The Priory of the Orange Tree (The Roots of Chaos)

I re-read this one with great pleasure after finishing Day of Fallen Night. How great it was to see characters from the past fondly remembered as heroes. I particularly liked the two varieties of dragons. In the West, they are malevolent fire breathing monsters with giant wings. The Eastern dragons swim through the sky, rest in water, bring rain and wisdom and let people ride them. This book has thrilling action and disastrous death, heartfelt romance, badass warrior women and people who are willing to change with the times. I might want to visit Inys before Westeros.

Thanks to Netgalley for providing a sampler of the first ~100 pages in exchange for my honest review!

This was so good. I have A LOT of feelings.

Priory was the queer dragon fantasy of my dreams: The novel follows four different narrators spread throughout the fantasy world. It took me about 100 pages to really find my footing in the world – I was confronted with so many character names and places that I must’ve flipped to the map in front at least once per page! But once I actually understood the world the story was taking place in, I was completely enthralled.

I loved (most of) the characters and following their journeys was so interesting and so much fun – I was rarely able to guess where we were heading next and it took many show more more twists and turns to get to what we knew fairly early on would be the climax of the story! Even the painful parts were great – some of the character deaths really hurt me in my soul, but it wasn’t like I didn’t expect some people to die…

I also loved the romance, especially the main one: When have you read a fantasy novel with the main romance being female/female? And the only other one discussed in-depth male/male? It was so refreshing to see that. I also enjoyed how these characters remained themselves, even though they fell in love – so often people completely lose their heads as soon as they’re in a relationship, suddenly disregarding what they stand for and ignoring what has to be done for the world in favor of protecting their lover. We didn’t have that at all, here – quite the opposite.

But what really made this stand out to me are the messages about finding balance and how necessary it is for the future to move forward and past old grievances, opening up to new things. There is a lot to learn for our world. I’ll definitely be pushing everyone to read this. show less

What a delightful read! This prose is just dripping with everything yum. I really enjoyed learning some Old English along the way, and beefing up my vocabulary, because holy words, Batman! Characters that I definitely relate to, queerness on every side, dragons and the sea and rapiers and everything you want in a stand-alone fantasy. Engaging story, excellent world-building, and a few sizzling hot romance scenes to boot. There is nothing not to like about this one!

This was so close to being a 5-star book. The setting was relatively interesting, the lore was somewhat unique, and the main characters were compelling. I actually enjoyed the romantic plots for some of these characters and didn't feel like it was forced. I was happy to be reading a standalone novel that wasn't going to be the next GoT and understood that some cuts would need to be made. You can't go as deep when you are only writing one novel to cover an epic storyline.

But that's...kind of the problem? 75% of the book was paced beautifully and the last quarter felt so rushed. We spend dozens of pages following Loth and his journey but after Tane does a certain something we skip ahead to her return? It just felt like the editors were show more like, "Uh, Samantha, you need to cut like 100-200 pages." I actually WISH this book had just been 1,000 pages or a trilogy to spend more time with these characters and explore more of their stories because some of them were simply rushed.

Also, the last battle was just not well done. It was hard to follow and I couldn't get a sense of scope and space where the people were moving around. It just felt like it needed more time to cook and be clear.

That being said, this is a fantastic book and still in my top 5 of standalone fantasy novels. I can overlook these things because the majority of the novel is just really well done and I couldn't put it down. show less

I was put off this book for a long time because of its size. I shouldn't have been. The Priory (and its equally large prequel, A Day of Fallen Night, which I read first) never failed to keep my attention.

Refreshingly, it upends many fantasy tropes such as the quest or the lone male hero or protector. It not only centers women, but it centers concepts like community and working together toward a common goal, even when you hate or fear the people with whom you have to work. There are many cultural differences and realistically different relationships among the characters. It reminds me that this is why we need diverse authors - we don't need to keep telling the same story over and over again forever.

This book is the epitome of the phrase “and then the dragons arrived”. I will admit even as a prolific high fantasy reader, I struggled with the first 100 pages of this book. Ms. Shannon spares no pity for the weak.

I am stunned by the amount of world building, lore, and character development she managed to cram into a one-shot high fantasy novel! This is a seriously unthinkable task but I was delighted and engaged.

Part action adventure, sapphic romance, pirate tale, and spy mission, even by the last 100 pages I was still spinning and trying to figure out how all these storylines would unite. But like a tinder taking to a flame, this novel burst into a radiant firestorm of a conclusion.

The novel ended happy but not happily ever show more after. The heroes have to bury their dead and come to terms with the sacrifices they had to make in the name of survival. And yet, the story was one of hope. Hope that tomorrow may bring change for the better.

After finishing this novel, I was honestly depressed for several hours. It meant that much to me to be engulfed in this narrative that finishing it left me feeling empty. show less

5 / 5

oh my god. holy shit.

this story happens in a gargantuan world. it feels big, it feels expansive, and the names are confusing! opening this book is like opening an ancient text written in hieroglyphs. it took me a good 200 pages to even recognize some of the names. exposition, exposition, exposition! but in this book, exposition is fucking key: if your reader doesn’t understand what is happening, your careful plotting is all for naught. this review will have 2 sections - a spoiler-free summary, and an in-depth spoiler-filled review.

we see two main arenas in the beginning: the east (namely in a country called seiiki that feels loosely based on china) and in the west (in a country called inys, which is very europe-coded). let’s show more meet our main besties shall we:

ead is a deadly, highly trained mage tasked with going undercover as a bodyguard for the queen of inys. basically the queen of the west! this lady’s IMPORTANT. ead is one of the queen’s ladies’ maids, and she pretends like she’s just a harmless girlie, praying to the saint (which… we’ll talk about the religion LMAO). she’s there on a mission from the secret society of all-female mages, who get their power from an ORANGE TREE. a sacred orange tree, mind you. ead’s job is to protect the queen and progeny of galian berethnet, also known as “the saint” (he’s functionally the god of inys, the deity that everybody be praying to). she HAS to protect her because this whacked out religion (i guess we have to talk about it) says that her lineage has to be on the throne or the big bad dragon called the nameless one will come back and fuck everybody up good. only ead takes her protection to HEART… if you know what i mean. (gay winking).

on the other side of the world, in seiiki, tané is preparing to graduate from her super religious, super military school to become either a dragon riding cop or a sequestered scholar (our girl is severely hoping for the former). one night she makes a BIG MISTAKE - she saves a shipwrecked man from the west and has her friend smuggle him into the country. this is real bad because 1. she broke her seclusion (she is supposed to remain hidden and pray in the days leading up to the “graduation” ceremony, which might also be called the choosing? idk man this was 800 pages ago). 2. seiiki has strict immigration rules and basically nobody from the west is allowed. because of the bad bad plague. which… we’ll get to that. so tané graduates, she becomes a dragon riding cop, hip hip hooray! but this one fuck up will come back to haunt her.

also in the west is sir arteloth beck, who i don’t care much for, therefore i will be explaining very little! just know that he’s close with ead and the queen, and is being EXILED because of court gossip.

and finally, in the east, an older gentleman named niclyas roos from Mentendon (a western country with close ties to inys) is living out his exile in seiiki. he’s like, the one link between the east and the west for a goood chunk of this book. he’s just miserable out there in orisima (a port town in seiiki) and he wishes that queen sabran of inys hadn’t exiled him :( poor poor man. i HATE him. i will waste no more brain power on his plot line show less