2.5 stars

I liked a lot of things in this book. The lgbtq+ rep was good, the political plot was good but the main problem or the biggest flaw were the pace and the character development. I feel like nothing happened here. No actually, I feel like a lot things happened but nothing major did and that made this book dragged so much I thought of DNFing twice (I didn't tho)
Now, the main characters... they were for the lack of better word, boring. I didn't care for any pov and in a fantasy book that's bad.
Overall this could have been great but it was only okay.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for the chance to read this book in exchange for an honest review

Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with this e-arc!

Unfortunately I have to mark this as a DNF. It seems that I'm not the only one with similar opinions on Traitors of The Black Crown.

I got to around the 30% mark and I was just extremely underwhelmed and disinterested. I don't mind slow plots but in that case I need to have something else to fall back onto and with this book I just had nothing to keep me going.

Three women will betray the black crown. A Knight. A Duchess. A Queen.

Okay, here we go...
There is nothing I hate more than books filled with so many letters and words and phrases and they end up saying...well, basically nothing.
This book was bland and boring and frankly, I couldn't tell you if it was supposed to be character driven or plot driven, because both aspects sucked.
I will obviously not be reading the second book, so do with this information what you will. Take it as a recommendation or don't, it's up to you.

So about 1/3 of the way into this book, I gave up. The pace is unbelievably slow and while everything looked so amazing from the onset: the description, cover, etc... it was beyond slow with forgettable characters. Very rarely do I not finish a book... maybe one day I will come back to it but at this time, I'm just disappointed.

Thanks to NetGalley for the arc.

I truly tried to get into this but unfortunately found from the lack of plot to the lack of connection I had even with the characters I simply just felt I was reading the words to get through the book rather than enjoying my time reading it. Maybe this just wasn't the book for me but ultimately I do feel there are other Fantasy Adult books that I would recommend over this one.

Thank you to NetGalley and Hansen House for the eARC.

In theory, this book has all the ingredients of a great story that usually I wouldn't be able to put down: a high fantasy setting with an abundance of court politics and schemes and in the middle of it a sapphic love story. But that's in theory. In reality, this book just fell flat for me and I'm not entirely sure why.

It might be that none of the POV characters truly caught my interest and I think the story would have been far better if told exclusively from Raena's POV. I get why that wasn't possible at times but Aven to me wasn't truly interesting. There was hardly anything to her backstory - or anything much to make her interesting to me. She seemed to have no flaws whatsoever and I find that boring. I want to shake my head at characters fondly and follow them through their foolishness, coming out saying "I told you so," and then give them a blanket. Zarana's POV was interesting, though inconsistent at times (is she truly so sick now or not because suddenly she can travel long distances?) and looking back, unnecessary except for maybe the last part.

It might have also been the worldbuilding. I'm a huge lover of good, detailed worldbuilding and in the beginning, I was really looking forward to this here. But sadly we didn't go much beyond what we first learn. Most information provided left me with more questions than answers about the different cultures and countries and historic events. Not to mention the war that breaks out about halfway through the book. I don't want to go into too much detail to avoid spoilers but there were so many things that don't make sense to me here - and maybe some of those will be remedied in the second book but it felt like too many plots at times were squeezed into one while the ending was so abruptly tying them together. You can have an invasion (which... the implications of said invasion and history behind the conflict I don't think were dealt with accurately, but that might be because of the limited POV) and a tyrant king you need to dethrone in one book but I personally would have liked for this to be more dragged out and given more attention separately. On the other hand, Zander seemed like a cardboard copy of a villain so maybe this was for the best.
(Also I really hope the finished version comes with a map because man, was I lost sometimes when there was traveling going on - which was pretty much 87% of the book.)

It might have also been that I couldn't quite connect to the writing style, which I know is a very subjective opinion. It was just something about the way information and jokes were delivered and things and people were described that took me out of the story at times. One of the biggest plot twists in the last chapter, I was calling halfway through the book and while I enjoy catching plot twists before if there are small breadcrumbs laid out to find them, this one was just glaringly obvious. So obvious that a red, neon arrow appeared every time, pointing at the hint and blaring an alarm so you may not miss that Hey, This Is Important Now Connect The Dots.

There's a lot more I could get into (the blatant misogyny by literally every character?, Raena's entire character as both a woman posing as a man and as someone of Boen ancestry, the romance) but I'll leave it at this for now:

This wasn't a bad book by any means and I'm sure there are people out there who will enjoy this far more than me. A lot of it comes down to personal taste. I probably will pick up the second book because I like to see things through and I enjoyed some of the side characters enough to want to see their story unfold (Hey Fin, Allyn, and Bell my loves) but sadly, it's not something I'm as eagerly anticipating as I hoped I would when I first started reading.

