Erika Johansen
Author of The Queen of the Tearling
About the Author
Erika Johansen was educated at Swarthmore College and received an MFA from the Iowa Writers' Workshop. She is the Author of The Invasion of the Tearling, and The Queen of the Tearling, the first two novels of The Queen of the Tearling Trilogy. (Bowker Author Biography)
Series
Works by Erika Johansen
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Birthdate
- 1978
- Gender
- female
- Education
- Swarthmore College
Iowa Writers' Workshop - Occupations
- fantasy writer
attorney - Short biography
- Erika Johansen grew up and lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. She went to Swarthmore College, earned an MFA from the Iowa Writers' Workshop, and eventually became an attorney, but she never stopped writing.
She is a debut author who graduated from the celebrated Iowa Writers' Workshop. Johansen claims she heard then-Senator Obama give a speech in 2007 and was inspired to create the series' idealistic heroine, 19-year-old Kelsea Glynn. The author completed the novel over a four-year period while finishing law school as well. - Nationality
- USA
- Places of residence
- San Francisco, California, USA
- Associated Place (for map)
- California, USA
Members
Reviews
‘’A woman drew her long black
hair out tight
And fiddled whisper music on
those strings
And bats with baby faces in the
violet light
Whistles, and beat their wings
And crawled head downward
down a blackened wall
And upside down in air were
towers
Tolling reminiscent bells, that
kept the hours
And voices singing out of empty
cisterns and exhausted
wells.’’
-The Waste Land
T.S.Eliot
This is not the glorious, Christmassy, crystal-clear world of The Nutcracker as we have come to know it from show more E.T.A Hoffman’s original story. This is a Gothic world where chocolate resembles blood, where the moon is black, where the Fairy is the Devil and the Kingdom of Sweets is Hell.
And this book is much better than the original. In fact, it is a masterpiece.
‘’Fallen angels, old pagan gods, animal spirits…it matters not which mythology you hunt through, you will find the same thing: creatures who despise mankind. They await our downfall, speed it along when they can. They seek vengeance upon us.’’
‘’For what?’’
‘’For being shut out of the light.’’
One of the most fascinating quotes I’ve ever read!
Two sisters are fighting over a man. The Light and the Dark, creations and pawns of Godfather Drosselmeyer. The heart of our story is Natasha, the Dark Sister, the one who has the brains and the courage to stand her ground. To seek justice and vengeance, to commit what one may deem as unethical acts to make others face their sins. She faces ordeals where there should be none, starting with the hatred of her empty-headed sister whose only worth is measured in beauty and sexual prowess.
‘’You are the dark sister. You always see. You’re doomed to see.’’
She is kind to those who are viewed as nothing more than ‘servants’ and fiery against the ones who pollute the world with their presence. She faces mirrors of darkness, figures lurking behind her, disturbing her peace of mind. She faces screaming women and threatening ornaments. Most importantly, she faces the thwarting of her childhood dreams. She faces pure wrath at a time when dead bodies of young men are washed ashore, an era of upheaval. She is one of the most fascinating characters I’ve ever encountered in a novel, the creation of an extraordinary literary mind.
‘’Who knew what trees really thought,, long after we had taken them for pleasure and use, twisting them into shapes never intended? Who knew what memories even the dead wood might hold?’’
Erika Johansen created a novel that reminded me of Goya’s Pinturas Negras. It is twisted and poignant and moving, a world of dark fairytales, of the eternal fight between Good and Evil, exceptionally portrayed. The writing is outstanding, the characters step out of the pages and parade before the reader’s eyes. The dialogue is almost poetic and Natasha is the perfect guide to a story that goes so much deeper than a simple fairytale. Johansen touches upon themes that concern us all, commenting on mental health, repercussions and consequences and moments that changed the course of History in the most violent and vilest manner. I think we all know what comes to mind when we read the following quote:
‘’There is no revolution for man, not really. I have observed your kind since the dawning. They mean well. They wish to slay monsters. But murder begets murder, and so your heroes invariably become monsters themselves.’’
Rich in beautiful, evocative descriptions, brave, elegantly dark. The last few pages chronicling the butchers of the Russian Revolution and their communist nightmare are outstanding and frightening. The setting of New York during the book's final part is heart-warming and fascinating. The ending is PERFECTION.
‘’Thank you to the teachers, who do the most important job there is.’’
