Four Dead Queens Is Adventurous Thrill Ride
As my title suggests, Four Dead Queens is an adventurous thrill ride from start to finish. Debut author Astrid Scholte plunges readers right into the magical, mysterious and dark world she's brilliantly created. Protagonist Keralie Corrington lives in the capital city of Quadra within the nation of the same name. She's intelligent, clever, spunky, and has chutzpah. I rooted for her from the beginning. I'm positive other readers will, too. As for Quadra, it's divided into different quadrants -- Toria, Eonia, Ludia, and Archia -- and is ruled by four queens. All quadrants have unique environments, people, traditions, and laws.
The novel is also broken up into parts and told from varying perspectives. This makes the story especially nerve wracking as you get to know each queen, and then they are killed off one-by-one.
When Kera, a thief, is caught stealing an important package from a messenger, Varin Bollt, it puts both their lives in danger. The package contains comm chips. Keira watches them (via a cool way, won't tell, no spoilers) and sees that all four queens will be murdered.
So, Kera and Varin form a partnership and go on the run from Kera's former employer, Mackiel Delore, Jr, a top-notch thief, and the son of corrupt businessman. Why? He wants to know what's on that package. Mackiel, too, is a fascinating character. The description of his appearance reminded me a lot of Alex in "A Clockwork Orange." (The bowler hat and the kohl eye-liner.) He also has a lot of fantastic lines of dialogue. I bet Scholte had fun writing him. Yes, there's two forbidden romances in Four Dead Queens, which I was totally down for and didn't mind at all.
Four Dead Queens is extremely visual and cinematic in scope. Each chapter ends on an exciting scene that makes you eagerly turn the pages to find out what happens next. I did! The locales are also very descriptive and I could visualize every place the characters were in. I also liked that we got to know the queens. It wasn't, like, these four queens are dead go find out why, and we know nothing about them. They had backstories, personalities (some you may like better than others) and secrets.
As Penguin said "get ready for your first 2019 obsession." Yes, I believe so! I'm completely happy with this being a standalone. Yea, for standalones! I look forward to whatever Scholte writes next because this was glorious good fun!
The novel is also broken up into parts and told from varying perspectives. This makes the story especially nerve wracking as you get to know each queen, and then they are killed off one-by-one.
When Kera, a thief, is caught stealing an important package from a messenger, Varin Bollt, it puts both their lives in danger. The package contains comm chips. Keira watches them (via a cool way, won't tell, no spoilers) and sees that all four queens will be murdered.
So, Kera and Varin form a partnership and go on the run from Kera's former employer, Mackiel Delore, Jr, a top-notch thief, and the son of corrupt businessman. Why? He wants to know what's on that package. Mackiel, too, is a fascinating character. The description of his appearance reminded me a lot of Alex in "A Clockwork Orange." (The bowler hat and the kohl eye-liner.) He also has a lot of fantastic lines of dialogue. I bet Scholte had fun writing him. Yes, there's two forbidden romances in Four Dead Queens, which I was totally down for and didn't mind at all.
Four Dead Queens is extremely visual and cinematic in scope. Each chapter ends on an exciting scene that makes you eagerly turn the pages to find out what happens next. I did! The locales are also very descriptive and I could visualize every place the characters were in. I also liked that we got to know the queens. It wasn't, like, these four queens are dead go find out why, and we know nothing about them. They had backstories, personalities (some you may like better than others) and secrets.
As Penguin said "get ready for your first 2019 obsession." Yes, I believe so! I'm completely happy with this being a standalone. Yea, for standalones! I look forward to whatever Scholte writes next because this was glorious good fun!