I received a copy of this e-arc in exchange for an honest review thanks to NetGalley and Hansen Publishing.

I have to say, when I started this, I wasn’t really feeling it. I was actually considering not finishing it.

However, I was completely suckered by Aven and Raena’s relationship. It started off as nothing, but as they got to know each other, I wanted more from them. I wanted more moments together. Their friendship to develop. Their secrets to be shared. I wanted it all!

I loved the plot and the characters (even though the prince and queen were just vile, I loved their addition to the storyline.)

I was completely enraptured by this book once the story picked up. It gave me major Merlin (2008 TV series) vibes with the descriptions of the scenery, the types of people (knights, royals, bandits, etc), the way the kingdoms are run and the descriptions of their travels.

It got to the point that when I had to stop reading (due to work, sleep, etc) I was itching to continue reading, it was all I could think about.

THAT ENDING. WHY A CLIFFHANGER. GIMME BOOK 2 PLEASE.

I mean, thank you for the preview of the next book. It answered my questions from that cliffhanger. But book 2 now please.

I think fantasy might slowly becoming a second favourite genre of mine - especially lgbt fantasy.

There were parts of Traitors of the Black Crown that I enjoyed and engaged with, and there were other parts that fell a little bit short for me.
I appreciated the politics and how it played into the plot. But, some of the characters' and character's actions felt as though they needed to be more three dimensioned and nuanced.

This book was really slow, though enjoyable. I loved the queer representation, but there wasn't quite "enough." There wasn't a lot of plot to this book, but the world-building was good. It kind of reminded me of Midnight Lie in that sense, though there was more plot in this. I also was put off by the switching POVs but that is just a personal preference.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC which I received in exchange for an honest review!

I had high hopes for this book besides on the synopsis but unfortunately, they fell short. The entire time I was reading, I just kept thinking, “where is the plot?” There were several points when I almost decided to DNF this book but I don’t like doing that. I wanted the characters to have more banter but that was not what I got either.

I plan to give this author another try in the future because the concept was very interesting but yeah this book was just okay.

This is one of the few books I will mark as DNF. I got about 20% into the book, and I could not force myself to continue reading it. I could not connect to the characters or even bring myself to care about their world.

I think this book had so much potential but it just never worked. I never got the plot, it was very slow, and never connected to the characters. I'm kinda disappointed by this.

*3.5stars*

Thanks to Netgalley for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This book surely was an interesting read. The story was not predictable for me. The plot is slow and confusing at times. But it did pick up pace in the last one third of the book. I'll look forward for the next book in the series.

I have to say I'm super intrigued when I read the blurb. A lady disguised as a knight after the Queen slaughtered her entire family, and then falling for a common-born Dutchess who happened to have a kinship with the Queen. Sounds interesting right!?

Too bad the pace is too slow for my liking. Too many long conversations between characters that I feel are unnecessary. Overly detailed combat/battle that makes me want to skip it. But despite the overly description of each thing, the plot is not there. I'm confused with the political problems (to which kingdom having a problem with which kingdom, and then suddenly there is another kingdom/race that appears out of nowhere after 300 years, and there is no indication that they still exist).

Raena (sir Rowan) goes 'down' on Avenna, without her telling her that she's a woman in disguise first. I forget but I think it was their third encounter that Raena finally let Aven knows who she really is. Aven doesn't mind (so I'm guessing she's pansexual?). The author stated that there is an asexual character and my guess is sir Finley. But there is no mention of that besides the saying that he's not wanting to get married and disgusted about it. Idk, but for me, it feels a little stereotypical.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

2.75 ⭐

Three women will betray the black crown. A Knight. A Duchess. A Queen.

This book was average for me. I loved the plot but I couldn't connect with characters. Plot was simple yet intriguing. The politics, Fighting, struggles all of them are very realistic. there are few things that I liked very much.
- F/F romance
- Feminist female characters
- Action
- plot

I was expecting lil more character development and twists so I am a bit disappointed.

This was absolutely painful to go through. The writing was messy if you're being nice and awful if you're being truthful. I can see the potential in the world-building and plotting but the writing was just.... off. There's a lot of room for improvement, especially maybe not having one character say half a page of info-dumping dialogue without pause or even taking a breath.

Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with an ARC of this book.
The description of this book originally hooked me, but I ended up not finishing this book as I disliked the writing style and it lacked an interesting plot. I skimmed the rest and wanted to bring up a few points that bothered me personally.

