I am SO excited to finally read this book. It has been on my list for so long and after reading this excerpt, I bought a copy of it.

I enjoyed the extract and I'm excited to get into the actual book, however I don't know how long that's going to be since it's a chunky one and I feel as though I need to prepare for it! I'm very glad that there is so much hype surrounding this book as we need more queer epic fantasy. I just need to get into gear and pick this one up soon!

I was intrigued enough by this extract to buy the book and continue with it.
Love the idea of the dragons and I hope we get more of them. There are a lot of characters in this book though and I lot going on, I hope this is something I can keep up with.
I'm giving the extract 3 stars.

I really enjoyed this except. The world and mythology are super intriguing and from I've seen of the characters so far, I'm really excited to find more about them and follow their storylines. I've actually bought a physical copy of the book after reading the excerpt and I'm very excited to continue reading the book.

The start of this book is absolutely captivating.
I really don't know why, but I found myself not really looking forward to this book even though I am absolutely in love with The Bone Season. I was so pleased to be wrong about how wonderful high fantasy written by Samantha Shannon could be!

The characters and world are immediately complex, interesting and attention grabbing. The stakes are high right from the first page which demands immediate buy-in before you have even turned to page two.

I am super excited to read this whole massive novel now, and I have absolutely no doubt that when I read the last page I will wish it had been longer.

Thank you Netgalley for the opportunity to read this advance extract.

This extract was enough to have me hook in this book! Now I can't wait to read the full story!
The number of pages scares me a little bit, I know for sure that'll be one amazing reading!

Best book of 2019. I loved the sample and bought it. The plot was always moving forwards and interesting so the massive size of it never felt like a chore. It could have been even longer!

I was already incredibly hyped about this book — after this extract, I'm even more excited.
As expected, Samantha Shannon's writing is exquisite.

The start of this book seems to be very fascinating e I love the worldbuilding so far. The opening chapters were enough to make me boughtThe start of this book seems to be very fascinating e I love the worldbuilding so far. The opening chapters were enough to make me bought the book.
I can't really recommend this book because I haven't finished it so far, but I liked what I saw in these opening chapters.

This book rocked my WORLD! I cannot believe the level of world building and storytelling. I'm telling everyone about PRIORY.

Amazing! I preordered the book after I read this sample and the book itself did not disappoint! One of the best books of the year for sure. Amazing. Shannon's writing skills shine, and I'll be buying her other books now as well.

I was provided an excerpt from netgalley to read and review.

This story had me hooked right away, can’t wait to finish the book

The Priory of the Orange Tree is an epic fantasy jewel of a novel. It features terrific characters, stunning set-pieces and a brilliantly crafted grand and picturesque world.

Throughout this tale, we follow four distinct point of view perspectives. In the East, the storytellers are Tané - an orphan who is training to join the High Sea Guard, and Niclays - an exiled alchemist. In the West, the narrative is presented by Ead - a handmaiden to Queen Sabran the IX, and Loth - a lord and close friend of the Queen. The characters are well-crafted and I cared about all of them, even though Niclays is a scumbag sometimes. I spent about ten days reading The Priory of the Orange Tree so I developed a natural affinity to the main players. The standout characters are the main three women of the novel. Ead, Tané and Sabran. They are complex, extremely well developed and strong-willed throughout even in times of despair and heartache. Occasionally the main male characters seemed a tad bland compared and my favourite passages to read were those presented by Ead and Tané.

Shannon's fantasy world is divided. The West and the East have different customs, religions, histories, and fables. It is illegal for anyone from the West to enter the East and all outsiders are believed to have a plague and are executed. The only common view they share is the hatred of the Nameless One and his draconic horde. The fire-breathers. The Nameless One was banished almost a thousand years ago yet his time of slumber is nearly at an end. In anticipation, his army is garnering their strength and resources which will lead to the seemingly inevitable destruction of all who stand in his way.

The Priory of the Orange Tree is incredibly detailed, neatly composed and has more stunning set-pieces, outstanding moments and unexpected twists that most epic fantasy trilogies. The novel includes many fantasy elements or tropes but all seems well worked. It features a fabled named sword, magical jewels, a sisterhood of mages, talking animals, and the already-mentioned dragons. In addition to the fire-breathers including the Nameless One and his army, there are also the Eastern Dragons. These Dragons are of wind and water, live peacefully alongside humans and are revered by them as being living Gods.

"The dragons watched her. It was said they could see the deepest secrets of a soul, for human beings were made of water, and all water was theirs."

Although a lengthy, doorstopper-sized 848 pages, it seems like occasionally Shannon tried to fit too much into a single novel. Sometimes certain events felt rushed. For example, in the time it took me to read a ten-minute chapter, a character had travelled a quarter of the length of the world. Also, some of the characters meeting and randomly crossing paths is too far-fetched and unbelievably convenient. These aspects didn't really affect my enjoyment to any great degree other than an occasional eye-rolling moment. Due to the length of the novel this also very occasionally felt like a slog for slower-burning chapters but this emotion wasn't felt too often.

