This is really hard review for me to write, The Queens of Innis Lear is epic in its storytelling and so much thought has gone into the world building, characters and history I feel like I should love it - it's a high fantasy King Lear retelling with ancient magics, twisty plot and underhandedness, pretty much ticking all my boxes (and all of Shakespears!), but it sadly fell short.  It's because I appreciate all that must have gone into writing this that I feel so torn with what to put in my review, so I think i'm going to a good old fashioned list of pro's and con's

Pro's - As I said before, this book is epic in it's story telling, 3 sisters each vying for the crown of the island of Innis Lear when their father passes.  Geala, the warrior, Regan the good wife and Elia (the youngest and favourite of the King) the Star Priest.  What follows is a richly woven tale of court intrigue, old scores to be settled and simmering vengeance.  The sisters must suffer through banishment, loss, grief and anger in order to decide who should rightfully wear the crown, all have different motives and ideas for the Island, but the old magic of an Island ruled by the stars has its own ideas too.....  Whilst I found many of the characters hard to get on with (see cons) my favourite character by far was Regan.  Her journey was one that I found solace in and her character development was off the scale.  There were many moments of brilliance interspersed in the story and at times I felt like I didn't want to put it down.  I adored the sections about the old root magic and the language of the trees, these magics were beautifully written as were the magics of the stars and made a deserving focal point in the tale.

Con's - there are no chapters in this book, it shifts around MANY different points of view in a rolling format and whilst it is separated into parts these are sparse. The book is also just far too long, I found myself skimming some parts and then having to go back because a tiny nugget of important information was nestled in the pages and pages of unnecessary explanations of things that had already been explained.  I felt that it was in need of a lot of editing as at times reading it was a was a real endurance - I knew the payoff was coming but it was just so hard to get there.  I wasn't particularly taken with many of the characters either, there was so much going on and so much subterfuge and double dealing amongst them that it was hard to really build up a relationship with them as many of them had little opportunity to build up much depth.  There is one huge question that I had throughout which never got answered either which was a real failing in continuity. 

So in fairness, this is 3* from me.

this book being a modern fantasy adaption of Shakespeare's king lear but found it got bogged down and very slow going and heavy, where it could of been more light hearted and easier flowing it had the potential to be a good book.

would like to thank netgalley and the publisher for letting me read this book

sorry to say it just did not grab me...thought it would but i tried and i tried...i could see it was well written and thought out but just one that isnt for me i am afraid..it just didnt hold my attention...

I want to start by saying that I did enjoy reading this book and I am not entirely sure that my rating is the right one, (3.5 stars rounded up) maybe I will take a look at this review in a while and adjust it. I read The Queens of Innis Lear as an ebook via NetGalley. And maybe this altered my reading of the book, I do find that I enjoy ebooks less than 'proper' books.

One of the first things I would like to say is that I feel like the book should most definitely come with a content warning. It discusses several topics which I feel a reader should be forewarned about, namely miscarriage and suicide. There is a rather vivid miscarriage scene fairly early on in the book, and I would have liked to have had knowledge of that in advance, (probably so I could skip over that section had I known). I found myself unable to continue reading straight away after that passage and did actually question whether or not to continue the book at this point.

Towards the end of the book there is a lot of discussion surrounding suicide and two characters do commit suicide within the pages of the text. Again, this is another thing I feel readers should be forewarned about, either so that can choose not to read the book, or read it when they are in the frame of mind to do so. Hopefully the paper copies of the book will come with an authors note or content warning (like the one S Jae-Jones wrote for Shadowsong).

These issues aside, as I have said above, I really did enjoy reading The Queens of Innis Lear. The characters are vivid, unique and each one is a flawed and wonderful creation. I am not sure who my favourite character is, I leaned towards Aefa and also found myself sympathetic towards Regan, I found Elia, who I feel may have been the 'main character' a little too passive. We follow the story, as it happens, to several characters, the three sisters, Gaela, Regan and Elia as well as Lear -their father, Aefa - Elia's maid, Ban the Fox, Mars - the King of Aremoria among others. Each of these characters adds to what is an incredibly rich and detail story. I loved the fact that no-one was blameless, everyone was morally grey, we get to know them, flaws and all - they were selfish, they were filled with rage, they were selfless and loving.

As you can imagine the theme of 'child against father' is a strong thread woven through the story, and I am not sure whether or not, as a reader, we are supposed to forgive these children or their fathers. I found myself feeling more drawn towards the children and at times as unforgiving as Ban the Fox. Is there a limit to forgiveness? Should we forgive for the sake of others or for our own sake?

