The Priory of the Orange Tree

The Priory of the Orange Tree has been one of my favourite reads of the year thus far! The book *looks* super imposing so I put off picking it up for a few weeks and then ended up absolutely devouring it over the course of three days! It has everything one could possibly want-- strong character arcs, religious zealots, cultural clashes, magic, DRAGONS (which, Clan Miduchi will have you know, are NOT the same as wyrms) and writing that literally transports you elsewhere.The premise of The Priory of the Orange Tree is a bit hard to describe because it tracks the perspectives of multiple characters from East and West, but essentially: Ead has been a transplant at a foreign court and is meant to protect Queen Sabran, who is the current ruler of the Virtudom and claims descent from the supposed defeater of the Nameless One (a big scary fire-breathing wyrm). She protects the queen using forbidden magic, which comes from her training as a mage in the Priory of the Orange Tree. In the West, a girl training as a dragon rider is trying to overcome her lack of pedigree in a fiercely competitive struggle to be named as one of the warriors in the most prestitious dragon rider clan of all time, the Miduchi. There are two other POVs that come from less major characters that sketch in some of the gaps around the world, but the book basically threads together disparate pieces of heritage, us vs them mentality, religious fanaticism, developing romantic interests, and the history of three magical trees and women they made powerful into one epic, lush fantasy with world-building for days.What I Loved:- Ead was an incredibly interesting character. Her ambition, thoughtfulness, and protective nature make her one of the fiercest characters I've ever read without the typical sass and aggression that we might see in one of those characters. She doesn't have a problem speaking her mind, but she isn't hot-headed or explosive.- The world building was just.... intensely lush. It was so richly detailed, and while I spent a lot of time in the beginning having to double check where I was, the chapter headings with "East" and "West" simplified a lot for me (which is saying something because I am TERRIBLE with geography).- Dragons and wyrms. Just... dragons and wyrms.- The kind of ongoing commentary on historical manipulation and the lies our ancestors tell us was really incredible and I think very, very fitting when we think about history today. (This is just a little nugget that really made an impression on me, even if it wasn't something we were beaten over the head with.)- The descriptions of scenery. WHOOOSH. This book was descriptive AF without clogging up the pages with unnecessary prose.- The backstory was so well done and so clever. There were so many amazing elements of the story-- three trees, the stars and the earth, and so on. I still find myself daydreaming about the intricacy of everything Samantha strung together. LOVE.What I Liked:- It was immersive, rather than full of info-dumps, which is great. It does have its drawbacks, because there was stuff I wanted more information on, but stuff generally came together neatly.- The pacing was very well done and kept me engaged in almost all of the storylines at once, though sometimes I was impatient to pop back to another storyline I liked more.What I Didn't Like:- At times, I did get a little bit lost with the epicness of it all-- there were so many tiny cultural details and the words used to describe clothing or certain scents were things that I was completely unfamiliar with (and were often unique to the world) BUT I FOUND A GLOSSARY IN THE BACK AFTER. So make use of that!- There were a couple times that I got very frustrated by the same character, again and again. It was not a main POV character, but because of all of the contact between these characters, we saw a lot of her. I came to appreciate her in the end, which I feel like is a testament to the beauty of Samantha's writing.... she made me convinced I should love a character I originally wanted to punch in the nose.- I have conflicting feelings (still) about the way that Tane was treated in the middle of the book by the people who claimed her as family. Won't say anything else because spoilers, but I felt like Tane was a better person than I am if she still felt such intense love and respect for them.- There was one character who I low-key shipped with Tane for a enemies-to-lovers relationship and it didn't pan out, which was fine... but it seemed like this character just literally ghosted after the antagonistic bit of their relationship was over and it served her character development, which was kind of a bummer. There weren't too many loose threads like that, but this one was fairly memorable for me. (Really though, all of these are tiny gripes.)Overall, I absolutely love this book and would highly recommend it. If you enjoy epic high fantasy, then this would be a great choice. If you like feminist books with empowered female characters, then Priory of the Orange Tree might be your new favourite. If you like multiple POVS, intense world building, F/F relationships, or to be dropped into a new world and left to explore, then this book is definitely for you. But if epic fantasy isn't your thing or if you get confused by multiple POV, then this book could be a bit much to handle... though I'd definitely give it a go anyway!5/5 stars!

Characters: 3.5/5Plot: 4/5World-building: 5:5Overall: 4/5I have been a fan of Samantha Shannon’s work since I discovered The Bone Season a few years back. When I found out she was going to delve into high fantasy, I knew this was definitely going right into the TBR because I love her world building, plot, and characters from TBS.The sheer size of The Priory of the Orange Tree is enough for casual readers to take pause on reading it and I’m not going to lie, I was intimidated as well. Now that I’ve finally taken the leap into Priory, I am happy to report that she has done it again.First off, the cover is absolutely gorgeous. Just wow. The maps show a well thought out and beautifully detailed world. A lengthy glossary and descriptions of characters in the back are a great help when getting into the story with so much history referenced throughout the book. I love a well thought out and detailed fantasy world with clearly defined rules, political systems, religions, and cultures. Her descriptions are so well done and each Kingdom, queendom, empire, and territory are very distinct. Even the geographical details are incredibly detailed and needed when the story crisscrosses entire continents.The plot is mostly well done. There are two clearly defined regions in this world, the East with its love and respect of water dragons and the West with is absolute hate and fear of all dragons regardless of their affinity to water or fire. The love or hate of dragons sets up entire religions, cultures, and political organization throughout both regions. Shannon does a great job weaving the threads of the story closer and closer together until the final act. I will say, however, some of the smaller plot resolutions or reveals I felt were a bit too easy after quite a bit of build. Shannon could have easily split this book into two and saved my wrists from the workout of keeping this behemoth open.The characters, I felt, were the weakest link. It took me a good chunk of the book to really start to care about the characters, especially the main four storytellers. Of the four major storytellers, Tané and Loth were my favorite. Their characters just resonated with me and their character arcs were incredibly satisfying. Tané rising from nothing to have all the adventures she had throughout the book made her parts easily my favorite. Loth being thrown into enemy territory from the get-go was a rollercoaster of emotions. Ead, I felt, would have had a bigger impression on me if I understood more of her background earlier on. Her role throughout the story though, is just awesome. She is a badass and I’m living for her. Nyclass Roos took a while to like as well, being the cranky old man that he is. But his story is heartbreaking and I enjoyed his character in the end. So many of the minor characters I just loved and made the story feel fully fleshed out. I wish they had been given more time to shine. The villains left much to be desired. I didn’t feel the impending doom as much as I would have hoped. So much of the devastation that all the characters reference happened hundreds of years prior and devastation happening throughout the story felt episodic. As villains entered the story, I don’t know, I just wasn’t wowed with so much build up. I will say though, the final act is an epic battle that would look fantastic on the big screen. Or small screen, depending on the production company.Overall, a solid stand alone that I hope will have a sequel or prequel in the future, but after at least 1-2 more Bone Season books are released.

I totally recommend this book, the book in fact is really pretty and the cover is really cool, and i really liked that it has a timeline, a map, a character list and a glossary so you can understand the book

i’m a bit scared because it’s a bit longer than i thought

amazing plot and unforgettable characters I am going to miss so muchrecommended 10/10

This was an incredible book! While a big book that might look intimidating, this was one hell of a story! the plot was stunning, the characters interesting, and the writing style magical!

I loved this! A lot of badass women, dragons, magic, and politics. I'd heard a lot about this book before reading it, and let me tell you, this boon deserves all the attention it's getting