The characters travel throughout huge proportions of the world. Especially Loth and Ead who seem to venture all over the place. I'm not sure if Shannon is intending to return here to write again but it would seem a waste if she didn't as it is exceptionally well realised. The two maps the novel features are beautiful too.

There were many standout moments here. One point at approximately 75% blew my mind and I did not see it coming at all. The finale was action-packed, truly epic and brought all the stories together expertly. During the last hundred pages, I was completely attached to the characters and engrossed in the tale. At this point, I was reading slower than normal and truly savouring all that was happening and contemplating what was due to come. I was sad The Priory of the Orange Tree came to an end but was content with the outcomes of all those involved. Some of these scenes will stay in my mind for a while, one, in particular, is the scene that the amazing cover art depicts. The Prior of the Orange Tree should be read by all fans of epic fantasy.

Truly mesmerizing, The Priory of the Orange Tree is something you'd want to pick up if you are into standalone fantasy stories and magical beasts called dragons.

I am loving ‘The Priory of the Orange Tree’ already! I can't wait to pick up the rest of the book in the near future...

I no longer have the initial excerpt of the book and did not get a chance to read it so cannot offer a proper review.

It's hard to know if this is an example of me or the book. This early excerpt failed to grab me after the prologue. I have been looking forward to this book and story since I heard about and I was eagerly awaiting to read this. So I jumped at the chance to snag an early excerpt of the book. Normally, these are great ways to wet your appetite until the full book is out but it just made me lose my interest. Its a shame since it was a highly anticipated book.

I am incredibly excited for this book and have already reserved a copy to read it in its entirety. It would appear that the hype surrounding this novel is real and it makes me even more excited to read the entire book.

This was a very exciting start to a book I cannot wait to read. I absolutely loved it and I cannot wait to see were this goes.

The Priory of the Orange Tree is a surprisingly traditional high fantasy book that plays out the trope of the Hero's Journey fairly straight, only the world is grounded in women and queer folks. So many elements pull from classic high fantasy: a medieval anglo-esque setting, an ancient evil set to rise, heroes coming together to vanquish an ancient foe, a collection of magical items that must be retrieved, and lies swathed as ancient legends and religions. Apparently, the book is also heavily inspired by the legend of Saint George and the Dragon, which I had never heard of, but it's fascinating to see how the author has woven elements of that myth into her worldbuilding.

And her worldbuilding is her greatest strength: this is a universe brimming with stories and histories, both ancient and modern. It feels sprawling, as the author takes you across all the continents of the enormous world she's created. When I started reading, I must say, I had war flashbacks of my time reading A Game of Thrones and struggling to keep track of names and countries and legends, but I found my feet pretty quick, as the story never really leaves you adrift for too long. For such a long fantasy book, it is surprisingly accessible and easy to get through; I barely felt its length.

However, I don't think it needed to be this long. The book definitely started to drag for me around the 600 page mark, where the plot veered towards the very predictable and the very formulaic. I could see exactly what was going to happen, and it was just a matter of getting to the end to see it through. This is not to say that I didn't enjoy the end - in fact, I enjoyed it very much, in all its harmonious closure - but I was never surprised, not by anything or anyone. There were plenty of little subplots and scenes that could easily have been entirely excised to make for a shorter, more fast-paced narrative.

I also think that this book, in its determination to capture the aesthetic of Ye Olde Fantasy, succumbs to a certain stiffness of character and dialogue. The characters all speak in a very similar manner that feels overly formal and stilted. In fairness, none of them are low-born, so I suppose they would speak formally, but I found that it created a distance between me and the characters. I enjoyed them very much, but I had hoped to feel a bit more of an emotional attachment. This book desperately wants to craft an elegant veneer around itself, and it does so, in turn sacrificing a certain ease and familiarity with the reader. To put it another way, there is no humor or romp in this book; it takes itself very seriously. That's not a criticism, really, just a factual statement. Priory is a very particular kind of fantasy novel, one that feels timeless and ageless, like a tale that will be told centuries from now.

I would still highly recommend this novel, for the depth of worldbuilding and the casual portrayal of queer relationships, and for that wondrous feeling of reading a well-researched and well-developed fantasy epic, but I just didn't fall in love with Priory the way I wanted to. I absolutely loved reading it, but I kept wanting something more, some twist, some subversion of the predictable narrative, some significant character shake-up, but I never got it; the narrative simply flowed in the expected direction. It's kind of like reading a familiar fable in more detail than usual; predictable, but still charming and enjoyable.

Anyway, this is still the best cover I've ever seen in my life, so there's that.