“I’ll never leave you. If I should go anywhere, I only go to our eternal bed. And when you’re tired of this world and ready for sleep, I’ll be waiting.”
⭐️ 3.5
🌶 2.5
👑 Deep Depictions of Grief
👑 EPIC Battle Scenes
👑 Multiple POV’s
👑 Morally Grey Characters
👑 Warring Kingdoms & Court Politics
👑 Found Family & Past Promises
**Warning, spoilers possible ahead**
NGL this one took me a little to get through. I had moments where I just wanted to put my Kindle down and walk away. A quick trigger warning of infertility as well. If that’s something that makes you feel the feels, you may want to table War Queen for a while.
So, we start off with finding out basically everyone but our Salara is with child. And we are seeing the attempted repair of Soren and Mikaels relationship after Salara-Mae bomb dropped the fact that they’re half-brothers. I personally was always curious as to how the Kharavian markings were done, and we were beautifully introduced to Salta Tau and the processes. It reminds me a little bit of Sak Yant by the Thai Monks! (iykyk) Then Alexander sends word that they need help taking the North back from the council men and all that has transpired, so whoop-dee-doo, everyone heads to the North to assist, including our Shadow King.
Here’s where it gets hairy- Alexander falls in the battle of taking back the North! I didn’t see this one coming, honestly. His death was swift and heartbreaking.
“Soren bared his teeth, holding back the emotion. Death didn’t deserve the Bear—the only worthy opponent he’d ever had. Soren had hated him for so long. He loved hating him. He wanted to keep hating him, to keep fighting him. He needed him.”
Soren is in shambles, so is Norah and Adrian. Norah’s so broken that she makes the decision to bury him in the royal catacombs versus cremating him so his soul can be set free. (Mistake #1 ma girl- that’s why you were holding on so hard). Now we are launched into a bajillion pages of Norah coming to terms with Alexander’s death, seeing him in visions, attempting to convince everyone he’s still there. It was a whole thing. Granted, also though- Cyrus/Lucien was playing games with her… so, I get it.
Anyway, we see these visions of Alexander with Norah, we see her holding on to him with a literal death grip, straight up calling to him with vials of blood while everyone around her who know’s what’s up is like, “nah, my queen, someone’s messing with ya.” But noooooooo, miss ma’am doesn’t want to listen to anyone NOR can she make the connection between how the blood that’s needed to “see” Alexander is similar to that of the blood that’s smeared on those birds. Grief does crazy things to you.
We’re also walked into seeing the relationship between King Phillip and Queen Norah. Really, she should have been honest with the guy since the beginning, seeing how warm he was towards her- like, she really should have known they were friends. But ok, you just wanna beat around the bush until the poor dude figures out something is up and you’re forced to tell him you have no memory of anything at all from before you were taken away. ‘Cos that’s always done you good. *eye roll* Ok, off my soap box. King Phillip is a good guy! And I love it. I love what he is to Soren and that Soren can find ‘happiness’ in him. I did enjoy going on the little side quest into Soren’s head to see how their ‘happiness’ unfolds, ngl.
Quick Note too: I felt like the spicy scenes between Soren and King Phillip were so much *more* than that of Norah and Mikael, Tahla and Caspian, or even Alexander and Katya! Do I think Soren deserves that? 100%. But do I think the other couples and characters should too? 100%. Soren + King Phillip straight teleported me back into the world of Sarah J Maas and the Twisted Sisters- Suzanne Valenti + Caroline Peckham; like “whoa, wow, oooooooooooomph. *tingle tingle*” And if I remember correctly, it’s pretty much the only spice heavy scene in the entire trilogy… I may be wrong though… maybe the second.
Back to the visions- Norah is finally is like, “enough is enough, I’m releasing your soul, Alexander!” The forces of Rael and Japath are suddenly at her door, and Cyrus, the usurper king of Rael, requests an audience with Norah. Then BOOM! We discover that ‘Cyrus’ is actually LUCIEN – Alexander’s TWIN brother who was supposed to have died… the one in all the visions. Say what and hey and HOW?! Ohkay, will admit this was a twist I didn’t see coming. I thought they were gonna resurrect Alexander or he was gonna ghost kill them all.
Then, we’re taken on a super long journey of Norah attempting to change Lucien’s mind on taking revenge on the people who pushed him into blood sport/slavery and all of that, trying to change Mikael’s fate… all the things. The story moves much faster here, and culminates in a *twist* that is so quintessentially NORAH. Shoulda seen it coming, really.
I felt like the book had a hasty end, like literally the last 3 chapters to finish up, and even then… there’s really not a lot of closure between all the characters when we’re sort of thrust into caring about them and their worlds. The only couples we see “closure” to are Norah + Mikael, and SORT OF Caspian + Tahla.
Let’s talk found families though. The family bond created between Soren, Adrian, Norah, Mikael, Caspian, Bhastian, Titus, Calla & Cohen and more… just UGH. I will forever and always love Nicola for the relationship between Adrian and the Kharavians… “The Bear brothers were nothing if not fearless and loyal. Caution to the man who fought against them, and fortune to the man with one by his side.”
Do we also need to talk about how Katya doesn’t tell anyone her kid is Alexander’s? Like… dude… really?
We lose a lot of the people we love in this book. But we also do get a lot of retribution and sacrifices that were made on the basis of love and loyalty. The ending felt a little rushed- and leaves a lot of open ends, but I guess that makes for good novellas and/or follow up series’.
Overall, I felt like War Queen is a beautiful end to the Crowns Trilogy. Even if I feel like it was a little hard to get through. So many decisions made upon grief, though I do understand the emotional toll grief is – I’m no stranger to grief. The fact that like 2/3s of the book is Norah coming to terms with Alexander’s death was hard. The battle scenes were EPIC though, and there are so many here. And Norah after getting herself together really does reign as the bad ass, war queen that she is.
“Time slowed in the thunder. She cast her eyes down the sweeping line of Mercia and Aleon. For as long as she could remember, she’d fought the notion of war. She’d rejected its violence, its death. But now she came for Mikael, and she’d bring death to save him.”
*note, this book is available on Kindle Unlimited for your reading pleasure
*additionally, this blog is supported by its audience. If you take action (i.e. make a purchase) through the affiliate links on this site, I may earn a commission at no cost to you.
Jennie's Reads 
Leave a comment