The Priory of the Orange Tree (Roots of Chaos)

by Samantha Shannon

THE SUNDAY TIMES AND NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

'The new Game of Thrones' Stylist

'Puts Samantha Shannon in the same league as Robin Hobb and George R.R. Martin. Shannon is a master of dragons' Starburst

‘Epic fantasy with added dragons. A blockbuster’ Guardian, Best Science Fiction and Fantasy

An enthralling, epic fantasy about a world on the brink of war with dragons - and the women who must lead the fight to save it.

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 to be a dragonrider since she was a child, 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.

• ISBN10: 1408883449
• ISBN13: 9781408883440
• Publish Date: 26 February 2019
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 3 March 2021
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
• Imprint: Bloomsbury Circus
• Format: Paperback (UK Trade)
• Pages: 848
• Language: English

Reviews

[abookishblether]

**Excerpt provided by Netgalley for an honest review.**

I first heard of this book when booktube began gushing about the admittedly gorgeous cover and the heft of the arcs. I immediately wanted to know more, and pre-ordered my copy. I am ridiculously excited about this book, and I think I will likely grab the audiobook as well.

This is a fantasy novel like no other I have read. The world being created in the first few chapters felt deep and lush with worldbuilding and it only made me crave more of the story when it finished. I could have done with a map to help me keep the different countries straight in my head, but I am hoping the final copy will have one. I am intrigued by all of the characters mentioned so far, but I am far more intrigued by the history of this world and the relationships between humans and dragons. I cannot wait to find out more.

I won't rate this review as it was not the entire book, but if I was going to rate the book so far it would have to be 4.5*. Bring on February!

[tweetybugshouse]

Masterful story interwoven with history and magical dreams. It took a long time to get through this masterful tar but I thoroughly enjoyed it.

[Kate (Blogging with Dragons)]

The Priory of the Orange Tree is an absolutely phenomenal read. It has everything a reader could want--diverse, powerful and diverse female characters, the best LGBTQ romance I have read EVER, great friendships, interesting religion, pirates, alchemists, world-building, secret organizations, and DRAGONS (both good and evil). Many books nowadays claim to be "the new A Song of Ice and Fire (Game of Thrones)," but I have never had the pleasure of reading a single novel that came even close to George R.R. Martin’s beloved fantasy--until now. 

 

“There was always a period of fragility before a Berethnet sovereign got with child. Theirs was a house of daughters, one daughter for each queen. Their subjects called it proof of their sainthood.”

 

Like A Song of Ice and Fire, The Priory of the Orange Tree is told from the perspective of many different characters in various parts of the world, with different loyalties, religions, ranks, and abilities. However, The Priory of the Orange Tree is a more feminist version of A Song of Ice and Fire--being told from mostly female perspectives, with only two male perspectives. Much of the novel takes place in a western kingdom, called Inys, ruled by a long line of Queens. If it weren't cool enough that the crown is passed from mother to daughter, their bloodline and the religion surrounding it, is the key to keeping an ancient evil at bay--or so they and the rest of the countries that worship their queen--Virtudom--believe.

 

“It was impossible, yet there it was. A wyrm. A monstrous, four-legged wyrm, over two hundred feet long from its snout to the tip of its tail. This was no wyverling prowling for livestock. This was a breed that had not been seen in centuries, since the last hours of the Grief of Ages. Mightiest of the Draconic creatures. The High Westerns, largest and most brutal of all the dragons, the dread lords of wyrmkind. One of them had woken.”

 

This evil, known as the Nameless One, is a scarier version of Skyrim’s Alduin, a fire breathing-dragon, accompanied by his terrifying army of other fire-breathing dragons and a Draconic plague, who almost destroyed the world 1000 years ago in something known as The Grief of the Ages. Despite the fact that he and his armies were sealed into the Abyss, inexplicably, his armies start to reawaken and to threaten the safety of the Queen of Inys, her future heir, and the rest of the world. One kingdom, Yscalin, a former ally of Inys, has already fallen to the wyverns and their Draconic Army--not just wyverns, but their offspring of cockatrices, basilisks, and more. 

