2.5⭐

Unfortunately, this was a miss for me. The best thing about this book was the narration, which managed to infuse some life into the unappealing characters. There were some good parts, but mostly it was just ok or even disappointing.

I don't regret picking it up, but just a month later, I am having trouble remembering what it was about.

I was just curious if it really deserves the low rating, and my curiosity was satisfied. ( )

A mad king with two daughters, an obsession with building a tomb, treachery, secrets, a thief who is much more and who once saved a princess, romance, battle, courage and surprises. All can be found while reading this book. I enjoyed it immensely. ( )

I want to start with that I was excited to read the book, based on the blurb, but then lost a little of that when I saw some early reviews. I was worried I'd be disappointed. But, oh, I was not.

We have Neve, our FMC, the second daughter of the King. While she's a Princess, her older sister, Una, is the one that is the Queen-in-waiting. But that's okay with Neve because she doesn't want to be the Queen. She wants to be the King. And then there is Ronan, our MMC, who is a thief and should be everything Neve is against. But he's not.

I really love the writing style for this story. I was interested in it all from the beginning and finished in less than a day. I do like Neve and Ronan, their banter, and that you get kind of get Dual pov. But this isn't 1st person POV. It's 3rd for anyone who is against that POV.

That is a reason why I've knocked it down a star. Also, there is a bit much of info dumping for this story. I expect some in fantasy books, but there was a lot that I wanted to just skim over. And I did feel the ending was a little rushed. But I would continue if this was a series to continue. I'm invested in Ronan and Neve. ( )

TW/CW: Death of a parent, death of a sibling, war, violence, fantasy violence

RATING: 3/5

REVIEW: I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley and am voluntarily writing an honest review.

Queen Among the Dead is the story of Neve, the youngest daughter (and princess) of the leader of an ancient Celtic Ireland. It follows her as she discovers her power and takes her destined place.

This book fell kind of flat for me. Although I liked the setting and the concept of the story, this book is filled with exposition. The world is complicated and in some cases doesn’t make a lot of sense, even though a LOT of time is spent trying to make the reader understand it. This comes, most unfortunately, at the expense of character development, of which there is very, very little.

This, of course, makes the climactic parts much less climactic because you can’t relate to the characters and therefore don’t really care what happens to them. It also makes the ‘romance’ – if you can call it that – come out of far left field. Honestly, I thought Neve had far more chemistry with her horse trainer than she did with the supposed ‘romantic’ lead.

There are the bones of a good story in here, but perhaps simplifying the story a bit and concentrating more on characters than on an overcomplicated plot would really have helped this book. ( )