The Queen's Rising (Queen's Rising, #1)

by Rebecca Ross

In this epic debut fantasy, inspired by Renaissance France, an outcast finds herself bound to a disgraced lord and entangled in his plot to overthrow the king. Perfect for fans of Grave Mercy and Red Queen!

Brienna desires only two things: to master her passion and to be chosen by a patron. Growing up in Valenia at the renowned Magnalia House should have prepared her. While some are born with a talent for one of the five passions--art, music, dramatics, wit, and knowledge--Brienna struggled to find hers until she chose knowledge. However, Brienna's greatest fear comes true: she is left without a patron.

Months later, her life takes an unexpected turn when a disgraced lord offers her patronage. Suspicious of his intent, she reluctantly accepts. But there is much more to his story, for there is a dangerous plot to overthrow the king of Maevana--the rival kingdom of Valenia--and restore the rightful queen, and her magic, to the throne.

With war brewing, Brienna must choose which side she will remain loyal to: passion or blood.

Plus don't miss the thrilling sequel, The Queen's Resistance!

• ISBN10: 0062471341
• ISBN13: 9780062471345
• Publish Date: 6 February 2018
• Publish Status: Out of Stock
• Out of Print: 10 April 2021
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Inc
• Imprint: HarperCollins
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 464
• Language: English

Reviews

[tylerrosereads]

For my full review visit my blog! :http://tylerrosereads.com/the-queens-rising-by-rebecca-ross/

I really liked this book. Not tropey at all for a YA, I have no idea what people are complaining about it being her first book. You guys should definitely read if you like fantasy with a strong heroine.

[Amber (The Literary Phoenix)]

With a lovely cover and a promise of royalty rising to power, The Queen's Rising seemed to have a lot of offer. The world-building failed to impress and the characters were as flat as a deck of cards. It seemed like Rebecca Ross wanted to do a lot of different things here, and failed to follow through on any of them. She had a boarding school experience in the beginning, but she rushed right through it. The battles were scattered with awkward flow, the flashbacks seemed too convenient and largely frivolous. There were no real twists. The romance was awkward to the max.

I just really couldn't get into this one. There was nothing in the characters to inspire me to push through the messy plot, and the writing itself was flat. At best, reading this book was like trying to look through a fogged up mirror at a beautiful landscape. The potential was there, but there was so much rushing about and trying to create a hero out of a two-dimensional character.

I think that the big thing that ruined it for me was the lack of fantasy world-building. There were the ghostly edges of some aspects of the kingdom - the war in the past, the various houses in the neighboring kingdom, the conversation about the matriarchy... but that's the extent of it. Magic is mentioned but never seen. The politics of the world are hearsay, and a lot of the proper nouns were taken from English (the big event happens on a Thursday - totally ruins the illusion for me).

It may not sounds like it, but I really kept trying to find some aspect of this book that I liked, that I thought was well done... and I was just utterly unimpressed. I am sure there are a lot of people out there who will enjoy it, but there was nothing I could take away from The Queen's Rising except for disappointment and wasted potential.

[Djilan]

I loved it! The story kept me glued to the paper. It was so hard to put the book away!
I'm so bad at describing why, but I really liked the different persons and how their life unfolded. Brienna, her friends, family, enemies.. Wonderfully imagined and told.

[alisoninbookland]

😆😎😍😄

The Queen's Rising hits so many of my favorite fantasy elements: secret identities, brewing rebellions, strong women. What's not to love about that? It is slow moving which can be tough to read through if you're not used to it. I'm a fantasy fan so long, slow moving books are kind of my bread and butter.

In many ways this reads like many other YA fantasy books. It's a different twist but still familiar. By far my favorite part is the female camaraderie and friendship. There are no mean, back-stabbing cliques in the school part of the novel. Brienna and Yseult's friendship really shined. I loved that there wasn't a big dramatic twist; simply love and support. Can we get more novels that have wonderful female friendships like this please??

The setting and imagery are wonderful. Ross really has a way with words. The double (sometimes triple) identities were starting to get confusing though.

Then there was the romance. On one hand, I liked the pacing of it. It was slow moving and felt totally natural. It was an afterthought to everything going on. It wasn't their main motivation which was very refreshing. On the other hand, Cartier was her teacher so there's a creepy, grooming aspect to the relationship that feels icky.