Erika Johansen
I have read hundreds of books. I have never encountered the tiniest example of gratitude from a writer to teachers and the sentence above warmed my heart. Therefore, thank you so much, Erika Johansen!
‘Whose blood is that?’, I asked.
‘All of them, child.’ She gasped, her breath beginning to falter now. ‘Pharaohs, Romans, Vikings…If you dug deep enough, you’d find Cain himself in there. This is the record of my dealings, and I give it to you.’
P.S. Seriously, Goodreads mob? Can’t you handle a YA without smut and ridiculous magic? Can’t you handle your ridiculous ‘trigger warnings?’? Can’t you handle some ACTUAL Literature? I mean, ‘’Christian propaganda?’’ You need a brain transplant...What is happening inside your empty heads?And I'd rather read ''Christian propaganda'' than your atheistic trash.
My reviews can also be found on https://theopinionatedreaderblog.wordpress.com/ show less
hair out tight
And fiddled whisper music on
those strings
And bats with baby faces in the
violet light
Whistles, and beat their wings
And crawled head downward
down a blackened wall
And upside down in air were
towers
Tolling reminiscent bells, that
kept the hours
And voices singing out of empty
cisterns and exhausted
wells.’’
-The Waste Land
T.S.Eliot
This is not the glorious, Christmassy, crystal-clear world of The Nutcracker as we have come to know it from show more E.T.A Hoffman’s original story. This is a Gothic world where chocolate resembles blood, where the moon is black, where the Fairy is the Devil and the Kingdom of Sweets is Hell.
And this book is much better than the original. In fact, it is a masterpiece.
‘’Fallen angels, old pagan gods, animal spirits…it matters not which mythology you hunt through, you will find the same thing: creatures who despise mankind. They await our downfall, speed it along when they can. They seek vengeance upon us.’’
‘’For what?’’
‘’For being shut out of the light.’’
One of the most fascinating quotes I’ve ever read!
Two sisters are fighting over a man. The Light and the Dark, creations and pawns of Godfather Drosselmeyer. The heart of our story is Natasha, the Dark Sister, the one who has the brains and the courage to stand her ground. To seek justice and vengeance, to commit what one may deem as unethical acts to make others face their sins. She faces ordeals where there should be none, starting with the hatred of her empty-headed sister whose only worth is measured in beauty and sexual prowess.
‘’You are the dark sister. You always see. You’re doomed to see.’’
She is kind to those who are viewed as nothing more than ‘servants’ and fiery against the ones who pollute the world with their presence. She faces mirrors of darkness, figures lurking behind her, disturbing her peace of mind. She faces screaming women and threatening ornaments. Most importantly, she faces the thwarting of her childhood dreams. She faces pure wrath at a time when dead bodies of young men are washed ashore, an era of upheaval. She is one of the most fascinating characters I’ve ever encountered in a novel, the creation of an extraordinary literary mind.
‘’Who knew what trees really thought,, long after we had taken them for pleasure and use, twisting them into shapes never intended? Who knew what memories even the dead wood might hold?’’
Erika Johansen created a novel that reminded me of Goya’s Pinturas Negras. It is twisted and poignant and moving, a world of dark fairytales, of the eternal fight between Good and Evil, exceptionally portrayed. The writing is outstanding, the characters step out of the pages and parade before the reader’s eyes. The dialogue is almost poetic and Natasha is the perfect guide to a story that goes so much deeper than a simple fairytale. Johansen touches upon themes that concern us all, commenting on mental health, repercussions and consequences and moments that changed the course of History in the most violent and vilest manner. I think we all know what comes to mind when we read the following quote:
‘’There is no revolution for man, not really. I have observed your kind since the dawning. They mean well. They wish to slay monsters. But murder begets murder, and so your heroes invariably become monsters themselves.’’
Rich in beautiful, evocative descriptions, brave, elegantly dark. The last few pages chronicling the butchers of the Russian Revolution and their communist nightmare are outstanding and frightening. The setting of New York during the book's final part is heart-warming and fascinating. The ending is PERFECTION.
‘’Thank you to the teachers, who do the most important job there is.’’
Erika Johansen
I have read hundreds of books. I have never encountered the tiniest example of gratitude from a writer to teachers and the sentence above warmed my heart. Therefore, thank you so much, Erika Johansen!
‘Whose blood is that?’, I asked.
