Wonderful, evocative tale of three sisters and the disintegration of the world and kingdom around them, woven in with myth and legend, betrayal and distrust. Some stunning prose brings the story to life. It is quite a long, dense read and has taken me a while to complete, but I loved reading it.

More detailed review to follow / be blogged and added to Goodreads.

This is a retelling of Shakespeare’s King Lear and while overall I enjoyed the book it did fall a bit flat for me. This is a slow paced book and while at times I felt invested in the story at others I felt I was struggling to get through it. I also feel like nothing really happens at the beginning of the book and then everything seems to happen at the end. The characters are what really makes this story. the novel contains multiply POVs and I liked all of them especially those of the three sisters Gaela, Regan and Elia. I loved both their individual story arcs and also their relationship with each other.
Overall I didn’t love this book but I still enjoyed some aspects of this so I gave it 3 out of 5 stars.

Beautifully written, a very haunting tale of forbidden love, folklore and the story of three sisters trying to come to terms with the destiny expected of them and the destiny that they make for each other.

This is one of my favourite books of the year. A fascinating concept wonderfully brought to life by the author.

I picked this up over my love of King Lear and it did not disappoint, add in three strong female characters and a bit of magic and I was hooked.

Though classed as YA this is easily a novel for older readers also. I love the detail the author goes into when describing the scenery and characters. it really makes you feel as though you are in the book.

This book was not an easy read and I did find myself taking breaks from reading it, however, I would still highly reccomend!

This book didn’t grab me to be fair. I read it but it was more a case of getting it finished. I have never read the king Lear Shakespeare story so had nothing to compare it too.

I was hooked from the first page. I enjoyed the way Tessa wound the narrative around, and the fact the women were so complicated. Full review to come

This book had me very conflicted. On the one hand I truly enjoyed parts of it, while on the other hand I was really frustrated by it. Let's start with the positives.

The storyline was great: this is basically a retelling of King Lear with magic. I really enjoyed finding parallels with the original and seeing how the book differed. There were enough original elements to keep the plot interesting, and I liked the magical elements especially because of their uniqueness and darkness. The prose was also spectacular! From the first sentence, I was hooked: Tessa Gratton has a way of making everything come alive when describing it in one of the best lyrical proses I have had the pleasure of reading in a really long time.

The worldbuilding was also amazing! It took me a while to get the hang of it, but once I did, I really appreciated the whole setting. The island felt like a character in itself, with a life, will, and desires of its own. I also truly felt like I understood the way society was organised and the people's mindset. It was interesting to note just how much those tensions influenced characters' behaviours. The relations between Innis Lear and neighbouring countries were also extremely well developed and thoroughly explored, providing a much-needed explanation for certain characters' choices.

Which brings me to the characters, one of the best features in this book for me. The multiple POVs proved fairly challenging and confusing at the beginning, but when I finally settled in them, I appreciated the enhanced understanding of each character's motivations and reasoning that these provide. I found all characters to be incredibly well-rounded and developed throughout the book, and while some were definitely more appealing than others, I appreciated all of them. A special mention goes, of course, to the titular queens: the three sisters were exceptional and had such unique voices that I really felt like I was gradually getting to know them personally.

At the same time, however, I had some significant issues with this book, which prevented me from fully enjoying it. As I mentioned above, there are several POVs, and while I appreciated them, I sometimes felt there were just a few too many for me to keep track of the plot and the characters themselves as I wanted to. The geography of the place also got confusing at one point, and I ended up confusing different realms and had to go back and read whole passages again. I think this is mostly due to it all being introduced at the same time right at the beginning, which made me feel like I was unable to keep track of all the new information I was receiving.

The most significant problem for me, however, was with the pacing of this book. For the most part, it felt terribly slow and I struggled to feel like I was making any progress at all. It was only because of how much I enjoyed the prose and my curiosity in wanting to see where the story would lead us that I decided to stick it out and finish it. It was definitely worth the effort, but I still feel like it could have been less painful to get through.

Overall, this is a really solid read but one that unfortunately had some issues which prevented me from fully enjoying it. I look forward to what else Tessa Gratton has in store for us!

This was a fascinating retelling of Shakespeare's King Lear! It's not at all what I was expecting. It far exceeded my expectations. It took the characterisation from the play, keeping its moral ambiguity in check, but adding in so many elements that made this tale something so completely unique and wonderful it left me breathless.

This isn't an easy read and does need a fair amount of familiarity with the source material. Gratton's writing style is incredibly lyrical, which some readers may find off-putting, but for me worked perfectly in keeping with the style of the play itself. And, like all great fantasy authors, Gratton has really outdone herself with the world-building. I got such a sense of time and place from this that I was completely immersed.

