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A review by bonnybonnybooks
Queen of the Conquered by Kacen Callender
2.0
DNF @ 32%.
I saw the low ratings on this, but I still wanted to give it a try. This is the only fantasy I've seen take place in a Caribbean-style setting, and I love a political intrigue and vengeance story.
The biggest problem is that this feels like a generic YA fantasy and/or dystopian book. This is the first time I've ever read a book and thought "this desperately needed to be in third person instead of first person." It would have helped make this feel more like an adult fantasy, which is usually in third person. First person has been huge in the YA market since Hunger Games and it feels like every YA dystopian and YA fantasy is first person, with the same narrative voice.
Our villainous protagonist is Sigourney Rose, the daughter of a biracial nobleman and his slave. Sigourney lives on the islands of Hans Lollik (U.S. Virgin Islands analogue), which were colonized hundreds of years ago by the Fjern (Danish/Dutch analogue) (all the names are from the Dutch or Danish languages - fjern means "remote, distant, faraway"). The Fjern claimed the islands as "Koninkrijk" (kingdom) territory and granted a regency. As far as I can tell, the regent is independent from the Fjern homeland (he can choose his own successor). The regent created kongelig (regal) advisors from the most powerful families on the islands. The confusing part of the world building is that we get infodumps, but they often come after the reader has spent time trying to puzzle out how that aspect of the world works. For instance, I couldn't figure out the difference between the Fjern and the kongelig for the longest time. It took me far too long to realize that the kongelig were just noble Fjern. However, not EVERY noble family is kongelig. There are only six or seven kongelig families at a time, but eleven islands. So you can rule an island without being a ruling family. This still confuses me. Every island is named after the most powerful family on the island - so Rose Helle (Rose Island) is the seat of the Rose family. But just because you have an island named after you it doesn't mean you are kongelig. And if a family loses power/dies without heirs, then another family takes over and the island gets renamed. I also didn't understand for a while that "Elskerinde" was the name of the female half of a ruling couple. So the duke/duchess equivalent for the ruling family would be Herr (mister) and Elskerinde (mistress - amusingly, this is mistress as in the mistress in an extramarital relationship - I'm not sure if that was a sly insult put in by Callender or a Google Translate mishap). But, again, you can be a Herr and Elskerinde just because you rule an island, even if you are not kongelig.
Sigourney's paternal line is descended from a freed slave (Wilhelm Rose) who used his kraft ("power" - aka magic) to buy his freedom and eventually partner with a Fjern family (the Lunds) to create a booming sugarcane business. Eventually the Rose and Lund families intermarried because "no Fjern would agree to marry the Lund after they joined in business with a family of islanders." Ten generations later, Sigourney's father had his own island (Rose Helle) and the Lund family had its own island (Lund Helle). Sigourney's father couldn't get a Fjern to marry him, either, even with an island, so he forced his most beautiful slave to marry him. After he died, Sigourney's mother took over ruling Rose Helle. When a kongelig family line ended with no heir (the Holm family), the Hans Lollik regent invited Sigourney's mother to stay on the royal island during the storm season (which all the kongelig families do every storm season), and the Roses officially became the seventh kongelig family. I'm laying this all out because I spent the first part of the book very confused, before this helpful infodump at around 15%.
The book opens with the massacre of Sigourney's family by "the Jannik guards." It turns out that it was actually a conspiracy of all the kongelig families carried out by the guards of one of the kongeligs (the Jannik family). This was part of my early confusion - there were too many names for similar things or for concepts I hadn't been introduced to yet. This book desperately needed a glossary, and probably a list of all the kongelig families (like the Houses list in [b:Gideon the Ninth|42036538|Gideon the Ninth (The Locked Tomb, #1)|Tamsyn Muir|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1546870952l/42036538._SY75_.jpg|60943229]). Sigourney escapes the slaughter in the Prologue, and then in the first chapter is marching across Lund Helle with her twelve personal guards to put down a slave massacre. Again, it takes some time before we are told how the heck Sigourney became Bernhand Lund's heir.
