A loose historical reimagination of based off of the exile of Queen Elizabeth I by her sister, Queen Mary depicted through a graphic novel.

The premise sounded really interesting and it exceeded all of my expectations. Although Queen of the Sea is kind of wordy for a graphic novel, it does a superb job weaving the historical context and folklore with the plot. The art is stunning and I liked that the text/dialogue is woven into the story rather than being two discrete aspects of the book.

Margaret was a worthy protagonist- Dylan Meconis did an excellent job balancing Margaret's naivete and childhood innocence whilst also showing the new views on the world around her as she realizes that life isn't simply black and white. Also, Sister Agnes was my favorite side character.

The only thing I wasn't happy with was the ending- it's so abrupt and way too open-ended. I'm hoping for a sequel/companion graphic novel because I'd like answers and perhaps some closure. 7/10 would recommend especially if you enjoy historical fiction.

*Thank you to NetGalley and its publishers for providing a free ARC*

Beautiful illustrations of a story that is very, very, very loosely based off of Elizabeth I and her sister Mary. Because of how loose this "history" is, I wish that it was billed as an alternate history as to not confuse readers new to the story of Elizabeth I versus Mary. That said, I definitely enjoyed reading it!

Excellent fictional tale based (very) loosely on Queens Elizabeth and Mary. The connections to real historical figures are too obvious to not note (and the author specifically indicates he borrowed portions of there history), but it reads more like a traditional fantasy than anything else. The ARC illustrations are intentionally downgraded for ARCs so it's hard to say much about the artwork but it does look appealing.

Margaret, an orphan, lives in a convent on an island off the coast of Albion. The remote convent is meant as a refuge for shipwrecked sailors, but is more often used as a prison for female political prisoners. When the recently dethroned Queen Eleanor arrives at the new queen's insistence, the outside world threatens to crack Margaret and the convent's fragile peace...

This graphic novel pulls heavily from the history of the English Tudor court. As someone who read a lot of historical fiction as a child, I was most interested in the novel's convent setting, which I thought was excellently handled. I'm less sure about the fictionalization of Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth I. On the one hand, I wish this book had stuck more closely to the historical truth, because I think most juvenile readers won't have the historical background to separate the fact from fiction on their own. On the other hand, the fictionalization of the queens' lives into this story allows the author to create a more simplified story, and a more cautiously hopeful ending, than the historical truth. I'd certainly advise readers who enjoy this book to dive deeper into Tudor history-- there's a lot of great historical fiction about there about young Princess Elizabeth and Queen Mary.

This was fun. I liked the art style and it wasn't quite what I was expecting, but it was easy to see the historical parallels and it added some fun twists to the history. While not particularly amazing, it was still a delightful, quick read, with a lot of Realness and I'd be up for reading more graphic novels in this series.