This was a beautifully constructed book that works at just the right pace and will leave an impression for a long time to come. Rarely have I read a retelling that was so true to the source material while remaining a work of such originality. Definitely one of my top recommends of 2018.

I've never read King Lear, but the length alone of this book lives up to its epic source material. Whilst full of mystique and lush descriptions of the wild country, the pace of the story is agonisingly slow, with characters that are very difficult to warm to. By sticking so closely to the tale of Lear, there are many interesting characters that simply get abandoned or under utilised. For all the effort it took to read it, I was disappointed with the ending and the underwhelming character development. It seemed very stiff and stilted.

Marketed as a King Lear retelling, it’s easy to write off this book as just another Shakespeare retelling but to do so would be doing a disservice to Tessa Gratton’s canny dissection of the heart of the narrative of King Lear and his three daughters in order to create her own unique-feeling fantasy world which very much stands on its own merit. Questions of fate and prophecy vs. forging your own path are interrogated keenly throughout the story, with a different opinion on the matter characterised by each of the king’s daughters, Gaela, Reagan, and Elia. The question of a sense of responsibility and duty to the natural world, to your kingdom, to your lord, and to your blood relations is also deeply entwined into every twist and turn of this book’s plot, proving that The Queens of Innis Lear does indeed have something to say that, for me, is sometimes brushed over in similar fantasy narratives I have read recently. I will say that, at first, it took me a while to truly get into the novel due to the frequent use of flashbacks, character-switching, and setting-switching, but I was in a much better position to appreciate the novel once I had drawn myself up a very simple family tree/relationships diagram to keep track of the cast of characters that populate The Queens of Innis Lear.

"Rain is not always a storm. The wind does not always howl. Sometimes death is quiet, or love is peaceful. There are little things."

The setting was extremely vivid, at least in terms of the natural world around the court and the magic that is derived from the very roots of the island. For lack of a better expression, this book felt earthy, any time that the natural elements were described they were depicted in such a gritty and grounded manner that I could almost feel the mud underneath my feet and smell the electric hint of thunder on the air of a muggy night. The character that seems most in touch with the natural environment, Ban aka “the Fox”, likewise seems at his most real and honest when he is immersed (quite literally) in nature. His earthiness morphs throughout the novel as he must become part-spy and is required to play a different part; with this, the idea of the honest, earthy, and natural is sharply contrasted to the more cerebral and political machinations associated with the kingdom’s courts and its nobility. It seems to be a constant warring within Ban as he is torn between his natural, instinctive urges and his sense of loyalty and duty to Morimaros of Aremoria who has always treated him as someone above his natural station as a bastard-born son of an Earl.

" ‘It’s unnatural, child against parent.’
‘Parent against child, you mean?’ "

As far as the principle characters go, I was not much a fan of Lear, but considering that his daughters are the focus of the novel, this likely comes as little surprise. Because of the play, I think the author and the reader’s natural inclination is to “side with” the youngest daughter, Elia, and to sympathise to her plight as the king’s once-favourite who then is practically disowned simply because she refuses to publically declare her love for her father. However, I appreciated that Tessa Gratton’s Lear daughters are all given equal weight in the narrative – through changing perspectives in each chapter, we are allowed to see the motivations and ambitions of all of the daughters, and thereby build up a sense of understanding of each of their characters, even if you may not necessarily wish to “side with” them or their cause. For my part, I was surprised by the extent to which I sympathised with Gaela, the militaristic-minded and hard-hearted daughter who has refused to be a servant to pre-destiny and the stars and instead grabbed the bull by the horns, striving to actively control her own fate, her own body, and her own sense of identity. Placed in direct contrast to her more sensitive, emotional, and (ultimately) easily likeable younger sister, Elia, Gaela proves an interesting exercise in characterisation that I feel showcased Tessa Gratton’s passion for the legend of King Lear.

"You won this war even before I knew there was a battle to be had."

To spare a moment of gushing, I also fell just a little bit in love with Morimaros, not only in his relationship with Elia but also in his friendship with Ban. Out of all the suitors and spouses of the various ladies of Lear, Morimaros aka Mars was the one who felt most “worthy” to me. Distrustful of prophecy and magic which is the lifeblood of King Lear and Elia’s relationship, Mars instead is painted as serious and often analytical, as a contrast to the more airy-fairy earth magic and star prophecies associated with the likes of Ban. Although he is a king of Aremoria (the neighbouring kingdom) and thereby automatically considered a key player in the grab for the Lear throne, he always seems to play down any sense of his social position unless absolutely necessary – he wears the same uniform as his soldiers and isn’t often distinguishable as the king and ruler of the same people until he puts back on his metaphorical and literal crown. I thought the exploration of his character’s feelings towards magic, prophecy, and predestiny (alongside his budding relationship with Elia) was intriguing, and (on a more shallow level) his characterisation was deeply attractive to me.

