Rating: 5/5
Buy or Borrow: Buy
Source: Copy courtesy of the publisher in exchange for an honest review!
A world divided.
A queendom without an heir.
An ancient enemy awakens.
The House of Berethnet has ruled Inys for a thousand years. Still unwed, Queen Sabran the Ninth must conceive a daughter to protect her realm from destruction—but assassins are getting closer to her door.
Ead Duryan is an outsider at court. Though she has risen to the position of lady-in-waiting, she is loyal to a hidden society of mages. Ead keeps a watchful eye on Sabran, secretly protecting her with forbidden magic.
Across the dark sea, Tané has trained all her life to be a dragonrider, but is forced to make a choice that could see her life unravel.
Meanwhile, the divided East and West refuse to parley, and forces of chaos are rising from their sleep.
Priory is an absolute beast of a book and it was also one of my most anticipated reads. I wasn't entirely sure what to expect from this book other than dragons and Samantha's excellent writing, but I was blown away even more than I thought I would be. It's taken me a while to figure out how to write this review, and I have more in depth thoughts in my Discussion video below, which is split in to a non spoiler section and a clearly marked spoiler section, just so you know!
Anyway, just so everyone's aware, while it is 800 pages, it is split in to 6 mini parts, and to me it kind of seemed like it could be 6 little books all in one, if that makes sense? If you are used to reading YA and YA fantasy then this may seem a bit slower to you, but things build up nicely and there is something compelling that keeps you reading! I happily binge read 200 pages in one go more than once!
Anyway, for the parts here's a short overview:
1. Stories of Old
The introduction to everyone and everything, that eases us in and starts to get things moving while filling in history and lore.
2. Declare I Dare Not
Things start to go to s*** for our characters and there's a lot of character movement. Some of our characters situations have changed, notably Sabran, Loth and Tane. Our characters get taken from the comfort they've known and are thrust in to new situations to move the plot steadily forward. It basically starts out all good for some of them and then swiftly goes down hill. We also get up close and personal with some new factions in this part and the F/F romance is starting to come in to being.
3. A Witch To Live
In simple terms....s*** gets real. We have the discovery of an object to fight the Nameless One and a running mystery that's been mentioned is finally unlocked. Ead and Tane both come to a new resolve throughout this part, and Tane's part in things is revealed. Characters are reunited, someone is unmasked and there's some ramifications to that persons identity reveal.
4. Thine is the Queendom
Shocking plot twists and mind blowing revelations, things are ramping up.
There are a lot of truth bombs in this part, I was losing my mind a hell of a lot reading this because we get hit with so many reveals and twists. There's also some quest vibes from a couple of POVs, and things are starting to ramp up towards the climax of the book. We also get a deadline for the big showdown.
5. Here Be Dragons
Everything and everyone is coming together. We've got rescue missions, an attempt at an epic team up and things really start going to hell in a hand basket.
6. The Keys to the Abyss
It all kicks off. Basically.
Everyone finally comes together, everyone is where they need to be and we have the most epic team up and an explosive battle on the high seas.
I genuinely don't have a bad thing to say about this book, right from the start we have intrigue and plotting, and tension and danger. I was immediately pulled in. We quickly get introduced to the main characters and it's obvious from the start that our cast of characters are not only intriguing but diverse too.
We have four main POV's throughout the book, Tane, Ead, Niclays and Loth. Tane is our first badass lady of the book, her POV is often like an action fantasy and provides us with a nice amount of tension thanks to her crime. She's also the one that lets us really get up close and personal with the dragons. She's so determined to achieve her dream no matter what, she was prickly but I did love her. She gets kicked down a bit and has to build herself back up to come out fighting.
Niclays was my least favourite and I actually really hated him. His POV gives us the air of a treasure hunt and some huge quest vibes. I was waiting for something to make me like him and while I did feel for him and what happened in his past, he was just a character I didn't like. My dislike went to outright hatred after the dragon incident, it has to be said.