‘All of them, child.’ She gasped, her breath beginning to falter now. ‘Pharaohs, Romans, Vikings…If you dug deep enough, you’d find Cain himself in there. This is the record of my dealings, and I give it to you.’
P.S. Seriously, Goodreads mob? Can’t you handle a YA without smut and ridiculous magic? Can’t you handle your ridiculous ‘trigger warnings?’? Can’t you handle some ACTUAL Literature? I mean, ‘’Christian propaganda?’’ You need a brain transplant...What is happening inside your empty heads?And I'd rather read ''Christian propaganda'' than your atheistic trash.
My reviews can also be found on https://theopinionatedreaderblog.wordpress.com/ show less
I rarely buy a new release, but the library wait was so long and after finishing the first book I just couldn’t wait.
I actually liked the second book in the series even more than the first. Instead of playing it safe and giving us more of the same, Johansen added in a huge twist to the book. We pick up where we left off with Kelsea, but we also flashback, throughout the book, to a time before the Crossing. We have a chance to see what America had become and why people longed for a new show more world. It gave a lot more context and depth to the book.
The supporting characters keep things interesting. There’s Mace, the head of the queen’s guard, the local priests, the young children living in the Keep, a thief named Fetch whose face no one has seen, the Red Queen and her devious ways, and more. Along the way Kelsea is trying to figure out who she is as a ruler and a woman.
Each chapter starts with a small passage from a history book. It took me a minute to realize who the author was and who they were written about, but I loved the element that those lines added to the story.
BOTTOM LINE: A fast read that left me eagerly awaiting the final book in the trilogy. The books aren’t perfect and there are certainly pieces that remind me of other books, but they are entertaining and very engrossing reads.
“Anger clouded judgment, precipitated bad decisions. Anger was the indulgence of a child, not a queen.”
“The Queen had not thought of her soldiers, only a principal, and principal was cold comfort to men who are going to die.”
“Corruption begins with a single moment of weakness.”
“It's a real thing, glory. But it pales in comparison to what we sacrifice for it. Home, family, long lives filled with quiet. These are real things too, and when we seek glory, we give them up.” show less
I actually liked the second book in the series even more than the first. Instead of playing it safe and giving us more of the same, Johansen added in a huge twist to the book. We pick up where we left off with Kelsea, but we also flashback, throughout the book, to a time before the Crossing. We have a chance to see what America had become and why people longed for a new show more world. It gave a lot more context and depth to the book.
The supporting characters keep things interesting. There’s Mace, the head of the queen’s guard, the local priests, the young children living in the Keep, a thief named Fetch whose face no one has seen, the Red Queen and her devious ways, and more. Along the way Kelsea is trying to figure out who she is as a ruler and a woman.
Each chapter starts with a small passage from a history book. It took me a minute to realize who the author was and who they were written about, but I loved the element that those lines added to the story.
BOTTOM LINE: A fast read that left me eagerly awaiting the final book in the trilogy. The books aren’t perfect and there are certainly pieces that remind me of other books, but they are entertaining and very engrossing reads.
“Anger clouded judgment, precipitated bad decisions. Anger was the indulgence of a child, not a queen.”
“The Queen had not thought of her soldiers, only a principal, and principal was cold comfort to men who are going to die.”
“Corruption begins with a single moment of weakness.”
“It's a real thing, glory. But it pales in comparison to what we sacrifice for it. Home, family, long lives filled with quiet. These are real things too, and when we seek glory, we give them up.” show less
As I read it, I was pleasantly surprised to feel like I was reading the Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison, which was a good thing because I really enjoyed that novel. There is more outright and bloody intrigue in this novel, though, and when things starting diverging from consolidating her rule and going to war, the similarities end almost immediately. Not a bad thing at all. There's no pussyfooting around before we get into the action. She knows her mind, even if it is prompted to her by show more her PD jewel, and she goes after all the things that she believes is right. She's no Sleeping Beauty, and for that, I love it.
There are some pretty major character reveals/reasons that are left out of the first book, but none of them belong to our heroine. She's a book nerd which is going to serve her very well in upcoming volumes because we know, (reasonably absolutely, at least in my head,) that the intelligent and powerful magic jewels and the dark monster living inside the Red Queen comes from before the "Crossing". Backstory is coming. It has to. Which makes me wonder about the "Crossing". It sounds like all these descendants in these four kingdoms came from an alternate earth after a cataclysm in "our" future. Either that, or they copied all the names of the lands from their old history after landfall and an interstellar passage.