- Darker skin character described using “tree bark” to show skin tone (Can authors describe POC in a respectful manner ????)
- I saw in another review that the author promised asexual representation, but I never saw a trace of that in the book.
- the plot and world building were incredibly underdeveloped
- each POV had the same voice

I hope that other readers have a better experience than I did ❤️

👑 Book Review 👑

👑 Traitors of the Black Crown by Cate Pearce

👑 Publication Date - September 22nd 2021

👑 Three women will betray the black crown. A Knight. A Duchess. A Queen.

Raena Schinen narrowly escaped when the Queen’s guard murdered her entire family. If Raena’s survival is exposed, she’ll be next. For fifteen years Raena has hidden as a male Knight, “Sir Rowan”, consumed by her vengeful desire to assassinate the Queen.

The moment Raena is close enough to exact her revenge, she is unexpectedly exiled to a foreign land. There she serves the common-born Duchess Aven Colby, whose suspicious kinship with the Queen further threatens Raena’s delicate secrets.

👑 The characters navigate a rapidly shifting political landscape, a bit too political for me and I found the first half quite boring.

👑 Some aspects of the plot seemed out of place, like they were in place to serve an aesthetic rather than advance the plot.

👑 The book seemed to be more slow paced romance and travelling than action and as a reader who doesn't enjoy many romance novels I was not intrigued.

When I read the blurb, I couldn't wait to read this book. It definitely did not disappoint me. I really enjoyed this story, plot and thd writing style. The story is told from various chapters POV. What I enjoyed the most about this novel is that they each had their own story to tell and how they come together. If you enjoy historical novel with politics, this one is definitely for you. I can not wait to read the second book now.

Traitors of the Black Crown by Cate Pearce

1 star

Unfortunately, this book was a very big disappointment for me. I was really excited by the premise of morally grey sapphic characters betraying a kingdom, but the author failed to deliver on this. Genuinely, I can't think of an element of this novel which I had feelings better than "ambivalent-at-best" towards, which is why I decided to rate it one star.

To start off with, the setting of the book was extremely generic and the world-building was extremely underdeveloped. I also found the prose to be very stiff, it wasn’t a particularly easy book to read in that sense.

Furthermore, the characters also all are quite bland and underdeveloped. Raena is the only character who ever had any greater depth, and that was essentially that she was “not like other girls”. Plus, the casual misogyny she displayed while she was disguised as a man was really off putting. I felt also that the dialogue was very stale in regards to characterization - every character had the same voice, both as narrators and in conversation with other characters. The issues with characterization definitely impacted my overall enjoyment of the book. For example, the end fell very flat to me as I had no emotional connection to the characters or what was transpiring.

The book was extremely slow paced, there was very little plot, and what little there was was quite predictable. However, there also was very little character development, as I mentioned earlier. The best example of this is in the romantic relationship which transpires over the course of the book. The two characters frequently mention their deep feelings for each other, but we’ve rarely seen conversations or actions that hint at those feelings.

I’m going to also touch on a few elements of the book that I found to be a bit concerning.

As an asexual person, I was really excited to see that there was an ace character promised. However, there was no mention of this character's asexuality, besides the overdone stereotype of them "not wanting to get married". (BTW: Asexual people can still want to get married, and there are a plethora of reasons why a non-ace person would not want to get married. I don't mind this preference for asexual characters - I mean, I personally have no plans of ever getting married - but it is not sufficient as evidence to a character's asexuality and especially not sufficient to warrant advertising.) I generally don't mind whether a character's sexuality is directly revealed to be ace if the representation offered by that character is nuanced. However, labeling a character as ace and then delivering subpar representation is performative tokenism.

The author seems very blasé about the themes of colonization in the books. There is also a group of people entirely characterized by being "savages" or "barbarians" which is 1) pretty terrible language for the former, especially seeing as this belief is never challenged, 2) lazy world-building at best, and highly likely to be a lot worse.

I want to preface the following critique by mentioning that I am not a person of colour, and please default to a person of colour's opinion on this over mine. However, since this book is written by a white author, and very few people have posted reviews of this book and it was not overtly advertised as having a significant portion of the characters being POC, I thought I should bring up some concerns, so that people are aware if they plan on reading the book. Firstly, the author starts off by specifying the characters' skin colour using a type of tree bark, which is, as I understand, not appropriate. Furthermore, a character of colour is also compared to a dog for sleeping with a lighter-skinned woman. Lastly, the two characters ever discussed as being "attractive" or "beautiful" in the narrative were the two white characters. Again, the opinions of a reviewer of colour should be taken into consideration over mine, here.