Several years ago, I found The Bridge Kingdom by Danielle L. Jensen on Audible Plus. This means that no credit is needed to listen to the audiobook, which is a nice surprise. I liked the book and I was planning on listening to it’s sequel, The Traitor Queen, soon-ish. Well, that took me about 2 years, but I finally did. Actually, I read the Dutch translation of the book which just got released. In this review you can read my thoughts on it. Spoiler warning: there are spoilers for The Bridge Kingdom in this review that simply cannot be avoided.
- Title: The Traitor Queen
- Author: Danielle L. Jensen
- Series: The Bridge Kingdom #2
- Publication date: September 1, 2020
- Publisher: Context Literary Agency LLC
- ISBN: 9781733090360
- Number of pages: 346
- Genre: New Adult, Fantasy
A queen now in exile as a traitor, Lara has watched Ithicana be conquered by her own father, helpless to do anything to stop the destruction. But when she learns her husband, Aren, has been captured in battle, Lara knows there is only one reason her father is keeping him alive: as bait for his traitorous daughter.
And it is bait she fully intends to take.
Risking her life to the Tempest Seas, Lara returns to Ithicana with a plan not only to free its king, but for liberating the Bridge Kingdom from her father’s clutches using his own weapons: the sisters whose lives she spared. But not only is the palace inescapable, there are more players in the game than Lara ever realized, enemies and allies switching sides in the fight for crowns, kingdoms, and bridges. But her greatest adversary of all might be the very man she’s trying to free – the husband she betrayed.
With everything she loves in jeopardy, Lara must decide who – and what – she is fighting for: her kingdom, her husband, or herself.
After the ending of The Bridge Kingdom, my expectations were quite high. Unfortunately, I got disappointed by this sequel. Aren has been captured by the Maridrinian king. When Lara finds out, she wants to do everything to get him free. However, the people of Itikana see her as a traitor and put her in exile. They don’t even trust her anymore. Lara needs to regain their trust and convince tehm to let her help in freeing Aren. Aren on the other hand, tries everything to escape as well. Will both Lara and Aren succeed in their mission and can they have a happily ever after?
First things first, the writing is okay. Not flawless, but it’s easy to follow. Also, the multiple POV narration is a plus, this way we get to know both Aren’s and Lara’s side of the story. In fact, this is necessary since they are separated. Unfortunately, they started to annoy me once the story is moving forward. I still don’t feel the chemistry between the two and to be quite honest, I miss the spice from before. Besides, I have a feeling their character growth has come to a standstill. They barely seem to grow in this book. The characters were the weakest part of this story in general. We see many familiar faces returning, but we also get introduced to new characters. However, we only see them briefly. Several will return in the next book in this world, others seem to have gone forever. They stay really shallow.
Actually, shallow is the best word to describe this book. There’s happening a lot, a bit too much in my opinion. This means that this book is action-packed, but there’s no calming down it seems. I miss these moments where the characters could for example reflect on themselves and their relationship. It happens, but briefly. I just miss more depth, something the previous book in this series actually has. The action is also quite fast. Too fast, everything seems to go really easy. At one point, I was so over it and I really hoped to finish the book as soon as possible. I got annoyed.
Unfortunately, I was not quite happy with The Traitor Queen by Danielle L. Jensen. The best words to describe this book are a whirlwind and shallow. That’s exactly what this book is. Character growth was lacking and it’s a whirlwind of action. So much action in fact that there is no calming down. It reads fast though and the multiple POVs work well, but at one point I was so annoyed I wanted to be done with this book. I’m not that certain I will continue this series, we get to see different main characters though but set in the same world. Oh wait, the world building was also lacking, inspite this being a complicated one. I mean, I had not a real bad time reading (hence my rating), but I just needed – and expected – more.
Leave a Reply