 

“Sometimes she felt as if they could smell her secrets. As if they sensed she had not come to this court to be a lady-in-waiting. As if they knew about the Priory.”

 

Luckily for the current Queen of Inys, Sabran Berethnet, her lady-in-waiting, Ead, is more bodyguard than lady. Sent from a secret wyrm-slaying organization, she protects the queen at all costs, despite the fact that she believes Sabran has butchered the true religion. Not only does Ead need to protect her Queen from the wyrms and wyverns, but also from the assassins and politics of a court who is desperate to see a female heir who will protect them from the awakening of the Nameless One. Little does Ead know that despite protecting Sabran with all her might, her very own heart is in danger. The love story of Sabran and Ead is touching--and not just because it’s so rare to find any LGBTQ romances in fantasy novels, let alone one that is the center love story--but because it is a story of two strong women supporting and believing in one another, despite their many, many differences, and finding solace in each other when the rest of the world only offered stifling expectations. I enjoyed not just the build up of their relationship, which was barely even a friendship in the beginning, to the development of a full-fledged relationship built on mutual respect and open communication. It was beautiful to see this relationship transform each woman into a better, stronger version of herself.

 

But honestly, author Shannon does a great job developing every single one of her relationships in The Priory of the Orange Tree. Ead’s best friends at court, Loth and Margaret, have a friendship that transcends religious differences, borders, and noble titles. Even the despicable alchemist Niclays Roos, an antagonist of the novel, had a great love in his past (also LGBTQ) and manages to make friendships that change his character and perspective along his journey. This will surprise no one, but my favorite relationship out of the novel, other than that of Sabran and Ead’s, was that of the dragon rider, Tané and her Eastern dragon, Nayimathun--but I won't give too much away on that.

 

‘"Cloud steamed from its scales – scales of moonstone, so bright they seemed to glow from within. A crust of gem-like droplets glistened on each one. Each eye was a burning star, and each horn was quicksilver, agleam under the pallid moon. The creature flowed with the grace of a ribbon past the bridge and took to the skies, light and quiet as a paper kite."

 

Though the Eastern nations closed their borders for fear of the deadly Draconic Plague, and the rest of the world views them with disgust--falsely viewing their veneration of dragons as the same as worship of the Nameless One and his wyrms--readers are given a glimpse to their world through the eyes of orphan Tané, who has trained her entire life to become a dragon rider. We learn as Tané does, that the Eastern dragons derided by the West are much different than the feared Nameless One and his army. They are wise, water-loving creatures who fought to save the world the first time the Nameless One came around and will do so again. 

 

‘I am not her enemy – and neither are the people of the East. They despise the Nameless One, as we do. The noble creatures they worship are nothing like wyrms.’ She drew herself up. ‘Draconic things are waking, Ead. Soon they will rise – the Nameless One and his servants – and their wrath will be terrible. And when they rally against us, we will need help to fight them.’

 

I really loved all of the depictions of dragons in this book--whether the wise and elegant Eastern dragons, or the evil Draconic army. Shannon’s descriptions of all the beasts were just magical and captured the imagination. I found myself standing outside and wondering just how big 200 feet was and imagining the sight of one of her High Western wyrms. I loved the details--how she wrote of the size of the dragons, their smell, the way their eyes burned with fire, and how seeing them in person was so, so different and more terrifying than in the illustrations of books:

 

"The beast glided above the ship. As it passed, Loth could smell the heat inside it, the reek of smoke and brimstone. The bear-trap of its mouth. The hot coals of its eyes. They wrote themselves into his memory. He had heard stories since he was a child, seen the hideous illustrations that lurked in bestiaries – but even his most harrowing nightmares had never conjured such a soul-fearing thing."

 

The author made it effortlessly easy to imagine the people’s absolute fear of these creatures and their offspring of cockatrices, ophiturs, and basilisks--and how an entire religion could have been built on keeping such horrors locked away.  And how original to have these dread creatures carry pestilence, like the rats of the black plague. Not only did people have to fear the death, destruction, and enslavement at the hands of the Nameless One and his followers, but the painful, highly contagious, and fatal disease they carried as well. Yikes. 

