The Queen of Blood by Sarah Beth Durst
The Queens of Renthia bk 1. HarperCollins, 2016.
ISBN 9780062662064
(Age: 14+) Recommended. Fantasy. Alex Award (2017). Daleina is very
young when her village is attacked by spirits and everyone is killed
except members of her family. Seeing them in deadly danger, Daleina
is able to draw on her magical powers to stop them harming her
family but can't do anything to help the rest of the villagers. This
ordeal has remained with her and she is determined to fight the
spirits of air, water, earth, fire, ice or wood that inhabit her
country, Aratay. When she is 15 she goes to the Academy to train to
become an heir to the Queen, the only person who is able to stand
between the spirits and their destruction of humanity. Ven, an older
man, is a champion warrior who has been banished by the Queen and
who has spent his time fighting spirits on the outskirts of the
kingdom. He chooses Daleina as the person to mentor and together
they battle the evil that is threatening to take over the land.
This was a very exciting and engrossing read, which was difficult to
put down. Not only did it have adventure and daring, but the world
building was intensely interesting, with people living in the tree
tops and making journey by flying from one tree to another on
zip-lines. The spirits too were well drawn and Daleina's ability to
find out their desires created some wonderful visions of flying
through clouds and being sucked into the earth.
Durst takes a different tack in The Queen of Blood to the usual
romance between the two main characters often found in books,
instead Daleina and Ven are both engaged in defending their country,
with one being youthful and the other older and experienced. Daleina
is a quiet person who stubbornly wants to help her kingdom and works
very hard at the Academy to gain the skills that she needs. She
makes strong friendships with some of the other aspiring heirs. She
is strong enough to undergo the arduous training that Ven insists
upon when leaving the Academy, and clever enough to work out ways to
overcome the spirits.
The quest and the character building draw the reader in with a fresh
and original story and an unexpected and thrilling conclusion will
leave the reader desperate for the next in the series, The
reluctant Queen.
Pat Pledger