“You wear so much armour by daylight that, by night, you can carry it no longer. By night, you are only flesh. And even the flesh of a queen is prone to fear.”

-Samantha Shannon

Look, if you read 800+-page fantasy novels anyway, you’ve probably read this one. But if for ANY reason you haven’t, let me endorse it again! Dragons! Lesbians! Swordfights! Maps in the front of the book!

I love how (in Priory and it’s sequel/prequel) you can just sink into the world like a hot bath, and how Shannon writes in such a way that you don’t need to remember who or what every single Fantasy Proper Noun is; there’s always enough context and the correct amount of leaning on fantasy tropes to keep your head on straight without having to flip back and forth to a glossary.

And there is a sort of glossary at the end, in case you get mixed up which Sabran we’re talking about, or who some distant queen is.

Speaking of queens–how great is it to read a fantasy where female is treated as the default?? Not in a “women are better than men” or “women conquered men” kind of way, just….women being the default in the way men traditionally are in fantasy. Every time I come across a casual use of something like “Queendom” in the text, my toes give a happy little curl.

I read Priory a while ago, and I’m currently in the midst of A Day of Fallen Night, and I’ll probably write a more comprehensive review of the series as a whole when I’m done with that, to ensure I’m not mixing details of both. See you then!