Ead's POV is often all about the political intrigue with a splash of magic and some assassin vibes. She's got some interesting magic and is our source on all things Priory. She gives us a lot of intrigue and tension but of a different sort to Tane's, as with Ead there are assassin's to be dealt with, some not very nice dragons, court scheming and so on. Ead is such a badass, she's strong and she takes us on quite the journey with her.
Finally, we have Loth, he's got spy and mission vibes for the most part. He has a bit of a crisis of faith throughout the book, as he's presented with various different things that shake his faith. He does hold fast to it, but I found him interesting because it was interesting to me to see someone so invested in their religion, but struggling with the fact it may not be all it seemed. He comes quite a long way by the end of the book, he's one of the few to speak up for change and becomes quite adventurous with his travels!
I was so fascinated by the history of the world of the book, it's rich and detailed and the natural world building paired with how atmospheric and vivid it was let's the world pull you in. Samantha doesn't overwhelm you with a tonne of information all at once, it's all seamlessly woven in to the narrative along with the intrigue and plot threads. It mostly comes out via legend telling and conversations between characters. I also loved learning the intricacies between the different kinds of dragon!
The political climate provides us with a lot of intrigue. The West hates the East because the people of the East worship dragons and work with them, whereas the West views them as evil. The West are also all about virtues and are called virtudom. Their society struck me as quite rigid and stiff, and I was in mind of the Tudors, mostly because of the ruffs. The East was a nice contrast to them and this conflict was a huge and interesting one to see the characters overcome. We also have all of the court scheming on Sabran's side to keep things interesting.
On the writing front, Samantha draws you in and there's a lot to keep you reading, as I hope I've shown you so far! The prose is saturated with rich lore and history with bits and pieces being woven in to the narrative as we go, leaving you wanting to know more. A vivid and cinematic picture is painted, and I had clear mental images in my head for most places. I also loved how Samantha cleverly wove in little connections here and there, connecting all of our characters and their narratives together like Tane and Triam right at the start.
Plot wise, like I keep saying there's a lot to keep you occupied and to keep the plot moving forward. We have threads weaving throughout each POV with little connections as the bigger picture starts to piece together. The long game is definitely played with this book. You hear about something or someone near to the beginning of the book and then they come in to play later on in the book as more pieces are slotted together.
Priory of the Orange Tree is certainly built up well, with the way we get to grips with everything and characters are manoeuvred in to the place and headspace that they need to be, and then we build up even more and more things are slowly coming together and threads being woven in, with more elements being brought in and characters getting closer and closer and teaming up before leading us in to the explosive finale. Everything is so well wrapped up, and it's all brought to a satisfying conclusion even if I was left hungry for more of the world and the characters!
In conclusion, we have lots of action, court intrigue, political intrigue and some excellent dialogue as well as rich and detailed prose. We've got powerful female characters, and characters that have multiple layers to them in general and one of the other things I loved about this book was the relationships between characters both platonic and otherwise. I particularly loved the female friendships in this book, Margaret and Ead especially. It was nice to see good relationships and it made a nice change. I also liked the bonding between Ead and Tane!
Our badass ladies overcome a hell of a lot and come together to work together and defeat the evil....and Loth and Niclays helped. Sort of. A little bit. I just completely loved how I could actually see things coming together on the page, particularly towards the end because it had me freaking out and shrieking so many times! I also LIVED for the F/F romance. I loved how it built up and developed alongside the plot, I loved the support and I loved how one told it how it was to the other and was pretty much the only person to do so!
I just got lost in the pages of this book every time I picked it up and never struggled to get to grips with it or to read it like I do sometimes with fantasy books. I can't believe all these plot threads were all contained to one book, and Samantha takes fantasy elements we've seen time and again but makes them better and redefine's them.
In all honesty, The Priory of the Orange Tree is a complete masterpiece and I am in awe.