The world building was incredible and the Isle of Innis Lear really came alive between the pages of the book. Aremore too, was vivid and rich, when we visited characters who traveled to it's city. But it did not hold a candle to the wild, brutal and alive Isle of Innis Lear. But I expect we are supposed to feel that way. Everything was so detailed, not just the characters and the kingdoms but their religions and their politics. The worship of the stars and the prophecies which stemmed from those beliefs were so intricate. And it was clear to see the stranglehold the stars had some of the people of Innis Lear, most notably Lear himself. The system of magic, or wormwork was also so intricate, so unique and so well used in the book. The connection between the people and the island really added an extra dimension to the whole story.

The themes of forgiveness, love and hate, are discussed at length in The Queens of Innis Lear, and we are told several cautionary tales, throughout the course of the novel - of children growing in to adults tempered by actions or mistakes of their parents. Some of these characters like Gaela and Ban are extremes, but they still feel realistic. In fact I felt like only Elia with her passivity and near endless forgiveness was unrealistic. At times she was as unfeeling as the stars her father molded her into.

I am not sure that my enjoyment of The Queens of Innis Lear would have been improved by reading a paper copy, or reading it at a different time in my life. I will say that it was an intense read, one which swirled up a multitude of emotions. Now that I have read the final words, I am glad that I decided to carry on with my reading as it is a beautifully tragic tale filled with unique and flawed characters.

I adored this book, it was absolutely beautiful and had some of the most spectacular imagery I've read in a book - it made you feel like you were there.
This is definitely one of my top books of 2018 and I'll be buying a finished copy when I can!

It was an easy book to follow, from present to past. Her descriptions of the settings were excellent. I have to admit that throughout my many years of reading this is only the second time I wanted to shake a character and I believe that Elia deserved it. She is an intelligent stubborn strong woman, so different from her sisters. I liked Regan too..

I was looking forward to this book as I love fantasy and Shakespeare retellings, so it sounded right up my street - I especially loved that there would be a diverse cast of strong and complicated women too. But unfortunately I found the book to be quite dull - it's a slog to get through, and it felt like it could be reduced by about 200 pages. Not for me, sadly.

Engaging characters and good story, hard to put down.

I really wanted to love this book but unfortunately it just wasn't for me. I found the language too flowery and it took too long to get to the crux of the story. I don't think it's a bad book I just don't think it was to my taste unfortunately.
If you love descriptive fantasy novels, this is definitely for you.

I found this to be a really lyrical and poignant re-imagining of King Lear, set in a magical land where wizards cast blood magic to harness the power of the land and the ailing King just wants to follow the prophecies of the stars. First things first. This is not a quick read - the book is a hefty one and the narrative is paced languidly, which gives the reader the time to get to grips with the many characters but does not make for an unputdownable page turner. I really appreciated the detail and depth that Gratton has gone into and once I understood that it was not going to be fast, I settled in to a really beautiful character study that showed the nuance in everyone's nature. I found Regan the most interesting of the 3 sisters and her motivations were not always clear, which I thought was a wise move on the author's part. Elia had an edge to her that I found appealing and Gaela was a fascinating woman, living a man's life in a male-dominated world. Ultimately, this novel won't appeal to everyone. There will be people who struggle with the slow pacing, but for me, I thought it was a fantastic book and I will look forward to reading Gratton in the future.
I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.

Any reader who is a lover of fantasy fiction will love this book.
Yes you could compare it to Game of Thrones but in my opinion it is much better.
I loved the way the book did not have chapters but was written from different characters perspectives.
The multi layering of characters made it an interesting and fascinating read.
It is a real saga with lots of twists and turns with lots of characters to love and hate but at the centre is the main character the island of Innis Lear.
I do not know the story of King Lear so have no preconceived ideas to base my enjoyment of the book on.
I loved it one of the best books I have read this year
Five stars all the way.

My Opinion

Book itself: This is a multiperspective book following about 10 different characters. It gives the book multiple layers and views on different matters, but it can be confusing at the beginning of the book. There are also flashbacks on top of the 10 perspectives, which is a lot, but it gives you a view of what happened in the past. All views are written in the third person so the name of the character is often repeated making it easier to keep track. All the characters are very different which also helps to keep them apart.

Story: The story is deeply intertwined will all the characters. It's intriguing, dramatic and full of blood and betrayal, it gave me a GoT feel. Though there is magic and I really enjoyed the magic system and the language of the trees in which the island speaks to the characters who chose to listen. The world is development to some extent and gives a great view of the fantasy world as a first book in a series would have. I do not know if this is a standalone or the first book in a series, from reading it, it could be either.

As the multiperspective book and the GoT feel, I was pleasantly surprised by the lack of sex in this book. It was really great! I believe there are two sex scenes in the entire thing. One of them is quite lovely and sweet. But sex, in general, wasn't the main focus and that was really nice. 

I really enjoyed how freely the story talks about periods and how it regularly appeared in the story from different angles and at different time, as if to represent how often we get it but without wordy repetition. 

