The Priory of the Orange Tree

The fantasy novel Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon shows four points of view piecing together the story of the rivaling territories the East and West. The story is told by Loth, a friend of Queen Sabran who rules the queendom of Inys sent to the East by the principal secretary by the name of Combe or as others know him the knight Hawk. The second perspective is Tané in the East who was training to be a high sea guard and ride a dragon. Then there’s Niclays Roose in the East, an alchemist who promised to do something he couldn’t and ended up stuck on an island to try and continue his task. And finally, the last perspective is from Ead Duryan, a lady-in-waiting to the Queen of Inys but in reality sent there as a mage of the Priory. The story goes on as they figure out more about their world and the rise of the evil wyrms comes closer and closer. Queen Sabran is challenged with political conflicts and puts her own needs and wants aside to appeal to her people. The quick rise of the worms and the imminent fear of the nameless one as well as the draconic plague makes this book one of the best fantasy books or just books in general I have ever read. The author's world-building fills this book with colorful imagery and character development. There is so much effort put into these pages and Shannon captures the character's emotions so well they carry over to the reader. This is a very intimidating book just because of the amount of pages there are and the thickness of the book but it was 100% worth going through with and putting the time into reading it. I was a little skeptical about it as I first started reading because the stories didn’t completely make sense and I wasn’t sure how they would all fit together in the end, but it made a lot more sense once I got further into the book. For any future readers of this book, my only advice is to just give it time and don’t give up reading it because it is an incredible story and it deserves more recognition. I also realized that once I got through the first 100 pages the book went by a lot faster because I understood what was going on and that the 800 pages will go a lot faster than you think.