 

The only thing I wished for in this massive book was that, well, it had been longer. Though I initially had a bit of trouble getting into the book, I quickly became obsessed, and throughout reading The Priory in the Orange Tree, I desperately wished for it to never end, even while racing to the last page to know what happened. After all of the build-up and the discoveries and revelations, the ending battle with the Nameless One felt so unequivocally and inequitably short. Thankfully, author Shannon took the time to tell us what happened to her characters after this battle, and what their plans for the future were, but I was insatiable and wanted so much more. 

 

"And yet I am reminded – as I so often am – that you never needed my protection. You are your own shield."

 

I find that after finishing this book, complete with its easy acceptance of LGBTQ relationships (not once did any LGBTQ characters meet with disgust at heterosexual characters--just concern about heirs produced), dragons, breaking of religious barriers towards acceptance and peace, powerful female characters, pirates, alchemy, magical jewels--that I’m quite at a loss. I did not expect to be so utterly swept away by this novel, in spite of its much deserved critical acclaim. I had no idea how much I had needed to read a book that strayed so far from the typical white male hero (usually a  bumbling farm boy from nowhere who somehow becomes a master swordsman or dragon rider after a day of training), who somehow saves the world. Especially in this climate in 2020, it was a balm to my heart to see all these diverse female characters achieve everything they set out to and so much more. I simply have no idea how to move on from The Priory of the Orange Tree. I don't think I've had a book hangover so bad since I first read Patrick Rothfuss's Name of the Wind.

 

 Not only is this my favorite book I’ve read all year, but now one of my all time favorites. I bought this book on sale on the Kindle, but I know now that I will need a physical copy of this gem. Though The Priory of the Orange Tree is an exquisite stand-alone novel, I loved it so much that I  can only hope the author, Samantha Shannon revisits this world in the future in some way, shape or form.


Bloggingwithdragons.com
My Book Review Policy

[Emma (SCR)]

This review was originally posted on Star Crossed Reviews I had seen this book on Instagram for many months and had it on my TBR pile for a little while. I saw Samantha interview Jay Kristoff last year and I knew I had to bump it up.

There are two things you should know about this book. The first is that it is a very large book and the second is it has a lot of world-building. I find big books quite intimidating. I'd much rather read a long series of shorter books than one big one. I enjoyed the book but it did take me a long time to read it. There were times when I thought I would never end. I think this book could have really benefited from being a series or duology to reduce the size of the book. So much happens in this book that I feel like I definitely missed something. I think I would need a re-read to really get everything but the book is so long that I just don't know if have the time for that.

There are 4 POV in this book all at different places in the world. There are lots of side characters too. The world is very intriguing but I felt like I struggled to connect with the characters. I want to try again because I wonder if it was just the timing for me (I read this at the beginning of lockdown and work was crazy). I was reading in snatched moments and short bursts which made the story very broken too.

I'm sorry that this is not a very helpful review but I hope you take something away from it.

[jamiereadthis]

Wrong time to pick this up, right after Le Guin. The prose is vague instead of vivid, clumsy instead of precise. 200 pages in, the worldbuilding is still fumbling along, info-dumping as it goes. At the sentence level, it’s not building my trust; I might press on if I had highlighted a line by now, or found a new idea to engage with. But timing is everything, and now I’ve started Fritz Leiber and there’s a whole world alive right there on the first page, so I’ve got to beg off 600 more pages of this.

[moraa]

We may be small, and we may be young, but we will shake the world for our beliefs.

This was an okay book but since it's been a while since I read high fantasy, I decided to reintroduce myself to the genre with this, figured it wouldn't hurt much (page count aside, of course).

The world was dense and the exposition even more so, it took more than a third of the book for things to start rolling. Shannon could have eased back on the info-dump and done more on the characterisation and this would have made for a more enjoyable read.

[Ashley]

4.5 stars

[emruth13]

This book was amazing! I loved this world and the dragons and just everything about it!

[Jo]

I received this proof for free as a bookseller's reading copy from Bloomsbury for the purposes of recommending/handselling. I review all books I read on my blog.

