This book was interesting. As someone who knows nothing about Arthurian tales, I was worried I wouldn’t be able to keep up with the story. However, I was pleasantly surprised that I could. Lady Anna is quite the character. I wouldn’t say she was super likable, but I was rooting for her. She’s stronger than I could ever be under her circumstances. My heart ached for her in more ways than one.
One thing I will say is this is absolutely NOT romance. I’ve seen it categorized as such in a few places, but I think that’s misleading. This book is about Lady Anna taking back some power for herself and the women around/before her.

*Spoilers*
My biggest problem with this book was around the end. The first half of the book was strong, but it started to slack once Nimue came to be. I found that I couldn’t wait to get back to Anna’s Pov and when we did get back to her, she gave nothing.

Overall, I enjoyed the book.
3.25 stars

First, I love the cover of this book, it's so well done and eye catching. Second, this is an interesting take on Authorian legends. I'd not heard a lot about this side of it so it was cool to see it fleshed out.

I was intrigued by this re-release of a story from the world of Arthurian legend, focusing on the less written sister of Arthur, Anna.

When she was born, Merlin prophesied she would be forgotten about, and when Arthur marries her off to the much older Lot of Orkney, it seems to have already come true.

The plot thickens when she finally returns to court, hoping to be with her childhood sweetheart when Arthur (under Merlin’s influence) marries her off again, this time to the mysterious knight Lanceloch.

Barron perfectly highlights how women’s agency was often stifled in the medieval period, but women’s magic was a powerful force to be reckoned with, especially when women could work together. Various women characters in Carelon utilise magic to try and divert their destinies and fight back against Merlin, including Anna.

As I don’t have a huge amount of Arthurian knowledge, a few scenes slipped past me without a lot of context - two babies got swapped at birth without resolution and an eminent lady of the court disappears without explanation - I don’t know if that’s because a certain amount of knowledge if the myths is assumed, or their stories will get picked up in the remaining two books of the trilogy.

Throughout the book I really felt for Anna - her struggle with her prophecy became self fulfilling and she failed to see her own importance to those who cared about her, a flaw that clearly impacted her children and the course of history as she almost lost her sense of self. I’d definitely be interested to see how the story unfolds!

I will post a review on Instagram on the 8th May.

I really enjoyed this retelling of King Arthur. Anna is a character with great depth. Sometimes, I liked her. Other times, I was frustrated by her. I loved the strange power that awoke within her, a reflection of her own strength. It was interesting to read a women's perspective of King Arthur's story that was not Morgan's, though she has her place in the book. Well written!

I would like to thank NetGalley for the ARC.

Thank you NetGalley for the eArc copy of this book for an honest review.

Such a pretty cover! It's detailed and it's blue. Definitely had me intrigued.

If you love the show Merlin and you love a good Arthurian retelling. Than you will love this book.

4/5- I would recommend

DNF at 76% because it was just not very interesting.

This was a very interesting concept about the forgotten sister of King Arthur which I found intriguing but nothing about the actual story actually lifted off the page for me in anyway for this to be interesting or engaging or exciting.

We all know varying tales of Arthur and his knights and Merlin and Guinevere etc., so it was nice to see these characters in a different light i.e. from a different perspective but it just wasn’t exciting enough to warrant any real investment. The pacing was too slow so I wasn’t sure what we were trying to achieve. There were too many names, too many strings of plot that didn’t amount to anything and then the magic that was there wasn’t particularly appealing or seemingly well thought out.

There was little to no romance which again is fine. It’s not a necessity but I tend to lean on romance when other aspects of a plot or characterisation or world building is lacking so when there was no romance it just continued to get more boring.

At one point, there’s a baby switching scandal that I’m still not sure why it was done because we don’t discuss it much again. There’s somebody switching magic that I don’t know why she’s done it. There was a blood magic book that she was able to read and I don’t actually know how or why she was able to read it. There was some incest that noone cared about so it was just constant confusion with no drama or action or engagement and it was just not pulling me in enough to continue or see how it ends because there was nothing for me to care about ending.

Thanks, to netgalley for the arc, but this was not for me.

It was interesting to see the perspective from other's person eyes.. I have to admit that somethings didn't feel properly okay for me and I know is fiction but the 12y old married part, sorry about the spoiler, made me a lot of confusion and I do love a good Merlin and King Arthur re-telling just wasn't the one I expected

This was a great retelling of the Arthurian story. It was a lot like The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker in that it tells about the women behind the crown. Almost all the characters around Arthur are more compelling to me than Arthur himself- Lancelot, Guinevere, Merlin, Morgan Le Fey, etc. But I’d never heard of Anna his sister. Being female in that era (or most others!) and as royalty to live your life as a political pawn wasn't easy. This was a thought-provoking and absorbing read.

2.75/5

I remember being enthralled with the world of King Arthur and Camelot as a kid. As I grew up, that fascination stayed with me. All these years later, I still read and watch anything I can get my hands on that relates to Arthurian legends.

'Queen of None' is an interesting story inspired by the well-known tales. However, there was some weird stuff that really detracted from the book, including some very uncomfortable intimate scenes. The timeline jumps were also off-putting. Despite this, I will probably end up giving the sequel a try at some point.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an ebook ARC of the updated first installment of Natania Barron's 'Queens of Fury' series.

