ashurredly's reviews
453 reviews

I wanted to like Priory much more than I did. The good: romance! The witch is scary and awful but interesting! I like the take on Tudor/Elizabethean era norms. I read Loth as being vaguely Dudley and thought the twist so that queens are required to have heirs but the heir is a daughter was interesting.

However, the book is so, so, soooo long and by the end I just didn't care anymore. Trimming the details or splitting it into a duology might have helped. Some of the journeys seem pointless and there are odd little side trips that feel very irrelevant. Also, implausible given how far away places are from each other and the time it must take to get from one to the next. The villains aren't interesting, there's no real sense of their motives, and while the dragons are supposed to be awful - and are - they also don't have enough personality to make me interested in reading about them.

Such a fun, sweet read! The aunties in this book rival those in Huff's Enchantment Emporium. The writing is a little stilted at times and I had a hard time buying one of the romances, but the quiet magic, the fierce family love, and the food and fashion descriptions outweighed those bits.

I almost stopped reading after the first few pages because one of the viewpoint characters was such an absolute cad (the phrase "higher regard for her hymen" was used). But I checked the reviews and decided to continue. I'm glad I did! Overall, a good read, if perhaps a little too sprawly in terms of the strings of the plot.

Interesting follow-up to the first book. I do think there were fewer power struggles going on in Tsiora's side given the Lesser/Noble divide than I expected and I would have like to see Tau grappling with his losses a little more.

Pros:
Very fashion!
A luck spirit!
Happy ending!
Sympathetic mother!
Friends!
Potential ace representation!


Cons:
So heavy handed re: Women's Plight. I like the central device with the collar and even the reasoning behind it (it's obnoxious but at least there is a reason, ugh). I just wish the conversations and such around it had been less clunky.

Unearned reconciliation with the dad.

I was frustrated with this book for about the first 60% of it - it felt so meandering. But the last 40% was quick and heartwrenching and satisfying, so 5 stars.