Does this sound like fantasy? Ok, sure, it does sound like sci-fi, but one thing anyone ought to notice is that the novel really feels like fantasy right down to its core. The only sci-fi aspects are those that are merely hinted at, like doctors who are so powerful that one can service a large town, or plastic surgery, or deeper hints that life-extension is not only possible, but is being exploited by a powerful few. What did I think about when so many droves of small children got their blood sucked out by a the Red Queen's dark little beasty? That's right. Concentrated life juice to keep her skin all supple. The sex is just a part of the life-force harvesting, I'm sure. So do we have a reason for all the rapey-rapey rapefest? I'm willing to bet anything on it, and I'm still working on the hints I've received from this text alone. I just got the second book, so I really want to see if my suspicions pan out or if I'm going to be blown away by something even better. (I hope it's something better.)
I really loved how there wasn't much in the way of romance. Enough is enough already. I didn't mind the preachy idealism, either, because our main character is 19 years old, after all, and she is coming into a wildly complicated situation armed with nothing but her standards and the fact that the populous is expressing a weird "here is the chosen one" vibe. It's not too oppressive, at least, and the powerful and willful jewels lend it some credence, but at least it explains a bit more of why they let her on the throne besides matrilineal succession with or without the religious angles.
I suppose the only real problem I have with the tale is the overreliance on the jewels. I know that's kind of unfair, because the main character is headstrong, intelligent, and capable. She has a good mix of ruthlessness and mercy. She's a good person who doesn't sit around and let things come to a head. She jumps in and immediately tries to fix whatever she sees as wrong. None of that has anything to do with the jewels. Unfortunately, the jewels do seem to steal the show when they come into play. It's almost as if we don't really 'need' this capable woman, because she already has a god-like plot device to handle her decision making for her.
Other than that, the intrigue and the plot twists were quite delightful and extensive. Almost the entire book was filled with it. I particularly liked how she eventually got so many people to bend the knee to her. The best times were the ones that were earned.
I totally recommend this book if you're looking for a traditional fantasy with a strong female out to destroy another strong female. The villains are a bit adult-cartoonish in this first novel, but I'm almost to the opinion that this was an editorial choice, and not particularly one that the author might have liked. I think I'd have preferred to see a bit more dimensions on the POV twists. That being said, this novel is a pretty damn good start to a series. I'm glad I hadn't read any of the blurbs or PR before picking it up.
A good review is usually enough to convince me to give this a chance, and so it was. I hope the same will be true for you, too! show less
There are some pretty major character reveals/reasons that are left out of the first book, but none of them belong to our heroine. She's a book nerd which is going to serve her very well in upcoming volumes because we know, (reasonably absolutely, at least in my head,) that the intelligent and powerful magic jewels and the dark monster living inside the Red Queen comes from before the "Crossing". Backstory is coming. It has to. Which makes me wonder about the "Crossing". It sounds like all these descendants in these four kingdoms came from an alternate earth after a cataclysm in "our" future. Either that, or they copied all the names of the lands from their old history after landfall and an interstellar passage.
Does this sound like fantasy? Ok, sure, it does sound like sci-fi, but one thing anyone ought to notice is that the novel really feels like fantasy right down to its core. The only sci-fi aspects are those that are merely hinted at, like doctors who are so powerful that one can service a large town, or plastic surgery, or deeper hints that life-extension is not only possible, but is being exploited by a powerful few. What did I think about when so many droves of small children got their blood sucked out by a the Red Queen's dark little beasty? That's right. Concentrated life juice to keep her skin all supple. The sex is just a part of the life-force harvesting, I'm sure. So do we have a reason for all the rapey-rapey rapefest? I'm willing to bet anything on it, and I'm still working on the hints I've received from this text alone. I just got the second book, so I really want to see if my suspicions pan out or if I'm going to be blown away by something even better. (I hope it's something better.)
I really loved how there wasn't much in the way of romance. Enough is enough already. I didn't mind the preachy idealism, either, because our main character is 19 years old, after all, and she is coming into a wildly complicated situation armed with nothing but her standards and the fact that the populous is expressing a weird "here is the chosen one" vibe. It's not too oppressive, at least, and the powerful and willful jewels lend it some credence, but at least it explains a bit more of why they let her on the throne besides matrilineal succession with or without the religious angles.
