Heloise is a strong, action-motivated character and The Queen of Crows makes certain to test her in various ways. These are short but not light novellas. Some of the writing can come off a little stiff, esp when making relevant social/cultural points ★★★½

Rating: ★★★★★

Synopsis

In this epic fantasy sequel, Heloise stands tall against overwhelming odds–crippling injuries, religious tyrants–and continues her journey from obscurity to greateness with the help of alchemically-empowered armor and an unbreakable spirit.

No longer just a shell-shocked girl, she is now a figure of revolution whose cause grows ever stronger. But the time for hiding underground is over. Heloise must face the tyrannical Order and lay siege to the Imperial Palace itself.

Review

Thanks to Tor.com and the author for an advanced reading copy of The Queen of Crows (Sacred Throne #2) in exchange for an honest review. Receiving this ARC did not influence my thoughts or opinions.

Yeah… I am a bit behind the times. It’s quite sad, really, because The Armored Saint was one of my favorite novellas of 2018 and I was super pumped about its sequel hitting in the same year. Well, I knew I had to do something, seeing as I have a copy of The Killing Light waiting in the wings and Heloise glares at me every time I walk into my office. Opportunity came a-knocking last night when I had to sit through a dance recital rehearsal.

The Queen of Crows is beautiful, brutal, and relentless. Cole has written an astounding sequel that, in my opinion, has topped its predecessor.

What in the world can I say that I haven’t already said in my previous review? Heloise is, hands down, one of THE most enamoring female protagonists in fantasy today. I mean, thrust into a leadership role at her age, with not a lick of training or expertise. An impossible feat that she learns to wield with bravado when it comes to the difficult, and sometimes downright impossible, decisions of war. She may not be the hero they wanted, but she is certainly the one they needed.

Cole has a way of building this world that feels oft times overwhelming to the senses, but is so claustrophobic and intimate in its execution as we see so little of it outside of our band. On top of that, he has created this entity (the Order) that we have only seen bits and pieces of, leaving us to wonder just how this will all play out in the end (sort of like GoT and the White Walkers… I know, everything gets compared to it but you know what I mean, so it works). I feel that Cole has plenty of hands left to play, but the ones he has already put on the table have been winners.

That being said, I didn’t always think The Queen of Crows was going to be a 5-star novella. The first half of the book was a good foundation that was already well established in Book 1, giving us snippets into the past and all of the pieces we needed to bring about the climax. But that second half doe… especially the last 50 pages or so were what ultimately had me giving Cole all the stars. Just when you thought you knew what was coming, R.A. Dickey throws another knuckleball that has you swinging for the fences and missing by a mile.

I received a free ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review. And, in the grand tradition of being the worst book blogger ever, I procrastinated finishing it until, you know, the actual book was already out.

I'm not sure what about this book made it take so long to get through. It's not a long book by any means. Nor is it a bad book. Certainly, I loved the first book, and eagerly anticipated the sequel. I was thrilled when I was selected to receive an early copy. But something about this book failed to grab me the way the first one did. But more about that later.

Warning: This review contains MAJOR spoilers for the first book, The Armored Saint. If you haven't read that book and want to, close your browser tab and walk away now

Plot
After narrowly defeating a devil with the help of a suit of medieval-steampunk mecha armor, Heloise is hailed as a legendary Palantine Saint. But not everyone in her town is so convinced of her sainthood. Heloise has already lost her home, her hand, and the love of her life. But as she leads her scared and reluctant villagers in uprising against the corrupt Order, she will soon find she is about to lose much more.

Thoughts
Okay so there were a lot of things I did enjoy about this book. The action scenes were realistic and gripping. Cole obviously knows a lot about historical combat, but he conveyed his knowledge in such a way that it didn't come across as "showing off" or at the expense of tension. I also liked reading more about the setting, the world outside the small village where the characters came from, and cultures other than the Empire. I especially liked reading about the Traveling People and how they interacted with Heloise and her villagers.