The Rose and Lund families have long been intertwined. Bernhand Lund is Sigourney's "cousin" (although I don't think their parents were actually siblings). As far as I can tell, the Lunds were never kongelig. Sigourney seeks shelter with Bernhand Lund after her family is killed. He for no particular reason decides to spare her life AND make her his heir. Since we are later told that the Lunds couldn't marry any Fjern after partnering with a freed slave, does that mean ten generations later Bernhand is also biracial? Did the Lunds have to marry islanders as well if the Fjern would not marry them? I don't think it's ever stated that Bernhand has dark skin, or even that he has islander ancestry, but he must, right?
Bernhand gives Sigourney's nanny Marieke coin so that Sigourney and Marieke can travel the northern empires...for some reason. Despite the fact the Fjern are terribly racist, Sigourney and Marieke have no problems traveling the northern empires and are guests at Bernhand's international acquaintances. Sigourney also mentions that there were people of different skin colors mixing in the northern empires and she seemed to face far less prejudice there. So maybe only the Fjern are especially racist?!? Who knows. Sigourney positions herself as Sigourney Lund, possibly Bernhand's bastard child or perhaps "an orphan of the northern empires that Bernhand saw in the streets and took pity on." Which seems a particularly outlandish story - would anyone actually believe that?!? And has Bernhand actually ever left the islands - it does not seem like people travel much in-between the northern empires and the islands. At some point, Bernhand names Sigourney as his heir in his will and after he dies (Sigourney poisons him), she inherits the Lund title. It seems incredibly improbable that Sigourney is not only kept alive and her expenses paid for by a cousin that supposedly hates her, but also that he names her his heir just because he doesn't have any other living family.
There seems to be a real fertility problem among the Fjern. There are multiple (plot convenient) powerful families that die without ANY living heirs. Even if there were no direct line, historically there is always some distant branch of the family tree that inherits. Just look at the English royal family! They are always pulling out a second cousin or something when a monarch dies without children (that's how they got the Stewarts from Scotland and later Sophia of Hanover who started the Windsor line). But the Lunds AND the regent's family (and that Holm family) have no living relations whatsoever? Are there a lot of only children in the Fjern family trees?
Anyway, Sigourney now rules Lund Helle (Lund Island) but is not a member of the kongelig yet. So she sails over to Jannik Helle (again, the Janniks who spearheaded killing her family) and uses her kraft to mind control/steal the memories to mimic dementia of Elskerinde Jannik (Mistress Jannik). She convinces Elskerinde Jannik to betroth her to her only son and heir, Aksel Jannik (again, only one child?!?). Because the Janniks have become poor while the Lunds are still rich. Since Sigourney is now an almost-Jannik, she is considered kongelig and is invited to the royal island for storm season with the rest of the kongelig. This storm season is special: the regent is going to name his heir from one of the kongelig families. Storm season is dangerous because the kongelig spend the time killing each other (?!?!?!) on the royal island ("It's become a tradition of sorts to see which member of the kongelig family will be found dead"). That is absolutely wild - especially as far as I can tell because it doesn't give them any advantage! They don't take each other's islands - it's not like one family kills another family and now has two islands. There is no discussion about competing businesses or any economic advantage to murdering rival families. And hundreds of years into colonization, wouldn't most of the kongelig families be related by blood and marriage?!?
Sigourney is focused on vengeance and her plan is to (1) marry Aksel Jannik to become a member of the kongelig; (2) go to the royal island during storm season; (3) be named as heir by the regent, using her kraft to mind control him; (4) rule the islands. Presumably by killing all the kongelig, because no way would they let her be regent.
