The Queen of Sorrow

The Queen of Sorrow by Sarah Beth Durst

In Reluctant Queen, we met Naelin, Aratay's other queen, and it became apparent very quickly that her children are the most important beings in her world. So when they are kidnapped by foreign spirits near the border with Semo, her sorrow & fury at losing her children is palpable to the Aratarian spirits she is bonded to, and they become agitated in response to her spilling emotions. Naelin strives to learn control as she works to figure out what has happened to her children, while Daleina struggles to hold the country together when one of its queens is unstable.

In this installement of the Queens of Renthia, we get to travel into Semo for a time, and witness the ruggedly volatile mountain country that is plagued by too many spirits. We spend time with Merecot, and gain more insight into her character's motivation. We also have brief glimpses of the other countries in Renthia, and their respective Queens. And so our knowledge of this world grows wider as the loose ends of our tale draw to a close.

We also finally get to meet Champion Ven's family, which is both amusing and telling. His sister, Sira, is a canopy singer, and also my favorite new character from this book.

Another one of my favorite bits of this tale was getting to hear the creation stories of the spirits. In the past two books, we've gotten to know Renthia, the spirits & the people. But now, with the additional insight into the Great Mother and how the world came to be, we start to see how the spirits came to be so closely linked to the land, why they despise humanity as much as they do, and why they're in constant chaos when they don't have a queen. These were questions that I had been wondering about, and I love that Durst has given us some good explanations.

As our cast of characters grows wider, the tale of the Queens of Renthia draws to a thrilling conclusion. This is a book about country & family, resourcefulness and creating new solutions when the ones presented are simply not good enough.