I also really appreciated how the book reads like a stand alone novel. The book isn't boring and just setting up things to come in future books. It is a complete story that can stand on its own. I'm almost shocked to see it's part of a series. I'm interested in seeing where things go from here!

[tweetybugshouse]

This story was an interesting as the whole concept of being trained in one of give passions art, music, dramatics, wit, and knowledge but not really being exceptional at any made Brienna a interesting character to get to know.  I really like the extension of the capes and detail of how the author described them so much that i would of loved to see the detail shown more on the cover of the book.  

I not sure how i feel about the romance between our main character and her teacher of knowledge.  I not sure if just that i don't really feel it helped the story along at all more bogged it down then anything nor was it really needed.   I would of much rather he just gave her the cloak at the end and they were good friends.  

Not only is the book about studying to become a master at your passion the story also about Brienna discovering her roots with her father and where she truly comes from.  The special stone of evertide and the whole adventure and political intrigue makes this an ambitious debut that really sets the stage for a series or a very nice stand alone novel.  The ending is wrapped up pretty solid so your not left dying for the next.  I would read more of this story maybe we follow another character in the next one who knows.  

I absolutely loved this book! I especially enjoyed how the main character was not the heir to the throne. I feel like that is what is expected or “the norm” in many YA fantasy novels, so for Rebecca to not follow this trend was refreshing.

[Ashley]

Things I liked:

- Really cool kingdom/rebellion story. This is honestly one of my favourite plots.

- Brienna was a great character. I enjoyed reading from her POV.

- Brienna receives some memories from one of her ancestors and I thought that was a cool concept.

- The whole thing with passions was cool, though it actually ended up being far less significant than I thought. Still a cool concept though.

- The book gets neatly wrapped up at the end, as if it were a standalone (though it's listed on Goodreads as #1 in a series).

Things I didn't like:

- The romance. It was honestly just so mediocre. I feel like it should have been bigger and more intense, or just cut out completely. But as it is, it felt kind of useless and half baked. Also, at first, I hugely mis-pictured the love interest as kind of an old man and was really thrown off when they had an intimate moment. I think it confused me because it was a teacher/student relationship and I just naturally pictured the teacher as an old man, though perhaps that was due to me forgetting or misreading a description that mentioned him as actually being a VERY young teacher.

- The world building was so-so. Parts of it were really interesting, but the whole story is centered around a rebellion and overthrowing the evil king. But I didn't feel like I ever really saw evidence of his evilness (or at least not until we met him). It would have helped a lot if there were more stories and examples of how horrible he was.

- I'm kind of sad that we didn't see more of the passion sisters after the beginning. I loved their relationship.

[bookishzelda]

The Queens Rising by Rebecca Ross was one of those books that once I started reading it I could not put it down.

When I first started reading and Brienna is first taken to Magnolia House, I was almost worried. Like gah what is her life going to be here. I instantly fell in love with the setting. The closeness of the girls and how supportive the Madam is. I loved the special bond that they had all formed as Ardens and Arials. There was no mean girl drama and even though there might have been a little competitiveness when it came time to find a patron. It wasn’t because anyone was trying to be mean or evil. This is one of my favorite things about the story.

The romance is sort of slow burning. Being that the relationship between the two is complicated. There are some really cute scenes that had that make me smile type affect. As much as I wanted there to be more with the two, I also kind of liked that there was time apart. It allowed Brienna to focus on other things.

The political plot was really interesting. The land of Maevana has always been ruled by a Queen until due to some circumstances it was overthrown and ruled by an evil King. They are trying to restore the female bloodline to its correct place on the throne. So it was a lot of powerful women in history and the book which is always good to see.

I think because the book is like a standalone. It made it so things had to move much faster, which kept the pace moving. I think what would normally have been the planning phases of the battle, was more of the background thing. There is a lot of action in the second half of the book and Brienna comes in to complete the final piece. She finds herself following visions in order to right some wrongs that had been done in the kingdom. Although I did see that yes indeed a book 2 is coming.

I really enjoyed The Queen’s Rising and raced through it. I loved the way the girls interacted with one another and the way the systems of passions work. As well as the politics that play an interesting part.