Trigger Warnings: Death by earthquake, infertility, suicide ideation, dead bodies, discussion of suicide, and miscarriage.

I'd wanted to read The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon since first hearing about it, and then more so when I discovered it's a retelling of the legends surrounding St. George, patron saint of England. And while The Priory of the Orange Tree is a really awesome story, I was quite disappointed with some aspects.

But let's talk the positives first. Priory has a really complex and clever plot. Shannon wrote an essay for Unbound, Damsels Undistressed, about the various legends of St. George and how the writers of those legends had particular views of women and religion, and how she wanted to rewrite these problematic legends, and while it's not necessary to read the essay before reading the book, I found it gave an extra layer to the story, knowing what the history of this world is based on. It's really wonderful how she managed to weave all the legends together into this one high fantasy novel, where the whole world remembers the Grief of Ages/the Great Sorrow when dragons terrorised the world after the Nameless One was defeated a thousand years ago, and how they were all affected, and what that means for all the countries of the world in present day.

There are four narrators, two in the East, and two in the West. Eadaz du Zāla uq-Nāra has been sent by the secret magical society, The Priory of the Orange Tree, to be a bodyguard to Queen Sabran Berethnet in Inys. There is a legend that as long as a Berethnet is on the Inysh throne, the Nameless One won't wake up and return. The Priory has sent Ead to keep the queen safe, as she currently doesn't haven't an heir, so Eadaz is now Ead Duryan, a lady-in-waiting. With the wyrms of old waking up and attacking, and with assassins making attempts on Sabran's life, keeping Sabran safe is more important than ever. Arteloth Beck, heir to an Inysh province, and close friend of Sabran's and Ead's, he has been forced out of the country by Combe, Sabran's spy master, on the ruse of a diplomatic mission, but really to get him out of the way, as his close friendship with Sabran is hindering Sabran's people from finding her a husband. Sent to the Yscalin, who have turned their back on Virtudom - the countries of the West that follow the religion of the Six Virtues - and now worship the Nameless One, it is very likely that Loth will die, and Combe knows this. Tané is training to become one of the High Sea Guard - a dragon rider. When she sees someone swimming towards the shore the morning before she graduates, she knows this man could scuper this year's graduation; no outsiders are allowed in the West due to fear of the red plague and risk of contamination. Tané seeks the aid of a friend to hide him, so her graduation can go on as planned. Niclays Roos is an exiled alchemist from Mentendon, sent to Orisima, the last Western trading outpost in Seiiki, sent years ago for not giving Queen Sabran what she wants. It's to him that Tané's friend brings the outsider, to hide him, which turns his life upside down.

As you can see, there is so much going on in this book, and this is just the surface. Priory is a really well-plotted and captivating story! It has such fantastic worldbuilding; the magic systems, of which there are two. The history and the legends, and the religions, which, together, are the reasons for the bigotry in this world. Those of the Six Virtues pray to the Saint; Sabran's ancestor, Saint Galian, who defeated the Nameless One over a thousand years ago. Virtudom considers anyone who isn't part of the Six Virtues faith to be a heretic. Those in the south worship the Dawnsinger, a prophet who predicted the awakening of the Nameless One (though to be honest, we don't get told much about this religion). Those of The Priory of the Orange Tree worship the Mother, who those in Virtudom call the Damsel, wife of Saint Galian, who, they believe, rescued her and her people from the Nameless One on the condition she married him and converted to Virtudom, but who those at the Priory believe to have refused him, and founded the Priory to fight the draconic hoard, and they call Saint Galian the Deceiver for the lies he has told. Those in the West consider their dragons to be gods, and worship them. Those of the East believe all dragons to be the same - evil - and consider them to be the equivalent of what we would call devil worshippers. Then there are the dragons - of which there are two types. The dragons are really something, because there are the dragons we know of - beasts who breath fire, with large wings, and those of the draconic hoard; the results of dragons mating with normal animals, and then there are the Western dragons - no wings, but can fly due to the crest that draws power from the stars, and can only survive by frequent visits into the ocean. It's so well thought out! It really is quite amazing, and I really was hooked.

