Queen of Coin and Whispers (Queen of Coin and Whispers, #1)

by Helen Corcoran

[Ashley]

I'm really sad I didn't love this the way I hoped I would. It had a lot of potential, but I think it was too rushed. In terms of political scheming, there was enough going on to fill a trilogy. The fact that it was crammed into one book just did it a disservice. Everything moved too quickly and too briefly, when it should have been more drawn out and with more detail.

- There are mentions of neighbouring kingdoms, but there isn't enough detail for any of them to have been truly memorable. I kept forgetting which kingdom was which, or what the general feeling was towards each kingdom (good or bad relationship?). A trilogy could have dived more deeply into relationships with those kingdoms and introduced each one more slowly.

- There are brief mentions of problems like failing harvest, but then not enough time is spent digging into them, so by the end they felt unimportant. Why mention them at all?

- There were so many different characters mentioned, but not enough time spent on each one, so I started forgetting who each person was or why they were important.

- Xania becomes spymaster, then suddenly TALKS about cultivating agents and contacts, but we never actually see her doing any of that? And I'm like, where did those contacts even come from? How did you reach out?

I also sooo wanted to love the romance, but like the politics it felt too shallow and too rushed. I didn't really feel the emotion or chemistry there.

This was still a decent read. I just think it would have been better if either:

1. It spanned more than one book and was a lot more drawn out, with more detail. (More "Epic" fantasy style.)
2. Or: it cut its ambitions way down and focused on fewer plots/characters. (More "light" fantasy style.)

I think it was awkwardly straddling those two positions, which just made it not so great at either one.

I think ideally I would have gone for option #1 and done something like:

- Book 1 - Focus on domestic politics and rise to the throne. Maybe make a bigger deal out of things like the failing harvest and focus completely on that and the politics it creates.
- Book 2 - Maybe introduce one of the other kingdoms and have some kind of plot related to that.
- Book 3 - Introduce a third kingdom into the mix.

Just slow everything way down and draw it all out with more detail. Don't cram it all into one book.