Characters: My favourite character in the whole book was Elia. She starts off being naive and a rather soft and caring character. She doesn't care about the power she just wants to take care of their father in his declining health. She is trained as a star priest but also possesses magic and the language of the trees. Her journey through the book is very interesting and I really enjoyed it. Her general love for everyone makes her the obvious choice as the main character and someone I enjoy following through such a bloody and dramatic storyline. 

My second favourite was Ban the Fox. I got really invested in this character very early on, I believe it was his first chapter. Though for a while I believed him to be Elias half-brother which got me very confused for a while as I don't approve of half-sibling romantic relationship. But they are not, so it's all good   I enjoyed his rage and abilities both with people and with magic. I really like this guy. Even though his intentions aren't necessarily always for the greater good I was still rooting for him.

There is a bi-character who I found to be very entertaining but a bit stereotypical soft bi-male.

Reagan is the middle sister. She is the one character who makes the biggest journey in my view as a reader. She starts off being someone I believe to be a stereotypical strong bitchy cruel woman, and not very original, to become someone I became invested in and felt for at the end. I, as a reader, made an interesting journey along with her. It's important to me to have a feel for a character in the beginning to gain some sort of connection, and then join them on their journey. For me and Reagan, I was more on the outside, firstly judging then feeling sorry for her. It was an interesting journey to have.

Lastly, there is Gaela. As a reader, I really enjoyed her point of views. As an LGBT+ person, I'm not sure about how she is portrayed in this book. I have questions: Is she a woman fighting for power in a male-dominated world? or is she a trans or queer character? If it's the first I believe the stereotypical strong fierce woman was dragged a bit too far. If it's the second I feel it's not complete and a little bit ill-represented version of a trans or queer character.

Writing: Overall the writing is ok. It's not a typical adult fantasy book with intricate, several pages long descriptions, though it has some descriptive scenes and quite often, they are not tedious which is good too me who are used to fast-paced YA fantasy. 

The beginning of the book starts which several paragraphs which all start with "It begins with". The grammar of this section is confusing to me. When I started the book I didn't understand if this was past present or future tense. But that could just be my second-language English. There are similar sections throughout the book dividing the book into parts, but the first one was the only confusing one. If I had picked this book in a bookshop and read the first page, I wouldn't buy it purely based on the confusing language.

There are also sentences and paragraphs which contradict each other. The sentence/paragraph might start off with something that will not happen, and end with that very thing happening. This makes me confused again and I have to re-read the section, sometimes several times, to fully get the meaning. It's annoying, but I can look past it.

Overall: I have issues with this book, but the story and magic system were entertaining and intriguing enough, with the additions of my two favourite characters, for me to give it 4 If I had read King Lear by William Shakespear, I think I would get more from this book.

I never studied King Lear in school, instead being forced to read Romeo and Juliet every year until my final year of A levels when I read Othello. The first time I encountered King Lear properly was last year when we went to see it at the Globe Theatre as part of our honeymoon. It was an awesome performance (though in October we had to snuggle up under a blanket).  I think I know the story of King Lear well, though not the specifics of the Shakespearian dialogue.

I love that Tessa Gratton wrote this because she didn’t like King Lear. What a way to remake a story. I completely agree with her that the three daughters should have been the main characters of this story, if you look up the dramatis personae in King Lear often they appear right at the bottom of the list! Tessa’s choice to elevate these three women to the forefront of the story and to flesh them out to be more than ‘two who just want power and one who is basically a saint’ was so wonderful and it even made me view the original play in a whole new light!

The other big change is the heavy fantasy element in this book. While the original play has some ‘works of God’ and such it’s nowhere near as thick with magic as this setting is. The divide between star work and ‘worm work’ (kind of earth magic) was done incredibly well and gave the entire book a grounding in the mystical while still feeling incredibly real.

This book does a wonderful job of getting you to fall in love with every character, no matter how wicked they may seem. There wasn’t a single character that I didn’t feel sympathy for at some point or another (even King Lear). It’s a book with many a twist and turns, one moment you’re rooting for two characters to get together, the next minute you despise one or both, it’s certainly an emotional rollercoaster (as any of my twitter followers will know).

This book is certainly long, but as with The City of Brass, it more than earns it’s right to be long. It’s a very descriptive book, sometimes teetering on the edge of being quite purple but always managing to pull you back into the action at the last minute. If you are the kind of person who enjoys politics, plots and plans then you will enjoy this. If that’s the kind of thing that threatens to bore you to death then there are plenty of other things going on to keep you occupied.

This is one of the most powerful retellings I have read this year (and I’m basically an expert at this point). I think the fact that it draws from a non-fairy-tale inspiration and isn’t afraid to call out the flaws of the original material make it a wonderfully strong example of a retelling and of a fantasy novel.

Would I recommend this book? 100%, if you have the time and the energy to get into an emotional story such as this then definitely grab a copy asap.

