Joanna Courtney

I adored Blood Queen and since King Lear and Cordelia hold an exceptional place in my heart, I was more than enthusiastic to start Iron Queen.

I was severely disappointed...

Through four 'units' named after the four major festivals in the Celtic Calendar (Imbolc, Samhain, Lughnasad and Beltaine), this is the story of Cordelia, Goneril and Regan, daughters to Leir and Branwen, taking part in a furious, relentless game of power and domination.

But.

Why do we need 150+ pages about dog breeding, puppies and dog tags?
What's with the wings and flying? Ancient Greeks did it first and did it well.
What's with the jarring, outrageously ridiculous nicknames of Dee, and Ree, and Gee? Are we in a series set in junior high school or something?
What's with the ''er''s? The druidesses/whores? The uninspiring dialogue, the love story suitable for teenagers whose only relation to reading is the screen of their mobile phones?

359 pages and the story becomes vaguely interesting (and then, falls flat again) after page 284. The Historical Notes were atrocious, revealing a woeful self-absorbed side of the writer and I begin to believe that Blood Queen was written by a different author. If you want to write Game of Thrones - style, you must know how.

Unfortunately, in this case, the Bard did it better and his monumental play should have remained untouched and not made into a ridiculously shallow teenage rump.

I will continue with Fire Queen but my expectations have become significantly lower.

Sidenote time: Dear writer, Christianity may be a 'rigid' religion to the likes of you, but at least WE DO NOT SACRIFICE PEOPLE.

Idiots.… (meer)

‘’I did not ask to be queen but I did look for the right to be so and the way the times turned around me, it amounted to the same thing.’’

I am ashamed to admit that my TBR shelf is full of Joanna Courtney’s works, but for unfathomable reasons, it is only now that I decided to start my journey into the exciting world of her novels with a book that aims to shed some necessary light into the real life of the woman we have come to know as ‘’Lady Macbeth’’.

Shakespeare is my life but there is no doubt that he did Lady Macbeth dirty so several novels are coming out to set things straight and I am here for it.

The synopsis is adequate so I won’t waste your time. What will you find in this novel? You will find the reason why Historical Fiction is a genre that can conquer the heart of a serious reader. You will find not ONE remarkable heroine but two. Yes, Cora is the heart of the novel but Sibyll is no less wonderful and what a joy it is for a writer to be able to make a reader root for both (opposing) sides at the same time. You will find noble men, men of valour and courage, you will find men whose actions seem to confuse treachery for love, you will find fiends and heroes.

You will read beautiful paragraphs, you will enjoy dialogue that is vivid, realistic and sensitive without becoming pretentious. You will find women who do not behave like men to appear strong. You will find the hard work of a writer who didn’t want to cancel or massacre Shakespeare. You will find no DOWN WITH THE PATRIARCHY nonsense targeted to pour honey into the ears of dirty, illiterate neo-leftists and misguided pseudo-feminists.

You will find Historical Fiction done to perfection.

And I adored the notes in the end. THAT is how Historical Fiction is done and I cannot wait to start another novel by Joanna Courtney.… (meer)