Review: The Priory of the Orange Tree

The Priory of the Orange Tree
Samantha Shannon

Published By: Bloomsbury
Publication Date: February 26, 2019
Date Read: July 13, 2019
Genre: Adult - Fantasy
Source: Bought
Format: Hardback
Pages: 848

From Goodreads:
A world divided.
A queendom without an heir.
An ancient enemy awakens.

The House of Berethnet has ruled Inys for a thousand years. Still unwed, Queen Sabran the Ninth must conceive a daughter to protect her realm from destruction—but assassins are getting closer to her door.

Ead Duryan is an outsider at court. Though she has risen to the position of lady-in-waiting, she is loyal to a hidden society of mages. Ead keeps a watchful eye on Sabran, secretly protecting her with forbidden magic.

Across the dark sea, Tané has trained all her life to be a dragonrider, but is forced to make a choice that could see her life unravel.

Meanwhile, the divided East and West refuse to parley, and forces of chaos are rising from their sleep.

"We may be small, and we may be young, but we will shake the world for our beliefs."

The Priory of the Orange Tree is a book that has been on my radar ever since it was first announced. I am a huge fan of fantasy books, especially ones with dragons. So when I heard about this book I couldn't wait for it... and then when I saw the cover I was totally in love. I absolutely love the cover of this book. I enjoyed The Priory of the Orange Tree but honestly my feelings about the book as a whole are mixed. I was a little bit disappointed and unfortunately it just didn't live up to my expectations.

The Priory of the Orange Tree follows many characters in different parts of this world. I love that there was many characters to follow and it gives you a deeper insight into what is happening. You have characters at court in the East. This follows through to the South where the Priory is situated. You also have characters in the West who are directly in opposition to those in the East. It was really complex and interesting. My one issue was that there was so many characters and so much going on that I spent most of the first part of this book not really grasping who was who. All perspectives were wrote incredibly similarly and so I spent a few minutes at the start of each chapter asking myself 'who is this again?' This did get much easier the further I got through the book and I did end up really enjoying the different characters and seeing what was happening with each of them.

The Priory of the Orange Tree is the first book I've read from Samantha Shannon and she is such a fantastic author. I really enjoyed her writing style and it was super easy to read (after I'd got over the confusion with who was who). I think this writing style really helped me get through this book as I was so intimidated by its size. One thing I think worked really well was the fact that it was split into six smaller parts. This helped me get through the book as instead of being stuck about how enormous this book was and how much I had left to read, I focused more on how much of that part I had left.

The Priory of the Orange Tree is a good read. I was so excited to read it and I did enjoy it. The further I got through the more excited I was about getting to the end as I could feel it building up to something big. Unfortunately, after finishing the book I just felt a little... deflated. I was really disappointed in the ending. It was building up to this epic battle and I was so ready for it. And then it was just over in just a couple of pages. I read over 700 pages building up to this moment for it to just be over super quick. I was so disappointed. It felt pretty anti-climactic to me. In addition to this, the majority of the characters got a good ending... except one. There was one particular character who I didn't feel like she had an ending. If you asked me what happened to her... I couldn't tell you. It was left very strangely for one character and I have so many questions about what happened to her. Considering this is a standalone novel, I wanted an actual ending for all of them.

The Priory of the Orange Tree is a good fantasy book. It's full of magic, action and intrigue. If you're a fantasy fan you'll enjoy this book. Will I read it again? Probably not. It's a huge book and the ending just fell a little flat for me. Saying that though, I'm so glad I read it and I did enjoy the majority of it.

"Some truths are safest buried. Some castles best kept in the sky. There's promise in tales that are yet to be spoken."