A fascinating look at how kingdoms and empires were planned and built. Swietoslawa, daughter of the Duke of Poland, is destined to marry for the sake of her father's dreams of an empire. But this "bold" daughter has her own plans to build an empire that belongs only to her. The drama played out in THE WIDOW QUEEN is worthy of it's own television show. I was so engrossed in this book, I didn't realize it's a duology. Now I'm off to find the second book.

I received an advanced copy from the publisher via Netgalley for an honest review.

DID NOT FINISH, got almost half way through and could not finish it.

This novel is DENSE with a lot of history that I know nothing about (but was excited for initially), however, the time jumping without explaining the time jumping. For example, these sisters/daughters are being married off and has a baby...then the next chapter said baby is grown up and fighting this war or that one....ummm, huh? Again, I was very excited for this novel but it is quite dense and does not seem to have good transitions and is just too confusing for me. I can't keep going with this.

An interesting, historical fiction novel about Swietoslawa, a Polish Queen, who I knew nothing about before reading this novel. For some reason when I requested this ARC, I thought that this was a fantasy novel, I was mistaken. It has vikings, queens, kings, drama, and romance. It was well written and I am looking forward to reading the second book The Last Crown.

On a separate note, I wish I could speak Polish so I could pronounce Swietoslawa's name and the names of her lynxes correctly in my head while reading.

Swietoslawa is a member of the Piast dynasty. She dreams to be a female ruler without ruling alongside a man. However, she knows that her ambitions are futile. Her father plans an advantageous marriage for her. The winner is King Eric of Sweden. Swietoslawa sails to Sweden and becomes queen. However, she finds that there is danger that threatens her on all sides. Can Swietoslawa maneuver through the political machinations and become the strong queen that she desires to be?

While Swietoslawa is a fictional name, she is based on the Swedish queen Sigrid Storrada, who is a prominent figure in Nordic tales. In tales, Sigrid was known to be the wife of both kings Eric of Sweden and Sven of Denmark. She was also sought after by King Olav of Norway. She was most famously known for setting her suitors on fire. With the wealth of literature about Sigrid known to us, The Widow Queen would be a juicy read. I have to say that The Widow Queen was everything I had wanted it to be.

Swietoslawa is a very powerful and feisty woman. She can hold her own in a male dominated world. She makes very witty remarks that puts her male opponents in their place. She is also not afraid to be ruthless to protect those she loves. She knows her duties as queen and can sacrifice her personal happiness for her country. Swietoslawa is also a Christian woman who desires to spread Christianity in her pagan country. Thus, Swietoslawa is a remarkable heroine.

Overall, this novel is about ambition, sacrifice, and religion. I really liked all the characters in this novel. All these characters have ambitions that relate directly to Swietoslawa. The story is very well-written and it felt like medieval Scandinavia came alive. I also how the novel discusses the struggles of early Christianity in an age where the majority in Scandinavia are still pagans. However, there were a few drawbacks to this book. The Widow Queen is a very long book so there were some parts that were drawn out and incessant. The romance also felt forced and was not developed. It seemed to be built on teenage infatuation. Also, the names were hard to pronounce and could have benefited with a pronunciation guide. Despite these flaws, The Widow Queen was still an engrossing read! The Widow Queen is a mesmerizing page-turner that is full of political intrigue, action, and drama! I can’t wait to read the sequel, The Lost Crown! I recommend this to fans of Shadow on the Crown, The Norse Queen, and Thyra!

A truly 'game of the thrones' sage for the lovers of early European history.
A very detailed, fun to read a full novel about a Polish princess who crosses the seas, countries, kingdoms, and kings to become Widow Queen (a woman in her own right and power).

The Widow Queen is a very long journey and is not for faint-hearted. One needs to truly love history and historical fiction to be able to conquer this book. However, it is worth it.

What turned me off though are historical mistakes. There was no Moscow in the 10th century. None. Moscow would be established only in 1147. Thus, Polish princesses could not have spent time in Moscow and fish for trout in Moscow rivers. Why did the author do it? I have my guess, but I will keep it to myself.

But if you are not a stickler for historical truth (as we know it and learnt it), The Widow Queen is a very interesting read. One needs a lot of time on one's hands to be able to enjoy this novel.