I spent the entire book confused by how a very racist society who does not view islanders as people have accepted the Rose (and the Lund when they were unable to find Fjern marriage partners) as legitimate rulers. They could have easily either slaughtered the Roses/Lunds (which they did eventually do to the Roses) and/or just ignored their claims to the islands. It also does not make sense that the regent ever invited Sigourney's mother to be part of the kongelig. There is also zero reason for Aksel Jannik to go through with the marriage to Sigourney after his mind-controlled mother dies. It's handwaved away as "duty" because Jannik needs Sigourney's money but...really? When presumably the Janniks will become like the Lunds and no one else will want to marry into the family since the Jannik children will now be biracial? And, again, if the Lunds/Roses really became so prosperous, it seems unlikely that they would be allowed to keep their wealth without someone declaring that because they have island blood, they can't own property and that it all belongs to whoever wants their land/money. The worldbuilding doesn't make sense because the entire plot rests on premises that are not supported by what we are told about this world.
As I said before, Sigourney is a villainous protagonist. In the first chapter, she orders the death of a child, since the child is a slave with the kraft. Only the Fjern are allowed to have kraft - any islander with it must be killed. Again, how is Sigourney not ordered to be killed (it is an open secret among the kongelig that she has kraft, and Aksel at least knows what it is). I can't imagine the kongelig would be fine with a biracial woman with kraft marrying into the kongelig and gaining power. They would surely try to kill her. Especially since they just murder each other for fun every storm season, how have they not killed her yet?!?
Sigourney is not a nice person nor a good person. She is a child killer, a rapist, an enslaver, a murderer. This does not make her a bad protagonist - a villainous protagonist can be very interesting. But Sigourney is also a wet blanket. As I said, she feels very much like a generic YA heroine. She orders a child be killed, but then spends a lot of time feeling sorry for herself about it. In an interview with Callender, they talk about how they wanted to make her sympathetic. I think this was a mistake. Trying to make Sigourney sympathetic only watered her down. Readers like to read about villainous protagonists - [b:Lolita|7604|Lolita|Vladimir Nabokov|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1377756377l/7604._SY75_.jpg|1268631], [b:The Talented Mr. Ripley|2247142|The Talented Mr. Ripley (Ripley, #1)|Patricia Highsmith|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1634841836l/2247142._SX50_.jpg|1817520], and [b:The Collector|243705|The Collector|John Fowles|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1394828024l/243705._SY75_.jpg|1816452] are all classics with villains as their protagonists. And villains are often fan favorites - just look at the fascination with Hannibal Lecter. Sympathy is the wrong feeling to try to invoke. People don't feel sympathy for villains - they feel an animal fascination with a predator.
Sigourney does not come off as sympathetic. She comes off as whiny. This book is dark and deals with a lot of hard subjects, but again no more than a lot of YA. And in YA, the heroine tends to wallow as there is a lot of focus on the narrator's feelings. It is one of the things that turns me off of a lot of modern YA, because I feel like it is often done poorly. It doesn't help that Sigourney does not come off as particularly bright. The plot depends on the reader believing that Sigourney is a master manipulator and intriguer, but she is not. She does not have a single ally. People keep telling her (and she keeps telling herself) that no one likes her. And no one does! It is extremely difficult to maintain power with no allies, no matter how good her mind control is. She learns that her betrothed tried to kill her and she says out loud that she can't figure out why. Sigourney! Let me count the ways! (1) He knows that you mind control people; (2) you are preventing him from marrying the girl he loves; (3) he's racist and doesn't see you as a person. I'm just surprised he had the initiative to do something about it!
And then there was this:
Guardsman: This tree across the road, a classic ambush setup, may be an ambush.
Sigourney: Silly you, it's probably just a fallen tree!
*it's an ambush*
Sigourney *surprised*
Sigourney's plans only seem to succeed because of authorial dictate, not because she is actually clever. Combine that with her droning on and on at the same points (she must avenge her family! even her slaves hate her! the kongelig must die! she knows she's done bad things, but she feels bad about it!) and it makes her a very unlikeable protagonist but for the wrong reasons. I really think that third person would help a lot - it lessens the juvenile dithering that plagues first person narration.
