students will enjoy it, but the slow moving plot just isn't for me.

I could not get into this book! I am not big on sci-fi or fantasy at all but I thought I would give this a shot! I mean look at all the hype! I am not saying it was the books fault at all because of how I am! Thank you to the publisher for giving me the opportunity to read this!

I almost didn't finish this one. I enjoyed it in the beginning and then fell out of it. I did wind up finishing it.

3.5
So this book is 850 pages and I believe it is meant to be a stand alone. It had an ending so I'm assuming this is the case. On to my review.

There are four main characters and they are all in different parts of this fantastic world (I wish a had a map.) I really enjoyed this because you didn't have to spend too much time with one character before you were transported into a different landscape with a different character. Our four characters were well developed and had a complete arc but there were no new voices among the group. Essentially, I've read all of these characters in other books and while that didn't affect me too much, a fresh voice would have raised my rating and enjoyment. This book was also missing a really good villain. Shannon created villains in the Flesh King, a woodsy witch, and one of the main dragons but they were on the page 1% which means that the author didn't intend them to be major characters-that's unfortunate.

The world was vast and quite clear. The mythology and religion was different than I've read before and that was refreshing. Shannon added an interesting detail to her story but I wish there was more development. (Minor spoiler in the link.) (view spoiler) I would have liked to see more of this because it was nuanced.

The story was great up until 60% and it went from a 4.5 to a 4.0. Than at 80% it went from 4.0 to a 3.5 and here's why:

I LOVE Game of Thrones. What GOT does really well is that it follows several characters in different locations and they all have a common goal, the Iron Throne, but they also have their own stories going on. Their separate stories are all very interesting and full of treachery and villains and strategy and great supporting characters. That's where Priory fell short. Yes I know GOT is several 800+ page books and this is only one 850 page book but at different points of Priory, I slowly lost interest in each of the characters. Ead was the last character that maintained my interest until about 75% and I stopped caring and the book went downhill for me. For other readers, they may like most or all the characters throughout but not for me and here's why:

I prefer character driven books to plot driven books. I could give a shit about fight scenes and action sequences. I loved Passion of Dolssa and the Kiss of Deception Series and the The Reader Series because it's slow and all about the character development. I like the meet new characters with a fresh voice. I like a really good villain who is relentless yet sympathetic. I like a slow burn. Priory jumped to many locations and introducing new characters for brief periods of time and people were getting captured and escaping and magic fighting and I lost interest.

But once again, that's me. If you like a plot driven story, Priory will be your jam.