However, I felt The Queen of Crows was lacking compared to the first book when it came to character development. I really enjoyed reading about Heloise in the first book, her hopes and her fears, and how she finds her courage. I think my favorite part of the first book was the interactions between Heloise and her best friend and secret crush, Basina. Unfortunately, since Basina dies at the end of The Armored Saint, there's no chance of that continuing in the sequel. Cole does attempt to introduce a new love interest and an unwanted love triangle, but it was, in my opinion, clumsily done and didn't add much to the story.

Ultimately however I thought most of the characters were reduced to one or two personality traits. Heloise's father wants to protect and shelter his daughter. The village tinker wants to worship her as a religious figure. Poch and Sald want to grumble and complain and disparage like a grimdark version of those two old guys in the Muppet Show.

Heloise herself was a bit frustrating to read about this time around, due to her single-minded desire to defy the order against all common sense. This one-sidedness, compared to the first book, made even this short novella slightly tedious to read.

Cole was obviously going for the grimdark moral lesson of, "If you're not careful you'll become just like who you're fighting against." But it felt very heavy-handed, not so much a theme as a glowing neon sign glaring in the reader's face.

I think the biggest disappointment with this book, however, is that the metaphorical elephant in the room is never addressed. At the end of The Armored Saint, it is revealed that magic can, in fact, lead to the summoning of devils, and that the Order is at least partially justified in their zealotry. However, despite seeing this firsthand, despite losing her best friend and would-be lover to it, Heloise plows full-steam ahead in her quest to overthrow the Order. It would be okay if they at least acknowledged, "Hey, wow, the Order has a point, but we still hate their methods, so let's rise up in rebellion anyway." But nobody does that. The closest we get is when Heloise expresses some apprehension when one of the Travelling People heals her with magic, and the healer says, "Nah, it's okay, we're careful."

In the end, though, it seems Heloise considers the Order to bear the brunt of the blame for Basina's death, even though it was very much the devil, summoned with magic, which the Order tried to prevent, who is actually at fault. And that is never acknowledged.

I know this review sounds like I hated the book, and I don't mean for it to sound like that at all. There were, as I said above, many good things about it. However after how gripping and excellent I found the first book to be, this one did come as something of a disappointment.

This review can be found online at my blog, https://thebookdragon.co/2018/10/04/review-queen-of-crows-by-myke-cole/

The second book follows up right after the previous one with the town reeling from their decision to rise up against the Order. They are quickly on the run when the Order comes back to finish them off. The villagers find refuge with the Traveling People that help them rescue one of their own from the Order but decline to be drawn into their battle. They are given a few supplies and they decide to take over a town to protect themselves from the troops they know will come after parting ways with the Traveling People. The rest of the story moves along at a blazing clip and now I’m impatiently waiting on the third book. 

Digital review copy provided by the publisher through NetGalley

Awesome, awesome, awesome!!! Loved this book, the lead character was well written and tough as nails! A definite keeper and will be looking for more few this writer!

It’s hard to believe that there’s any possible way to follow up The Armored Saint, but The Queen of Crows proves that it is in fact, quite possible. If you ask me, The Killing Light has very big shoes to fill…granted I think that Myke Cole has proven that he’s more than up for the task.
                If you haven’t read The Armored Saint, then you should really stop reading this review now, and consider picking up a copy of that one first. It’s probably fairly obvious, but what happens in this book has some pretty major spoilers for the ending of The Armored Saint.
                I’ll confess that when I first picked up The Sacred Throne trilogy I was a bit…hesitant about the whole thing. It sounded interesting, but I had concerns about the follow through (that had everything to do with the plot, and nothing to do with the author) and given subject matter. To put it bluntly, I was concerned about just how religious this series would be.
                As it turns out, while the world these characters live in is undoubtedly religious, and thus a major factor to the series itself…it isn’t overwhelming. Many are actively fighting against the lives they’ve been forced to live. None more so than the main character, Heloise.
                Heloise is exactly the sort of character this plot needed. She’s strong, stubborn, and she so very much doesn’t fit into the mold that society has made for her. She never wanted to grow up and marry, to find end up essentially barefoot and pregnant. None of that sounded appealing to her, and really, when you put it like that, who can blame her?
                While Heloise had no interest in the life society wanted for her, she still had her own hopes and dreams. She still found love – even if it wasn’t reciprocated and to this day causes her pain. That’s part of being human, and it makes her character so much more approachable than she otherwise would have been. It also makes her a perfect champion.