I saw the low ratings on this, but I still wanted to give it a try. This is the only fantasy I've seen take place in a Caribbean-style setting, and I love a political intrigue and vengeance story.
The biggest problem is that this feels like a generic YA fantasy and/or dystopian book. This is the first time I've ever read a book and thought "this desperately needed to be in third person instead of first person." It would have helped make this feel more like an adult fantasy, which is usually in third person. First person has been huge in the YA market since Hunger Games and it feels like every YA dystopian and YA fantasy is first person, with the same narrative voice.
Our villainous protagonist is Sigourney Rose, the daughter of a biracial nobleman and his slave. Sigourney lives on the islands of Hans Lollik (U.S. Virgin Islands analogue), which were colonized hundreds of years ago by the Fjern (Danish/Dutch analogue) (all the names are from the Dutch or Danish languages - fjern means "remote, distant, faraway"). The Fjern claimed the islands as "Koninkrijk" (kingdom) territory and granted a regency. As far as I can tell, the regent is independent from the Fjern homeland (he can choose his own successor). The regent created kongelig (regal) advisors from the most powerful families on the islands. The confusing part of the world building is that we get infodumps, but they often come after the reader has spent time trying to puzzle out how that aspect of the world works. For instance, I couldn't figure out the difference between the Fjern and the kongelig for the longest time. It took me far too long to realize that the kongelig were just noble Fjern. However, not EVERY noble family is kongelig. There are only six or seven kongelig families at a time, but eleven islands. So you can rule an island without being a ruling family. This still confuses me. Every island is named after the most powerful family on the island - so Rose Helle (Rose Island) is the seat of the Rose family. But just because you have an island named after you it doesn't mean you are kongelig. And if a family loses power/dies without heirs, then another family takes over and the island gets renamed. I also didn't understand for a while that "Elskerinde" was the name of the female half of a ruling couple. So the duke/duchess equivalent for the ruling family would be Herr (mister) and Elskerinde (mistress - amusingly, this is mistress as in the mistress in an extramarital relationship - I'm not sure if that was a sly insult put in by Callender or a Google Translate mishap). But, again, you can be a Herr and Elskerinde just because you rule an island, even if you are not kongelig.
Sigourney's paternal line is descended from a freed slave (Wilhelm Rose) who used his kraft ("power" - aka magic) to buy his freedom and eventually partner with a Fjern family (the Lunds) to create a booming sugarcane business. Eventually the Rose and Lund families intermarried because "no Fjern would agree to marry the Lund after they joined in business with a family of islanders." Ten generations later, Sigourney's father had his own island (Rose Helle) and the Lund family had its own island (Lund Helle). Sigourney's father couldn't get a Fjern to marry him, either, even with an island, so he forced his most beautiful slave to marry him. After he died, Sigourney's mother took over ruling Rose Helle. When a kongelig family line ended with no heir (the Holm family), the Hans Lollik regent invited Sigourney's mother to stay on the royal island during the storm season (which all the kongelig families do every storm season), and the Roses officially became the seventh kongelig family. I'm laying this all out because I spent the first part of the book very confused, before this helpful infodump at around 15%.
The book opens with the massacre of Sigourney's family by "the Jannik guards." It turns out that it was actually a conspiracy of all the kongelig families carried out by the guards of one of the kongeligs (the Jannik family). This was part of my early confusion - there were too many names for similar things or for concepts I hadn't been introduced to yet. This book desperately needed a glossary, and probably a list of all the kongelig families (like the Houses list in [b:Gideon the Ninth|42036538|Gideon the Ninth (The Locked Tomb, #1)|Tamsyn Muir|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1546870952l/42036538._SY75_.jpg|60943229]). Sigourney escapes the slaughter in the Prologue, and then in the first chapter is marching across Lund Helle with her twelve personal guards to put down a slave massacre. Again, it takes some time before we are told how the heck Sigourney became Bernhand Lund's heir.