Priory is also really diverse. Niclays Roos is gay. There is a major f/f relationship, which I'm not going to talk about in any detail, because I think it's better to see in naturally develop. And when it comes to race, I'd say most - if not all - of the races in our own world are present in this book, all over the world, but rather than be seen as different because of race, people are seen as different because of their nationality. I'm pretty sure all the narrators except Roos are people of colour, but I wouldn't want to guess at which of our own races they would be.

So the book is really, really awesome. However, my main issue with the book is that it was far to short. In my opinion, it should have been at least a duology, but preferably a trilogy. I didn't realise until over half way through that Priory was a stand alone novel, because I could have sworn seeing Goodreads saying it was the first book in a series. But it becomes clear as the story goes on that it really is just one story. And I'm partly glad that I didn't realise until later, or I would have been feeling disappointed by a number of things much sooner than I actually was.

There are too many major points in the story that happened too quickly. To give a very vague idea, XYZ would be A Thing which would lead to An Event that absolutely couldn't happen or there would be disastrous consequences. And it always sounded like sorting out the Things to prevent the Events would be epic, but they were all dealt with far too quickly and far too easily. The stakes never seemed that high in the end, for these smaller Events happening throughout the story. And remember how I said this story is complex and clever? So there are a lot of these Things happening, and with them being dealt with too quickly and to easily, it was disappointing. Something would be resolved, and I would think, "Really? That's it? Just like that?" So many of the things that happen should have been bigger, should have had more pages spent on them, they should have been epic, but they weren't.

And also, because of it's length we don't really get to see relationships - platonic and romantic - develop enough to be satisfying, because weeks go by where we see nothing. We're often told about what happens off page, but we don't actually see it. So I wasn't really all that emotionally invested in the friendships or romantic relationships. Which meant that when some of the Events happened, or were about to, I wasn't all that bothered by what the consequences might mean for those closest to the narrators. To be honest, I didn't even care about the narrators as much as I would have wanted to either. Ead is the primary narrator, so I felt more for her, but I didn't care all that much for the others, because at times, a large number of chapters would go by where we wouldn't hear from certain narrators at all.

There was one narrator who I feel was treated quite badly. They were very important towards the end, but there were chapters upon chapters - weeks if not months in time - where we got nothing from this narrator, and while this happens to all narrators at some point in the story, it felt to me that this particular narrator was, in the beginning, more of a pawn being moved about to put them in a place they needed to be at the end. Their actions in the beginning are important in relation to other characters, and because of where they'll end up. It's like Shannon was thinking, "You will do X, which will lead to Y for this other person, and will mean you are at This Location at This Point in the story." And looking back on it, it feels really deliberate, rather than just how the story happened to flow. And with this narrator being absent from the story for chapters on end... I just think they deserved better. And there's so much that that this character experienced that we didn't see that I would have loved to have been on page.

Also, I felt a number of secondary characters were really hard done by. Truydee, Sulyard, Kit, Nayimathun, Aralak, Kalyba, Combe. Even Roslain and Katryen. These characters are all important either for the plot, or important to the narrators or Sabran, but we don't see nearly enough of any of them. I mean, seriously, some of these characters are actually pivotal to the plot. Without them, this story would be completely different. But they get so very few pages. They are too important for the very little we get of them. Their storylines should have been longer; I don't want their storylines changed, but there should have been a hell of a lot more than what they got. And why was Turosa even there?! I did think his character was going to be a major problem, and everthing to do with him just completely fizzles out. He absolutely wasn't needed, which I feel is a disservice to his charater. So much more could have been done with these characters. So much more, if this book was a trilogy instead of a stand alone. I really feel there is so much of Priory that should have been developed a hell of a lot more. There was a lot about the story that left me wanting, and I was quite disappointed a number of times.

I did enjoy the story, but I didn't love it. Yes, it's definitely worth a read, but I also feel it could have been so much more. However, a huge number of people absolutely loved this book, so maybe it's just me. Do read a few more reviews before deciding whether or not you'll read it.

Thank you to Bloomsbury for the bookseller's reading copy.