ARC Review: ‘Queen of the Conquered’

I grabbed this at Bookcon as I stumbled upon the ticket table in the morning! I had heard of this one and it sounded super interesting.

 

Title: Queen of the Conquered

Author: Kacen Callender

Series: Standalone

Genres: Fantasy, Adult, Fiction

Publication Date: November 12, 2019

Goodreads Summary

I loved the setting of this book! It was a Caribbean-inspired fantasy and I thought that the description/world-building was so wonderful. Having recently visited the Caribbean for the first time, I could picture the island that was described with all of the different elements. This definitely allowed for me to feel drawn into the setting and that was a great quality. Sigourney was a strong main character. You could tell she had a ‘I don’t take any crap’ attitude and she certainly made some strong stands in the book. This book also covers some important topics, such as colonization and white privilege. There are slaves in this book, so content warning for that. I think this was done in a way that made you think and I enjoy when a book does that. When a fantasy book can take a reality issue and seamlessly weave it into the storyline without it feeling misplaced, that is a wonderful thing. The author definitely did that here and I feel like it was one of my strongest likes about the book. I didn’t really know much about the colonization in the Caribbean and this shed some light on it for me.

I didn’t love this book but I thought it was well-written. I had tried to read a young adult novel by this author before and it didn’t click with me, though I figured I would try an adult novel. I don’t read much adult but I think this was a short and sweet adult fantasy. I didn’t feel much connection to the story itself with the magical elements and felt that it fell flat there. This was a little historical fiction-y to me (despite the genres listed on Goodreads) and that was the most interesting part to me, personally.

My Rating:

I would recommend this book to fans of adult fantasy as well as those who are looking for a unique setting!