I did enjoy this book and am looking forward to reading the second one. This one really left you on a cliffhanger. I don't know a lot about the history of this area or the Vikings in general, although it is a topic that I've been meaning to start getting into a bit more. From my initial looks, it doesn't seem like there is much that is known for sure about this time and these people, so I'd go out on a limb and say it is way more fiction than historical. Regardless, it was an interesting read. My only issue... and maybe this will be fixed?... is that earlier on in the book there were some conversations that were not translated into English, and there was nothing to say what the characters were talking about. Because of that, I'd have given it 3.5 stars but since I can't do half stars, I rounded up.

I was unable to download this audiobook in time as I didn't realize it was on my shelf. It was archived too quickly from the time I requested it.

It was very interesting to read about a queen from the Viking period, as many of them seem to have been forgotten in history. It was a little hard to follow in the beginning, but once you can keep everything, and everyone, straight it is quite enjoyable.

This is the 1st book in the Bold series by Elzbieta Cherezinska. The books is primarily set in Poland, Denmark and Sweden. It takes places in the late nine hundreds and is the story Swietoslawa, who was the daughter of Duke Miezko I of Poland. Miezko has 3 daughters and that is 3 chances to build strong alliances. His lands are constantly under siege and he wants to safeguard that which is his. All of his plans are designed to benefit him and he does not care what impact they have on anyone else.

Swietoslawa secretly wants to rule on her own but knows that she will be forced to marry. Her name means "the bold one" and she soon begins to live up to her name. She is going to rule one way or another. There is a large cast of characters, including her Swietoslawa's siblings, her suitors, lovers. Perhap's the most interesting character is Oda, Meiszko's wife. She has a dark presence in the back and is always scheming to keep the kingdom for her sons.

This was an entertaining read and while it is historical fiction I feel like I learned a lot about the politics between Poland, Denmark and Sweden at this time. The author does an excellent job combining fact and fiction to create an entertaining tale. I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a bit of historical political intrigue and betrayal.

I was provided a copy of this book by the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review .

This book would have benefited from a cast of characters in the front, as there are many players from different countries and many names to remember. However, I felt instantly transported and learned so much about this time period. Fans of 10th-century historical fiction will enjoy this entertaining but bloody tale.

The Widow Queen is a great opening chapter of the The Bold series. It is a well-crafted mix of historical fiction and fantasy with engaging characters, a tight plot, and a unique setting. It was originally published in Polish and we have here the translated version to English and I think it holds up very well. The author here writes wonderful and complex characters, enjoys a vast and subtle world-building system, and sneaks you up to immense complications. Make no mistake. It's absolutely a historical novel in all the big senses. But it is ALSO the start of a new fantasy that's boiling over with magic.
Full review to come on YouTube.

I appreciate the publisher allowing me to read this book.. this was a really good book about being careful with what you wish for I enjoyed reading.

Like a historical fiction novel, this gave me all the feels.The characters were so well written that I felt like I was there with them living through the story.
Every enjoyable. Would love to pick up anything Elzbieta has written.

The Widow Queen does not begin with a widow, but rather a widower and the two children of his late wife. He has remarried for political reasons, but his heart belongs to the mother of his now-teenage son and daughter, Świętosława and Bolesław. He loves them fiercely as well, but that doesn’t mean he won’t use them to further his political aims, expanding his territory beyond his new Dukedom in all four directions. Bolesław, his son, he wishes to follow in his footsteps in rule and military conquest. But Świętosława, his most cherished daughter, he trusts to bring him even greater power: he wishes her to conquer peacefully, through marriage and manipulation, winning a throne and a people via her wits alone.

In this dense historical epic by Polish author Elzbieta Cherezinska, Świętosława is to be many times a queen. History has neglected the stories of women, but Cherezinska has taken this particular woman’s story and set it to rights, making Świętosława’s ferocious intelligence and bold strategizing the central focus, brining her and Polish history to the fore.

Or…well, a central focus. The Widow Queen is very deeply concerned with the politics of Scandinavia in particular, detailing the lives of a number of Viking warriors, jarls, and kings in addition to the lives of the Polish siblings Świętosława and Bolesław. I was expecting this to be about Świętosława alone, or at least for there to be a heavier focus on the siblings as POV characters, but there are a number of historical figures who dictate the direction of the story. Their father Mieszko, various Norse kings, would-be kings, or other leaders, his daughters by other women, and so forth also get several chapters. Each become interesting in their own way, but the lack of stronger focal points makes the story feel a bit lacking in narrative authority, a history sometimes more than a novel, and certainly a historical fiction more than a fantasy.

