“If only I could behead people where they stood for displeasing me. Life would be much, much easier.”
Queen of Coin and Whispers by Helen Corcoran is a novel featuring a LGBT romance between two strong female leads. When I read the blurb for this book I was so excited to get stuck in. I thought it would be a refreshing read to have two powerful female characters become romantically involved. From the blurb I thought it would be a Carden and Jude enemies to lovers romance meets the political intrigue of The Priory of the Orange Tree both amazing books that I love dearly.
As I got into the book I realised that it wasn’t quite what I expected. The two main characters Lia and Xania I loved. They were both full well-rounded characters with their own faults and flaws. Lia the queen taking over a broken and broke kingdom. Xania a middle class girl trying to avenge her fathers death. As much as I loved these characters separately, their romance I found fell flat. There was no passion between them. When I compare it to the slow burn romance between Sabran and Ead in The Priory of the Orange Tree it just fell flat which I found disappointing. There was no reason why I didn’t want these characters together and yet I didn’t find their interactions romantic. After their first kiss things picked up and I could sort of see the romance-ish between them however the build up to it was pretty non existent.
One of the plot points that really kept me engaged with the book was the political intrigue. I loved the class system the book portrayed and that there was a monarch as well as a parliament that Lia had to contend with. Lia as a monarch was interesting as she was an idealist who wanted change to happen in her kingdom a lot quicker than the push backs that she kept coming up against. Seeing her frustration unfold at each obstacle until it resulted in a disastrous ruling error that caused Xania to leave her, I found an interesting exploration. I haven’t read many books that have explored how monarchs cope with the frustrations of ruling and how mistakes can come about from these frustrations.
The main villain in the novel gets killed off in mysterious circumstances half way through which I found to be a big power move by the author but it did help to reengage me with the story. When the other villain is revealed it was slightly obvious who it was however I still enjoyed reading it and his comeuppance scene was soooo satisfying.
I feel that I need to mention the ending of this book… I found it incredibly frustrating. It feels as if the author was rushing through the ending. Timelines were suddenly thrown at you from out of the blue. It had only been a few scenes but it would be casually mentioned between two characters that three months had passed! A lot of the ending as the reader you were just told what happened rather than it playing out on page. I found this really annoying to read, these characters go through quite a lot together and one of the main obstacles they faced as a couple was that the queen needed an heir. This is then resolved and they can be together, yet rather than experience this happiness and contentment you are just told about it. I think I would have preferred a longer book if we got to experience these scenes on page.
Overall I did enjoy the book, particularly the political intrigue however once I finished it I did feel rather cheated that the ending was so obviously rushed.
— Natasha Reads xx
The Talking Bookshelf 