                Warnings first: There are a few graphic injuries that occur in this book. If you’ve read The Armored Saint, this will probably come as no surprise to you. However, I am aware that people find different injury depictions more graphic than others. Specifically I’m talking about eye injuries. So if this is the sort of thing that’s upsetting to you…well consider yourself warned. As far as the animal death is concerned; most of it pertains to horses. This isn’t terribly shocking, since we’re talking about a war where people would ride horses into battle. These scenes are mostly pretty quick, and you can usually see it coming.
                I still can’t get over the transition that has come over Heloise. And no, I’m not talking about a religious sort of transition. While many of her townspeople are willing to consider Heloise a saint, she has never once made that claim for herself. I adore that about her. What I am actually referring to is just how much Heloise has grown up, and in such a short amount of time.
                Time and time again during The Queen of Crows we see Heloise standing up and making life and death decisions for her people. More often than not, she’s the most responsible one of the group – making the best decisions she can out of the options she can.
                Unlike many other people around her, Heloise never forgets that the people following her, as well as the others she comes across, are human first and foremost. That fact doesn’t change; regardless of gender, race, or religion. I love that this is never something she questions. In fact, as far as I’m concerned she quickly became a champion for all that wanted freedom to be themselves, regardless of what that actually meant to them.
                I don’t think Heloise started out with the intention of becoming a freedom fighter, but in the end, that is sort of what she became. I’ve loved watching Heloise get to this point – though I may have winced and cried along the way as she had dealt with her many injuries and losses.
                In regards to the actual plot and the battles it brought about; I’m impressed. I found every moment of what happened believable, but more than that – Myke Cole made me care about everything that was happening, from start to finish. While Heloise (and the horses) was without a doubt my main concern, I did fear for many of the side characters during each and every one of the battles. I felt their losses acutely each time – it was like an empty space opened up in the book where they belonged. Rarely have I experienced something quite that intense for relatively minor characters. I think that speaks highly of Myke Cole’s writing skills.
                I was shocked when the end of the book was upon me. I’m sure that was mostly due to how immersed I was. Though I do believe that the final battle was significantly shorter than expected (considering this fact probably saved lots of fictional lives, I’m actually okay with that). The final twist at the end was unexpected, and I’ll be curious to see where that leads us.
                I’m both anxious and nervous about the arrival of The Killing Light. Part of me desperately wants to see how this all concludes…the rest of me is too busy worrying how much the conclusion will cost Heloise and everyone else she loves.

Thanks to NetGalley and Tor for a copy in exchange for an honest review.

I adored the first book in this series, THE ARMORED SAINT. This entry is a little different than that one. It is not an uplifting fantasy novel. It is a bleak, bleak journey of war and suffering and oppression. For most of the book, the characters' plight seems entirely hopeless. Through all of this, it raises some interesting questions about the price one pays for revolution and freedom. Consistent quality writing from Cole, though the middle of the novel lags and gets a bit frustrating.

I am very likely to pick up the next in the series! Curious to see the end to this trilogy.

I loved The Armoured Saint and couldn’t wait to get back to Helouise’s story. This time as reluctant revolutionary leader – only grudgingly followed by some – Helouise is properly up in arms and preparing for a siege. We all know that sieges are difficult, resting far more on logistics and supply than out and out acts of courage. This also tends to make them dull affairs if not handled correctly. Not a problem here – Cole makes the entire subject fascinating. I will say that I had a harder time getting into this book than the first one. There seemed to be a bit of a disconnect in reaching the MC to start with, possibly because the pace is absolutely frenetic. That said it was a worthy follow up and I did enjoy it. I’m looking forward to the next one.