The Rose and Lund families have long been intertwined. Bernhand Lund is Sigourney's "cousin" (although I don't think their parents were actually siblings). As far as I can tell, the Lunds were never kongelig. Sigourney seeks shelter with Bernhand Lund after her family is killed. He for no particular reason decides to spare her life AND make her his heir. Since we are later told that the Lunds couldn't marry any Fjern after partnering with a freed slave, does that mean ten generations later Bernhand is also biracial? Did the Lunds have to marry islanders as well if the Fjern would not marry them? I don't think it's ever stated that Bernhand has dark skin, or even that he has islander ancestry, but he must, right?
Bernhand gives Sigourney's nanny Marieke coin so that Sigourney and Marieke can travel the northern empires...for some reason. Despite the fact the Fjern are terribly racist, Sigourney and Marieke have no problems traveling the northern empires and are guests at Bernhand's international acquaintances. Sigourney also mentions that there were people of different skin colors mixing in the northern empires and she seemed to face far less prejudice there. So maybe only the Fjern are especially racist?!? Who knows. Sigourney positions herself as Sigourney Lund, possibly Bernhand's bastard child or perhaps "an orphan of the northern empires that Bernhand saw in the streets and took pity on." Which seems a particularly outlandish story - would anyone actually believe that?!? And has Bernhand actually ever left the islands - it does not seem like people travel much in-between the northern empires and the islands. At some point, Bernhand names Sigourney as his heir in his will and after he dies (Sigourney poisons him), she inherits the Lund title. It seems incredibly improbable that Sigourney is not only kept alive and her expenses paid for by a cousin that supposedly hates her, but also that he names her his heir just because he doesn't have any other living family.
There seems to be a real fertility problem among the Fjern. There are multiple (plot convenient) powerful families that die without ANY living heirs. Even if there were no direct line, historically there is always some distant branch of the family tree that inherits. Just look at the English royal family! They are always pulling out a second cousin or something when a monarch dies without children (that's how they got the Stewarts from Scotland and later Sophia of Hanover who started the Windsor line). But the Lunds AND the regent's family (and that Holm family) have no living relations whatsoever? Are there a lot of only children in the Fjern family trees?
Anyway, Sigourney now rules Lund Helle (Lund Island) but is not a member of the kongelig yet. So she sails over to Jannik Helle (again, the Janniks who spearheaded killing her family) and uses her kraft to mind control/steal the memories to mimic dementia of Elskerinde Jannik (Mistress Jannik). She convinces Elskerinde Jannik to betroth her to her only son and heir, Aksel Jannik (again, only one child?!?). Because the Janniks have become poor while the Lunds are still rich. Since Sigourney is now an almost-Jannik, she is considered kongelig and is invited to the royal island for storm season with the rest of the kongelig. This storm season is special: the regent is going to name his heir from one of the kongelig families. Storm season is dangerous because the kongelig spend the time killing each other (?!?!?!) on the royal island ("It's become a tradition of sorts to see which member of the kongelig family will be found dead"). That is absolutely wild - especially as far as I can tell because it doesn't give them any advantage! They don't take each other's islands - it's not like one family kills another family and now has two islands. There is no discussion about competing businesses or any economic advantage to murdering rival families. And hundreds of years into colonization, wouldn't most of the kongelig families be related by blood and marriage?!?
Sigourney is focused on vengeance and her plan is to (1) marry Aksel Jannik to become a member of the kongelig; (2) go to the royal island during storm season; (3) be named as heir by the regent, using her kraft to mind control him; (4) rule the islands. Presumably by killing all the kongelig, because no way would they let her be regent.
