Title: The Queen’s Resistance
Author: Rebecca Ross
Page Count: 432 pages
Rating: 4 stars
Blurb from goodreads
Finally, Brienna is a mistress of knowledge and is settling into her role as the daughter of Davin MacQuinn, a disgraced lord who returned to Maevana to reclaim his house. Though she’d just survived a revolution, one that will finally return a queen to the throne, she faces another difficult challenge. She must prove herself trustworthy to the MacQuinns. But as Queen Isolde Kavanagh’s closest confidant, she’ll have to balance serving her father’s house as well as her country. And then there’s Cartier, a wholly separate but desirable factor in her new life.
Aodhan Morgane, formerly known as Cartier Évariste, is adjusting to the stark contrast between his pre-rebellion life in Valenia as a master of knowledge and his current one as the lord of a fallen house. During his castle’s restoration, he discovers a ten-year-old boy named Tomas, whose past and parentage are a complete mystery. So when Cartier’s former pupil Brienna is as taken with Tomas as he is, he lets his mind wander—what if he doesn’t have to raise him or his house alone?
As the Lannon trial rapidly approaches, Brienna and Cartier must put their feelings aside to concentrate on forging alliances, executing justice, and ensuring that no one interferes with the queen’s coronation. But resistance is rumbling among the old regime’s supporters, who are desperate to find a weakness in the rebels’ forces. And nothing makes a person more vulnerable than deep-seated love.”
I freaking devoured this book. For like the past month or so I’ve been in a major reading slump and I think this book just dragged me out of it. I mean, I finished this book in about a day, which hasn’t happened in a while.
The book starts out pretty much immediately after the first one ended with Aodhan (Cartier?) joining Brienna and her new family for dinner. It deals mostly with the immediate fall out of Isolde reclaiming her throne and trying to create alliances with the other major houses of Maevana. We see them trying to draw the line between keeping up with the traditions of Maevana and trying to move the kingdom forward into a more peaceful mindset. This is most prominently seen in how they deal with punishing the Lannon family, specifically the two young children who were abused by their dad. The book grapples with wanting to punish the family, but also wanting to be different, or better, than them and don’t want to start sinking to their level.
I’m glad that the author not only stayed away from introducing a love triangle, but doesn’t have Cartier ever doubt Brienna’s capability of protecting herself and believes her to be more than able to handle any situation (as can be seen when they find out Declan means to kidnap her). So many YA books fall trap to romanticizing toxic relationships and this book does well in avoiding that.
Something that I think this series should do in the next book is start fleshing out background characters like Isolde and Luc. Also, something that is lacking in the series so far would be a lack of representation. I hope that by maybe focusing on more characters in depth this issue may also be rectified. Other than that, the world building has been truly spectacular and I can’t wait to see everything wrapped up in the next book.
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