My rating: 5/5 stars

I received a digital advanced review copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley, all opinions are my own.

I received an e-ARC from the publisher, HarperVoyager, through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

What to say about The Queens of Innis Lear?

This is a book based on Shakespeare's famous tragedy, King Lear, though it is not a book that is defined by that play. I must admit that I haven't an intimate knowledge of King Lear, but I know enough about the play to recognise some departures from the "source material" — and I use that term very loosely since this book is entirely its own story.

The most obvious of these departures is the fact that this book is set in the harsh, magical land of Innis Lear rather than England. Innis Lear is an island ruled by two magics: that of the earth and trees, and that of the stars. King Lear has forsaken the magic of the island in favour of that of the stars, cutting off the magical rootwater wells that give the people their connection to the earth and trees.

Lear believes in his star prophecies with a religious fervour, allowing them to guide his life and dictate how he should treat people based on the stars at their birth. A star prophecy foretold that Lear's wife would die on the day of their eldest daughters 16th birthday... and that prophecy was fulfilled.

Understandably, this had quite the impact on the king's relationship with his children.

The book follows the stories of Lear's three daughters — as well as a bastard wizard, a fool's daughter, and a king — as their mad father looks to give up his throne.

In a lot of books the antagonists are antagonistic even when we read from their point of view. We are constantly aware that they are the villain, and so we very rarely get a chance to truly see things from their perspective.

This is absolutely not the case in Innis Lear.

Every character here is the hero of their own story. Every character has their own hopes, ambitions, vulnerabilities, flaws, and personality. Tessa Gratton was able to make me feel sympathetic for all of them - even those I didn't like. This is multi-POV fantasy done right. In fact, I'd go as far to say that this is one of the best uses of multi-POV storytelling that I've ever seen, to the extent that while reading, I didn't really want to see anyone come out on top, because I knew that it would be at the expense of someone else.

This is a story about love, when you get right down to it. An exploration of love in all its forms — which are not always as happy and joyful as you might expect. Obsessive love, the loving of one thing over another, the fanatical love of religion, all-inclusive and ever expanding love, love from a position of power, and the denial of love where it should be given.

But with love comes loss. And with loss comes hurt, pain, and rage. Each of our characters deal with these emotions in their own way, and we are lucky enough to be pulled along for the ride.

In the other reviews I've seen for this book, there has a lot of praise for the prose. It is beautiful, if you are a fan of long, flowing descriptions. The author really knows how to verbally paint a scene. But what really impressed me about this book was the dialogue.

The dialogue in The Queens of Innis Lear is absolutely world class. It burns at times with emotion and passion, breathing life, fire, and personality into each of the characters.

I should mention that this is a story that takes a while to immerse yourself in. The story seems a little awkward at first as it tries to find itself. For the first third of the book, I wasn't really sure that I was enjoying myself. But at some point the current of the story was enough to sweep me off my feet, and then I was racing down the river of one of the finest explorations of character I've ever read.

DNF at 5% I just couldn’t get into this. The description was very flowery, the pace was slow and having read other reviews I can see it didn’t get any faster. I’ve not seen/read King Lear so the retelling part wasn’t very clear to me and this is possibly why I didn’t enjoy it. It’s not a bad book, I just didn’t like it for me.

I can easily see this book becoming a favourite amongst avid book readers. It's an interesting storyline and the sisters are so different from each other. I enjoy reading about the Fox particularly and the stories from the stars. I thoroughly recommend this book to all. ARC from NetGalley

I approached this fantasy retelling of King Lear with some trepidation - but, you know what, it's wonderful!

Gratton shows her deep understanding of the original in so many ways even while she contests and subverts it. Rather than this being a Lear via Game of Thrones, it serves to reveal how much GoT is already indebted to Lear (and others). The writing is gorgeous: lyrical and poetic in its evocation of a world ordered by earth and water magic; dark and edgy when it comes to close-up encounters between, especially, couples: Regan and Connley (Cornwall), Gaela and Astore (Goneril and Albany).

This cleverly unpicks all those problems that have challenged students and scholars: the missing mothers, for example, are written back in; and the three daughters of Lear are no longer conventional fairy-tale archetypes of good and bad women, but have characters of their own - bound by a love which supersedes their differences.

Big moments from the play like Gloucester's eyes are handled adroitly, making their presence felt but in keeping with their new setting.

Less successful are the constant flashbacks: the book insists on giving us backstories to relationships which are already fully-fleshed in the present. Cutting these would have tautened up the pace as this feels unnecessarily drawn out in places. Some character additions, too, could have gone: Aefa, the Fool's daughter, does little other than add to the plethora of female characters displacing the male ones of Shakespeare.

Nevertheless, this is a hugely enjoyable read and an impressive re-imagining of Lear.