"Everyone connected to a crown played games, that was the nature of it, so Elia only needed to discern who played them for power and who played them for love."

In conclusion, The Queens of Innis Lear was a thoughtful novel that took the original setup of King Lear that readers may be familiar with and used it to explore deeply relatable ideas about, variously, the sense of loyalty, the repercussions of the loss of a family member, and taking control of your own life against circumstance and pre-destiny. It explores not only father-daughter relationships but also that of sisters/siblings, investigating the latent tension behind these relationships that may be slave to circumstance and to the past as much as to anything in the future that is foretold by the stars of your birth.

"No one thing keeps Innis Lear alive or its heart beating! That is not love! That is selfishness. That is pretending we are all only one thing. Only a star, only a woman, only a bastard. You’re more than that, and I am, too: a woman and daughter of a foreign queen and a star priest. I’m all of that. Take one piece away and the rest shifts and changes, just like… just like this island, or any land."

I am really struggling with this book. I have picked it up and started to read it twice and have been unable to get hooked, so far. I am determined to keep trying as I really do want to love this book but at the moment I am just finding it really hard going. There is nothing in particular that I dislike it is just rather slow to get into, but I will definitely pick it up again in the near future and try again.

Thank you for the opportunity to read and review this book.

An epic fantasy re-telling of a Shakespearean classic

The once prosperous island of Innis Lear is falling into ruin under the rule of the star-prophecy obsessed King Lear, who has ignored the earth magic of the island since the death of his wife many years ago and is slowly descending into madness. His three daughters – ruthless, war-hungry Gaela, manipulative, cunning Reagan and innocent star-devout Elia – know that to save their island, someone must take over from the king and unite the magic of the stars and the earth. When the time comes for their father to choose an heir, Lear makes a decision that will pit families against each other and may eventually lead to war, tragedy and the undoing of Innis Lear.

This novel is a re-telling of the classic Shakespeare tragedy King Lear, which is a huge and ambitious undertaking for even the most experienced of authors. However, Tessa Gratton has chosen to not only attempt this in her debut novel but to bravely alter the plot slightly and add elements of magic to the famous tale. The result is a truly excellent adult fantasy story, with action, romance and tragedy wrapped up in an exciting plot that enthrals the reader in its twists and keeps them turning pages. The writing was beautifully descriptive, and the island of Innis Lear is presented in such a way that the reader can vividly imagine the locations and scenery where the story takes place. The magical elements of the story are well-written and come across as believable in the context of the story rather than being too fantastical.

The novel is written from the POV of a few different characters, and whilst this was a little confusing and heavy at first, I quickly found myself able to understand everyone’s roles and to follow the story efficiently. The characters are strong, multi-layered and extremely complex, and the POV style allows us to see their thoughts and understand why they make their choices. The author also uses flashbacks to further flesh out the characters, making them some of the most multidimensional that I have encountered in a single story. There are not ‘good’ and ‘bad’ people in Innis Lear – everyone’s morality has grey areas, and I found myself switching my sympathies between different characters frequently throughout the story, as their motivations and interactions were so well-explored. As is probably to be expected from Shakespeare, there is a lot of heartbreak and tragedy in the story as well, and this had an impact on me as a reader because of how attached I had become to the characters. I also liked that several of the important players in the story were women, as this is uncommon in the fantasy genre and added an extra layer of enjoyment for me.

My only issues with this story were that the ending seemed a little anti-climactic with a few questions left unanswered, and I also found the youngest sister Elia (who is a central POV character) a little dull. It is also quite a long book, and the magical fantasy elements may not be for everyone.

Overall, whilst quite a long read, this was an excellent book that I found myself drawn into, and several times I caught myself thinking about the story and the characters even when I wasn’t reading it. I sincerely hope that I get the opportunity to read more of Tessa Gratton’s work in the future, as this was a fantastic debut.

Daenerys

Breakaway Reviewers received a copy of the book to review

A retelling of Shakespeare’s King Lear, The Queens of Innis Lear tells the story of three sisters fighting for the fate of their broken country.
The world of the story is richly created, with deep histories of Innis Lear and the surrounding countries. I thought that the different elements of the magic/religion were wonderfully detailed and explored. I found myself caught up in the enchanting rituals that were vividly described.
The characters are strong and fierce in different ways and are explored in much more detail than in Shakespeare’s familiar play. All with strong motivations, it was fascinating to read about them at war with each other and within their own minds.
However, I found the book a struggle to get through. While Tessa Gratton has created a fascinating, beautifully vivid world, I found the story dragged in places. This may partly be because it is such a long book and it seemed a little overwhelming at times and I sometimes felt that I was forcing myself to read it. It may also be partly because I am familiar with the play on which it is based.
That being said, it is a wonderful take on the Lear Family and is a fascinating exploration of ambition, weakness, and family.