DNF. Will not post review to social media.

As much as I was very excited by the premise of this book, I was very turned off by the voice the author chose to use. It had a VERY strong "not like other girls" feel. Not just vibes, but directly in the text. I'm sure a lot of readers will identify with this feeling, but for me, it verged on a whining, self-superior voice that begged the reader to understand how *unique* the main character is. I made it to the end of chapter two, but I nothing truly hooked me enough for me to WANT to work through the aforementioned voice issues. Between that and the abuse in her backstory that isn't engaged with meaningfully beyond to give her a traumatic history (at least up to the point I read. I concede that perhaps the author engages with it later in a way that is complex and interesting), I have to strongly say that this book is not the right fit for me.

Thank you to NetGalley and Rebellion Publishing for the ebook ARC. All opinions are mine alone.

I really enjoyed this take of the Arthurian mythos, it was a unique perspective and I enjoyed how she reimagined characters we've known so long! Anna is a very minor figure in the Arthurian legends and I loved seeing her brought out of the mist and given a voice. She is very aware of her role as a woman and is fed up with being traded and used as a broodmare, so she starts to take action. It was a bit of a slow story but never boring and I think it's a good first book for the trilogy!

While this is quite slow paced, this was a great historical fiction! I loved the aspect of this being about a lesser talked about character. I wish it had been a little bit shorter to quicken up the pace but I did enjoy the love subplot !

I know very little about Arthurian legend, and Queen of None drops the reader in the thick of things with very little backstory. I felt quite lost when it came to who was whose parent and the legitimacy of said parentage. That being said, I think that library patrons who've been on a feminist Greek mythology retelling kick will enjoy this one as well. We will probably purchase it for the system.

Coming to this story with very little, general knowledge of King Arthur's legends - and mostly knowing them from Lancelot Du Lac's POV (French literature graduate here!) - I can honestly say I enjoyed this book very much!
The story is very captivating and interesting, and as usual, it's always nice to see legends and myths from female POV, especially if those ladies are crucial to the story, but not the center of it. And it was a nice change of pace, as most of these type of stories concentrate on Greek mythology, but the world offers so much more!
I will definitely read books 2 and 3 from this trilogy - I'm hooked!

Big thanks to NetGalley and the author for the free arc in exchange for the honest opinion.

I absolutely loved this book. With mythology retellings and mythology inspired books being very popular in the last several years, we don't see a lot of Arthurian lore explored. Natania Barron does a fantastic job weaving myth and magic into complex characters and a satisfying revenge arc.

I really liked the premise of the book and the idea, I think for me I enjoyed the book to a certain extent, I just think that maybe the writing style really isnt for me.

Thank you to the publisher for an arc of this book!

I am a huge fan of Arthurian legends, especially retellings from a women's point of view. And so I was excited when I saw this one, because it was from a character that not much is heard about. The author does a fabulous job of placing us in Ancient Britain -- in a way that is also real and fantasy at the same time. It reminded me very much of Mary Stewart or Marion Zimmer Bradley. She admits that she has taken liberties with the story, but honestly, I felt that they worked.

One of the things I like about this book is the main character is a mother, and I won't say she's older because she's in her thirties like me, but she's already lived a hard life.

Another thing I liked about the books is how characters we know are interwoven in! They don't all appear to be the same as we often know them, but it makes them all that more intriguing especially their motivations.

I do love Anna and I love her journey in this book. This was an absolutely interesting historical/fantasy/mythological retelling that was well written and engaging.

I look forward to continuing this series!

I love a good retelling, especially with a new character introduced.

This was so beautifully written. It breaks your heart and then puts it back together on the next page. I cannot wait to see what Natania Barron does next!

I really liked the point of view of this book, a different take on King Arthur and the Arthurian legends through the lens of his forgotten sister Anna. The book immediately takes a tone that highlights both the plight and the power of women within medieval societies - and especially focuses on the reality of leaving girlhood and the implications of being a woman and what that means for your choices and how your life is shaped by the men around you. This is where the book shines and Anna gives us such an interesting perspective as a seemingly powerless woman within her society. We also get an interesting view into the power and the machinations of the women of the court, and how they have to resort to manipulation to enact any power over their own lives, as well as the ebb and flow of power within Arthur’s court - the adversarial relationship that Merlin has with almost everyone in Carelon was especially interesting and is the driving force behind most of the book. The book is well written, with fairly evocative prose (although it may not hit for everyone in the same way!). I really felt the descriptions and emotions, and Anna is so well drawn and her motivations felt so real. The main issue I had with the book was that the first half had me in a grip, but the second half felt more meandering and less gripping and especially the ending with Merlin, Nimue and Anna felt sudden and incomplete. We get hints of the bigger picture, and the hints of the other stories of legends left me wanting those stories instead of the Nimue plot line. Overall I enjoyed the different take on Arthur and the legends, as well as having a perspective that was female and not the typical choice for medieval or Arthurian fantasy, although the ending felt very abrupt to me.

I love an Arthurian legend retelling so i am always open to read anything from this setting and stories about it. Unfortunately, the long chapters and the writing style didn't work out for me. Other wise it would be an amazing book.