I spent the entire book confused by how a very racist society who does not view islanders as people have accepted the Rose (and the Lund when they were unable to find Fjern marriage partners) as legitimate rulers. They could have easily either slaughtered the Roses/Lunds (which they did eventually do to the Roses) and/or just ignored their claims to the islands. It also does not make sense that the regent ever invited Sigourney's mother to be part of the kongelig. There is also zero reason for Aksel Jannik to go through with the marriage to Sigourney after his mind-controlled mother dies. It's handwaved away as "duty" because Jannik needs Sigourney's money but...really? When presumably the Janniks will become like the Lunds and no one else will want to marry into the family since the Jannik children will now be biracial? And, again, if the Lunds/Roses really became so prosperous, it seems unlikely that they would be allowed to keep their wealth without someone declaring that because they have island blood, they can't own property and that it all belongs to whoever wants their land/money. The worldbuilding doesn't make sense because the entire plot rests on premises that are not supported by what we are told about this world.
As I said before, Sigourney is a villainous protagonist. In the first chapter, she orders the death of a child, since the child is a slave with the kraft. Only the Fjern are allowed to have kraft - any islander with it must be killed. Again, how is Sigourney not ordered to be killed (it is an open secret among the kongelig that she has kraft, and Aksel at least knows what it is). I can't imagine the kongelig would be fine with a biracial woman with kraft marrying into the kongelig and gaining power. They would surely try to kill her. Especially since they just murder each other for fun every storm season, how have they not killed her yet?!?
Sigourney is not a nice person nor a good person. She is a child killer, a rapist, an enslaver, a murderer. This does not make her a bad protagonist - a villainous protagonist can be very interesting. But Sigourney is also a wet blanket. As I said, she feels very much like a generic YA heroine. She orders a child be killed, but then spends a lot of time feeling sorry for herself about it. In an interview with Callender, they talk about how they wanted to make her sympathetic. I think this was a mistake. Trying to make Sigourney sympathetic only watered her down. Readers like to read about villainous protagonists - [b:Lolita|7604|Lolita|Vladimir Nabokov|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1377756377l/7604._SY75_.jpg|1268631], [b:The Talented Mr. Ripley|2247142|The Talented Mr. Ripley (Ripley, #1)|Patricia Highsmith|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1634841836l/2247142._SX50_.jpg|1817520], and [b:The Collector|243705|The Collector|John Fowles|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1394828024l/243705._SY75_.jpg|1816452] are all classics with villains as their protagonists. And villains are often fan favorites - just look at the fascination with Hannibal Lecter. Sympathy is the wrong feeling to try to invoke. People don't feel sympathy for villains - they feel an animal fascination with a predator.
Sigourney does not come off as sympathetic. She comes off as whiny. This book is dark and deals with a lot of hard subjects, but again no more than a lot of YA. And in YA, the heroine tends to wallow as there is a lot of focus on the narrator's feelings. It is one of the things that turns me off of a lot of modern YA, because I feel like it is often done poorly. It doesn't help that Sigourney does not come off as particularly bright. The plot depends on the reader believing that Sigourney is a master manipulator and intriguer, but she is not. She does not have a single ally. People keep telling her (and she keeps telling herself) that no one likes her. And no one does! It is extremely difficult to maintain power with no allies, no matter how good her mind control is. She learns that her betrothed tried to kill her and she says out loud that she can't figure out why. Sigourney! Let me count the ways! (1) He knows that you mind control people; (2) you are preventing him from marrying the girl he loves; (3) he's racist and doesn't see you as a person. I'm just surprised he had the initiative to do something about it!
And then there was this:
Guardsman: This tree across the road, a classic ambush setup, may be an ambush.
Sigourney: Silly you, it's probably just a fallen tree!
*it's an ambush*
Sigourney *surprised*
Sigourney's plans only seem to succeed because of authorial dictate, not because she is actually clever. Combine that with her droning on and on at the same points (she must avenge her family! even her slaves hate her! the kongelig must die! she knows she's done bad things, but she feels bad about it!) and it makes her a very unlikeable protagonist but for the wrong reasons. I really think that third person would help a lot - it lessens the juvenile dithering that plagues first person narration.