This was a brilliant feminist adult epic fantasy and one of my favourites of the year.
I haven't read King Lear myself so, unfortunately, can't comment on that aspect but that took nothing away from this incredible read.
For me, this was a long slow read, adult fantasies are slow going at the best of times but at over 500 pages with incredibly descriptive poetic writing, this was never going to be a quick 2 day read for me. There are many POV and so required a huge amount of concentration.
That being said, the 500+ pages meant that the characters were brilliantly well developed as well as being individually complicated and complex.
World building is always an important factor for me, and honestly, I couldn't fault it or the magic system. For me, they were the stand out gems of this book

This read would be great for anyone looking for a slow deep read and world you can really get immersed in.

Quality Rating: Four Stars
Enjoyment Rating: Five Stars

So, this took me more than a month to read. And while I loved it, even with long book that's kind of ridiculous for me. To give it credit, I usually put a book to the side or give up if it takes me more than a few weeks, but I wanted to keep reading this. It's got so many strengths, but I can't write this review without stating that one weakness.

To start with, it didn't bother me at all how long it was (I've read plenty of 600 page books or longer), and I was so in love with it. The writing is so vivid, the story is magical; it gave me a pure fantasy and politics kick. But it didn't need to be as long as it was. And there's a part of me that's glad it was so long because the detail, the worldbuilding, the character development was so wonderful. You know when you finish a book and sit there wishing it was twice as long because you just want more? Well, Gratton gives you that much more. But there was a point where it stopped adding to the story and started being indulgent, and in the long run I think it suffered. At the end, there was so much build up that it couldn't quite reach the heights it had set up for itself. Anything was going to feel a least a little anticlimactic.

Something I really love is how much all the characters change, and not necessarily in a good way for them. I think this book will get compared to Game of Thrones somewhere along the way because it has that kind of high level politics and the characters to match. There are some people at the start that seem like trouble but redeem themselves, and there are some that you're rooting for who completely crush your expectations for them into the mud. And weirdly enough, I really like that. It did mean that by the end I didn't really think anyone deserved to be on the throne and I wasn't particularly remorseful for the losers, but it made the journey very interesting along the way.

I can't explain how happy I am that we're starting to see female characters like these. I'm not saying it's perfect, but I'm finally looking at women in fiction and going 'yeah, this is a whole person'. In The Queens of Innis Lear we have a huge variety of women, of different ethnicities, different personalities, different motivations. They draw strength from the other women around them, and they work in tandem with the men (if the men are clever enough to let them). A great deal of them aren't even likeable, and I'm happy that we're giving time to women that are complex enough to be dislikable and developed. It's not trying to be feminist for the sake of being feminist, it becomes such because it follows developed characters and they happen to be women.

I loved The Queens of Innnis Lear, I really did. There's so much magic and gold bursting from the seams of this book, despite its shortcomings. Not for people who like quick reads, but if you want to sink into a high fantasy world with mighty women and their realistic adventures, then get to this as soon as possible.

I have a perhaps unreasonable dislike of retellings of existing stories. If I wanted to read the story of King Lear I would go back to Shakespeare and read the original.

This book was right up my street! A fantasy retelling of Shakespeare's King Lear? Sign me up!

It is a long title and took me a long time to get through in places but I still found it highly enjoyable - would recommend!

I imagine this won't be to everyone's taste. It is after all based on a Shakespearean tragedy and is therefore tragic. However I loved this reimagining of King Lear. I felt Gerritson explored and repackaged the themes for a modern audience with great skill. At college I played the part of Edmund - who is a complicated character due to his unprivileged and oppressed background - and in Ban the Fox I felt Gerritson did full justice to the range of his character. The writing was gorgeous and the pace was on point. By the end I felt those who survived had earned the right to do so leaving us on a more hopeful note than the original play does. Thoroughly enjoyable.

It took me a long time to get through this book - not because it's bad, but because it's so densely and richly packed with detailed characters, an incredible and thoroughly thought through religious system and the complexities of the Shakespearean tragedy.

So much time is spent on constructing characters, flashbacks to past events and a slow detailed plot that it was a real slog to make progress with this one. That doesn't stop it from being a quality High Fantasy book, though.

I'm also not super-familiar with the plot of King Lear - I read the plot summary after I finished the book and was very impressed by how Gratton had twisted and developer the story to make it work in this context.