I suppose the only real problem I have with the tale is the overreliance on the jewels. I know that's kind of unfair, because the main character is headstrong, intelligent, and capable. She has a good mix of ruthlessness and mercy. She's a good person who doesn't sit around and let things come to a head. She jumps in and immediately tries to fix whatever she sees as wrong. None of that has anything to do with the jewels. Unfortunately, the jewels do seem to steal the show when they come into play. It's almost as if we don't really 'need' this capable woman, because she already has a god-like plot device to handle her decision making for her.
Other than that, the intrigue and the plot twists were quite delightful and extensive. Almost the entire book was filled with it. I particularly liked how she eventually got so many people to bend the knee to her. The best times were the ones that were earned.
I totally recommend this book if you're looking for a traditional fantasy with a strong female out to destroy another strong female. The villains are a bit adult-cartoonish in this first novel, but I'm almost to the opinion that this was an editorial choice, and not particularly one that the author might have liked. I think I'd have preferred to see a bit more dimensions on the POV twists. That being said, this novel is a pretty damn good start to a series. I'm glad I hadn't read any of the blurbs or PR before picking it up.
A good review is usually enough to convince me to give this a chance, and so it was. I hope the same will be true for you, too! show less
Regardless of how I feel about various plot developments, I hated for this book to end. It's even worse than when I finished the first, because I read that only two months before this was released, and now I know I'll have to wait a long time before the third comes out. I just wish I could keep reading.
I didn't struggle with the perspective switches between Lily and Kelsea, and I thought their connection was an interesting way to answer all our questions leftover from the first book, about show more the plausibility of Kelsea's world even existing. I was skeptical of Lily's story for a while, not least because I'm totally out of patience with dystopia, but I was sold in the end. What I had trouble with was all the queens—there are at least six who are regularly mentioned, and when one queen talks to another queen while thinking about a third or fourth, I have to do some backtracking to follow the thread. This, however, is an awesome problem to have, so I'm not complaining.
The thing with Kelsea's appearance... It doesn't really make sense to me. Was it just a kind of fantasy fulfillment on Johansen's part? The transformation is pretty well examined, though, and all the conclusions seem to be negative. Kelsea knows early on that it's a false thing, that she wants no part of people who would like her better now that she's prettier. There's also a clear connection between the physical transformation, Kelsea's increasing brutality—although not necessarily, I don't think, her increasing power—andthe Mort Queen's own similar transformation, maybe even Rowland Finn's . I think the power would have been hers anyway, but the beauty and the "dark thing" both signal changes into someone that isn't necessarily herself. So then was that the point? The implication that beauty is a dangerous, destabilizing power? Because that's really not okay, either. So I'm left wondering why that particular aspect of the plot was included.
This has the feel of a trilogy, but I kind of hope it'll end up being longer. Kelsea is a thoughtful character with a lot of depth, and I love her story. I love the supporting characters like Lazarus, Father Tyler (who I'm anxious to hear about), Asia, Pen, and Ewen. I'm looking forward to seeing where they all go. show less
I didn't struggle with the perspective switches between Lily and Kelsea, and I thought their connection was an interesting way to answer all our questions leftover from the first book, about show more the plausibility of Kelsea's world even existing. I was skeptical of Lily's story for a while, not least because I'm totally out of patience with dystopia, but I was sold in the end. What I had trouble with was all the queens—there are at least six who are regularly mentioned, and when one queen talks to another queen while thinking about a third or fourth, I have to do some backtracking to follow the thread. This, however, is an awesome problem to have, so I'm not complaining.
The thing with Kelsea's appearance... It doesn't really make sense to me. Was it just a kind of fantasy fulfillment on Johansen's part? The transformation is pretty well examined, though, and all the conclusions seem to be negative. Kelsea knows early on that it's a false thing, that she wants no part of people who would like her better now that she's prettier. There's also a clear connection between the physical transformation, Kelsea's increasing brutality—although not necessarily, I don't think, her increasing power—and
This has the feel of a trilogy, but I kind of hope it'll end up being longer. Kelsea is a thoughtful character with a lot of depth, and I love her story. I love the supporting characters like Lazarus, Father Tyler (who I'm anxious to hear about), Asia, Pen, and Ewen. I'm looking forward to seeing where they all go. show less
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