dnf around 20% *thanks to netgalley for providing an arc for an honest review*
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oh boy, i am disappointed. disappointed that i didn’t finish it, and disappointed in the book.

traitors of the black crown by cate pearce, advertised as a sapphic political, royalty, undercover novel is something i usually would something jump out at. but it was just so slow. like painstaking–took 3 months to read 20% slow.

my main problem is the pacing. the first 200 pages are about these games (?), which the main character rowen (who is actually a woman named raena) and finn (the best friend), race across this spatalot-wipeout without the water, type of course.

something happens– i’m still not sure what– but finn, raena and another guy get punished by the king for doing whatever they did. oh no raena and finn are seperated, raena is sent to guard the duchess and finn is sent somewhere. i’m not sure where.

ahh let’s get into the world building, it’s in between the delicate line of constant world building whilst also confusing the hell out of me.

with names like raena, finn, rowan i shouldn’t have been surprised that it was most likely a european based story. but for some strange, strange reason i took it as an asian based story. imagine my shock when i heard scottish slang.

i didn’t get far enough into the book to talk about the sapphic relationship, but reading other reviews it seems like it was very instant love.

overall, this was a slow ass read. i’ve heard better reviews from other people, so maybe look into those before picking this up.

* once again, thanks to netgalley for giving me an arc for an honest review. *

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.

If you've ever wanted to read a book evocative of the Alanna series, but sapphic, and for grownups, this is one to check out! Traitors of the Black Crown scratched a particular itch I was having for a Medieval fantasy story with a woman knight (undercover as a man) and a sapphic romance.

I will say the plot felt a bit unfocused for my tastes, but it was an enjoyable romance and a refreshing world. I'm not sure if I've read a fantasy book yet that relied on evolution rather than magic for key aspects of its world building, but I've been craving that exact kind of fantasy world and was glad to experience it here.

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.

Disclaimer: I received an ARC of this book, my thoughts are my own.

honestly DNF'ed around the 35-ish % mark and then skimmed it to the end.
I just no, it was not for me.
THERE IS NO PLOT TO THIS....it is sooooo boring I just couldn't handle it. the concept is nothing out of this world, it's like other books where the MC hides as a man (as a knight, or other) and falls in love but with no plot. It's a Sapphic romance which is what made me pick it up, since it was my first time reading it in the context of two women falling in love when one hides as a man. BUT NOPE NOPE NOPE.
SAVE YOUR TIME THERE ARE GREATER SAPPHIC BOOKS OUT THERE.
HUUUUGGGEEEE DISSAPOINTMENT
1/5 stars
Bookarina

This was a sapphic fantasy novel which always earns points for me but it was also executed wonderfully. I did like the first half of the book a lot more than the second but I enjoyed all of it and was engrossed throughout.

The characters were interesting and complex and I like how Pearce wove in the narratives of the characters set up as the villains without it seeming forced or as a ploy to garner pity for those characters. I adored the character of Raena and Aven was sweet. My biggest complaint is the lack of Finn. I’m for sure going to read the sequel.

Thanks to Netgalley for an arc of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I wanted to love this book, it sounded absolutely amazing and it was sapphic so how could I not. I am a very character driven person and when it came to this book I felt some of the connections were dry, I wanted better banter between characters and I felt at times they didn't seem super close when we know they are like siblings they are so close. I love the idea of this book but found myself confused about the world at times and the pacing didn't make much sense to me. I think there is a lot of potential but unfortunately this book fell flat for me.

When I first read the synopses for this book I was really intrigued. The premises sound so good and it was an lgbtq book so that was even more plus points.
I really enjoyed reading this book! I just loved reading the book from different perspectives. Especially because they were on different sides of the story as one of the perspectives was of the Queen the other two were “fighting”.
The chemistry the two main characters had was amazing. I loved reading about the evolution in their friendship. I always have a weakness for books with some romance on the side and this one did not disappoint.
The book overall had lots of twist and turns I did not see coming but did make sense. The story really pulled me in to keep reading. There were some parts that dragged on a bit long (especially the traveling scenes) but I did not mind it that much as I was invested in the characters. I’ll definitely be looking out for the sequel.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for a copy in exchange for an honest review.

Traitors of the Black Crown was a miss for me right now. I did not finish it because I couldn't really connect with any of the characters through an ebook copy. I really wanted to finish it but I just could not in ebook format. I do want to give this book a try in a physical format!

I dnf'ed (for now) @ 25%. I really wanted to continue but I was going to get myself in a reading slump if I tried finishing it.

There is loads of LGBTQ representation in this book, so I really do want to give this book a try in physical format, because it seems right up my alley!!

The cover and the premise of this book wow I knew I wanted to read it. It didn’t live up to the hype at all. The romance just didn’t interest me and wow it was so slow it could of been shorter and could of been a quicker and more enjoyable read like that. Honestly this read like a man had read it trying to make women sound weak. I just didn’t enjoy this much at all

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I felt like it was neither character or plot based which was something i really enjoyed. I wasn’t super invested out the plot until half way through the book. Overall I would rate this book 3.5/5 stars, but I would round it up to a 4/5 star.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for the arc.

Sadly, I DNFed at 32%

I really wanted to love this book. The last queer fantasy I read turned out to be so disappointing, and my expectations for this one, based on blurb, weren’t super high (fantasy based on Medieval Europe isn’t my favorite), so I figured it would be hard for this book to disappoint. Also, I tend to not care much if a book has a tight plot, as long as I’m enthralled by the characters, authors can get away with a lot. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get into this.

There were so many long dialogues. At one point, I’m pretty sure the two main characters talked about the same things three times. People talk in circles so dialogue can clarify things about the world, and the exposition dump eventually exhausted me. I think I went four or five chapters with nothing much happening except people thinking about their predicaments and having inane, endless conversations, and at the end of it all, I hadn’t grasped who Raena and Avenna were any better.

I figured I would hold out until Zarana’s POV to see if the book became more engrossing, but sadly all three POVs were shallow and the world was too generic and uninteresting. Some of the more specific parts just felt like GoT fanfiction (especially the Prince), but even this familiarity didn’t help me make sense of the balance of power. A sick Queen and a Prince with no heirs and a people who hated both? Why not just kill both? They literally filled the Castle with warriors then abused them. The inciting incident didn’t make sense, and the rest of the first act added nothing to it, so I couldn’t justify sticking with it to the end.

I’m sorry for that, but hopefully this book will find readers who will appreciate it.

I loved how the book just thrust the reader into the action without it being too confusing or overwhelming.

The flirting between the two main characters was so cute and didn’t feel forced at all. I loved all of their scenes together and wish that there was more of them.

I felt like the book started off pretty fast paced but then ground to a halt at about the halfway point. I was really enjoying it but then started getting bored after the enemy reveal. It felt almost like a different book, which I didn’t enjoy as much as I did the book I started out with. I was very down with the politics and war but got bored once it started feeling more like an apocalypse book.

I liked the multiple POVs but wish they switched more often. We stay with the same character for far too long and I end up wondering what the other character is doing. Also I’m not sure how necessary it was to have the Queens POV in the story, she didn’t really add much.

The end of the book felt a little cheap, like it closed without really answering anything. I know that there is supposed to be a sequel but I’m not sure that there’s enough story left to tell, honestly if it had like two more chapters I feel like a sequel wouldn’t be necessary.

I really enjoyed this book for the most part but not sure if I’m going to be reading the sequel.