Title: Queen of the Conquered (Islands of Blood and Storm #1) by Kacen Callender

Genre(s): sci-fi/fantasy, fiction, historical

Publication: November 12, 2019

Description:

An ambitious young woman with the power to control minds seeks vengeance against the royals who murdered her family, in a Caribbean-inspired fantasy world embattled by colonial oppression. 

Sigourney Rose is the only surviving daughter of a noble lineage on the islands of Hans Lollik. When she was a child, her family was murdered by the islands’ colonizers, who have massacred and enslaved generations of her people—and now, Sigourney is ready to exact her revenge.

When the childless king of the islands declares that he will choose his successor from amongst eligible noble families, Sigourney uses her ability to read and control minds to manipulate her way onto the royal island and into the ranks of the ruling colonizers. But when she arrives, prepared to fight for control of all the islands, Sigourney finds herself the target of a dangerous, unknown magic.

Someone is killing off the ruling families to clear a path to the throne. As the bodies pile up and all eyes regard her with suspicion, Sigourney must find allies among her prey and the murderer among her peers… lest she become the next victim. (Goodreads)

Initial Thoughts

This sounds like such an interesting fantasy novel. I don’t think I’ve ever read a fantasy that is Caribbean inspired which could be a lot of fun. Truth be told, I know little about the culture and the oppression that has been suffered in that part of the world. The Caribbean comes up so infrequently in the land of bookish fantasy I feel like it would make this story feel fresh in a market saturated with European inspired fantasy.

Reading through some reviews it also seems that this book employs topics such as (TW) lynching, rape, slavery, and suicidal imagery. From the little I’ve read about the book’s inspirational era these would have been common things and it will be interesting to see how they are executed in terms of plot. This is a book I am going to be picking up soon. Although the Goodreads ratings are all over the board, it sounds right up my alley.

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