The magic is very light and ambiguous. Vaguely prophetic feelings overtake many characters, and there are a few instances of more overt witchery, but overall this is a historical novel that takes its characters claims of magic seriously—just as it takes their religious convictions and personal desires seriously—rather than an overt fantasy. I admit I’m a bit surprised, given that this was published by Tor, but once I got over the expectation I enjoyed the novel much more on its own terms.

The many characters also share very similar voices. Cherezinska hasn’t made them sufficiently tonally distinct, and so it’s a bit of a struggle to suss out which disaffected son wants which throne or piece of empire. Their motivations and personalities diverge more concretely as the book goes on, but that very singular desire for a crown is a constant for all of them. That sort of motivation is moving in the singular, but a bit exhausting and one-note when all the characters express it. They want power as both means and end, and offer no further justification. I do not think power is a sufficiently universal motivation, or at the least, it is not sufficiently interesting to me when there is little to counterbalance it. Świętosława (and others) may also be spurred on by love, and by duty, but it all comes down to crowns in the end.

I do, however very much enjoy certain specific characters. Świętosława is a firebrand and a dangerously smart woman, and I only ever wanted more when her chapters were finished. She very quickly becomes queen of Sweden and establishes a strong power base through a mixture of cunning and ostentatious will. Her troubled, conflicted half-sister Astrid was also compelling, as was Olav, a complex and passionate warrior. I wished we could have seen more of Bolesław, whose feelings about growing up in his father’s shadow could have been teased out more; as it was, he fought so many of his battles “offscreen” as it were. I honestly wished for more about his first wife and her people—the brief glimpse we got hinted at dire intrigues and a very different way of life that could have made for a good contrast. Alas, the story looks to the North instead, and to several other characters.

The Widow Queen reminded me a bit of Guy Gavriel Kay’s books, especially Under Heaven, which I think is a gold standard to which Cherezinska is aspiring but still falling somewhat short of. The many POV characters, the political intrigue, the geopolitical stage: all of the elements are there, but the emotional resonance isn’t as deep, likely because the book does not ponder the deeper implications of power.

Cherezinska also lacks Kay’s sense of dramatic timing and knack for action. She often glosses over battles entirely, and moments of betrayal or triumph are undercut by her unwillingness to go deeper into her characters’ psyches. As a result, her characters feel more sketchily drawn, not fully realized people but also not fully realized archetypes, which could also have been fun. The relentless schemer, the hidden king, the dauntless princess, the secret sorceress—archetypes are just stories we like to hear over and over again, and Cherezinska could have pushed a little harder to embrace that. Instead we have an uneasy compromise between the two, tending toward the personal but not quite intimate enough at times.

I’m critical because I do like this book, quite a lot. I just don’t love it, even though I think I could have. There are truly great moments, scenes that need no further explanation than “the gift of the lynxes” or “the hostage-taking in Jomsborg.” Cherezinska has a gift for scenes, I think. She sets them up well, both the emotional backdrop and the physical settings. But she doesn’t always press her advantage and infuse the rest of the book with that heady sense of meaning, and sometimes there is a perfunctory feeling to the story hitting its beats, checking off historical moments instead of letting them shine.

The history is fascinating, though. The Polish roots of conflicts that cropped up as far away as England are not something I’d considered, and to shift the overall POV from Scandinavia to Eastern Europe is a boon. I’m more familiar with Norse history, and so to see the way it both springs from and feeds into larger conflicts on the European continent feels like an important way to introduce diversity of voice into an older conversation. English-language readers will often have a better grasp of Western European history than Eastern, and that’s a sore lack that this book does well to put to rights.

Since this is the first book in a planned multi-volume epic, I will say that I think the story is trending upward and will hopefully carry its momentum forward into other books. I look forward to further installments most especially to hear more of Świętosława, the Bold One of the series title, whom history has also called the Haughty for reasons we are still to explore.

I enjoyed this book a lot. The historical elements were fascinating. It reminded me a lot of Signe Pike's The Lost Queen. It was a slow burn but a lot of good characters and development.

While this book was a very interesting read, it did take me ages for a couple of reasons. The text was very dense and was far more politics > action. I feel like there were opportunities for the author to expand on potential action scenes instead of recapping everything in dialogue. I was also a bit disappointed that the story as a whole focused much less on Świętosława than suggested by the blurb. There were so many different men running the show, and so many factions/ factions within factions. Name after name after name, almost all of them misogynistic jerks. I could barely keep track of them all, since there were so many introduced in big groups and all had the same awful personalities. When Świętosława was actually on scene, I loved it. She was brave and brazen and even quite spicy at times. I look forward to reading book two and hope Świętosława is on her queen sh*t even more.

I really wanted to love this book. But, unfortunately I didn't. I found it extremely slow paced and long. The story didn't resonate with me, although it has all the components that normally make me love a book. I'm not sure if it is because I was too aware of reading a translation (that I'm not criticizing, by any means!) or the need to count with a physical edition, that always makes it easier for me to engage with the book.
I do feel that is something that I would usually really enjoy (otherwise I wouldn't have requested it), so I would really like to give it another try, maybe with a physical copy. I was in a reading slump of sorts and I tend not to blame it on the books nor judge the author's undoubted talent. I know it's supposed to be a saga, and that intrigues me even more.

The Widow Queen By Elzbieta Cherezinska is a historical fiction novel. The story follows a Polish princess and her siblings as their father uses all them to spread and take over Europe.

This is a super informative book about a family that really was an important part of European history. I liked learning about this family but this book was a little big and too informative at times. It was hard to continue. I think this book could have been split. The siblings point of view would have worked better as their own novellas or novels. Putting everything together made for a long read.

Three stars for just an interesting story but this needed to be shortened. Thank you to NetGalley, Macmillan-Tor/Forge and Elzbieta Cherezinska for the free copy. This was an honest review.

A wonderful historical fiction novel about a Polish princess named Swietoslawa, her family, her marriage, and the developments in politics and power in Sweden, Poland, Denmark, and Norway in the 10th century. This book is translated from Polish and it was very well done, but there are a TON of characters involved and they all have tricky names - makes it quite hard to keep straight at times! The story is epic, equally realistic and horrifying, and I was kept interested by all of the movement between the characters and geography. Swientoslawa is a very powerful female lead even if I did question the logic of plenty of decisions she made. The book really brings to light the lack of female importance at the time, and how she bucked many traditions. I will warn you here that this book is the first in a series - the next one is titled The Last Crown and should be released in 2022. Fans of Philippa Gregory will really enjoy this one, although there was less focus on the female roles than Gregory tends to have.

I would advise reading this one in hard copy and not on an E-reader. Too much to follow.

Thank you to NetGalley and Tor/Forge Books for my ARC of this book - all opinions are my own.

I loved this book so much. It's the story of a Polish princess who gets married off as a pawn in her father's quest for power and ends up taking control of, at least part of, her life. Swietoslawa might be known by many names in the story, but she grows into the Bold One. She is a queen who is a force to be reckoned with in her own right even though she has to work within the confines of what is expected from royal medieval women.

All the characters are historical figures I had never heard of before I read this book. That made them all feel new and exciting. There are several love triangles and a ton of political intrigue, and I became really invested in how the characters balanced their duties/destinies with their human wants and needs. I'm being vague so I don't spoil anything, but it's refreshing to see characters who are caught up in a political game be so well balanced. Everyone's motivations were completely clear and yet there were some surprises that kept me on my toes.

This is a translation from Polish to English. There were some parts where I would have liked to be able to read it in Polish so that I could appreciate the writer's style more. The more mystical moments felt a little too literal/straight forward (I'm not sure how to describe this), but overall I feel like the imagery and the tone of the story made it through since I was totally immersed in the story when I was reading it. This is the first book in a series, and when I got to the end I really wanted to know what happened next.

Thank you to Macmillan-Tor/Forge for providing me an e-ARC of the Widow Queen in exchange for an honest review. I would love to get to review the sequel as well.

The vibes of this book reminds me of Vikings and The Last Kingdom - around the same time as well. Poland is facing a lot of war, battles, tragedy and constant shift of the other major kingdoms during the Dark Ages of Europe. The characters are interesting and I am interested in learning more about Poland's vast history.