Samantha Shannon's (The Bone Season) standalone epic fantasy artfully blends Eastern and Western draconic mythologies and shines a heroic spotlight on women and same-sex couples.
A thousand years earlier, the world nearly ended in dragonfire. Now, in the Western queendom of Virtudom, the national religion holds that as long as a queen descended from dragon-slaying Saint Galian Berethnet holds the throne, the monstrous dragon known as the Nameless One cannot return to lead his plague-sowing minions. To the South lies the secret Priory of the Orange Tree, where female mages train to slay dragons and know the legend of the Saint for a half-truth at most. One of their order, the fierce and pragmatic Ead, has spent nearly a decade undercover in Virtudom as a handmaid to Sabran IX, the imperious but vulnerable young queen. Ead picks off assassins and works in the shadows to unmask Sabran's enemies, but she has no defenses against the surprising effect Sabran has on her heart.
Far in the East, where humans worship benevolent water-dwelling dragons as gods, dragonrider candidate Tané helps a stranded outsider hide from the authorities. After a grueling round of trials, Tané's dreams come true when she is selected by the great dragon Nayimathun, but her decision to help the outsider sets a disaster in motion.
As the lieutenants of the Nameless One begin to show themselves, the legend that Berethen queens can keep him at bay falls apart. The nations must stand together, but when the East believes the West is filled with dragon-hating plague vectors, and the Westerners call Easterners heretics, Ead, Sabran, Tané and their friends have little chance of brokering peace.
The Priory of the Orange Tree isn't our grandfathers' epic fantasy novel. It is a clever combination of Elizabethan England, the legend of St. George and Eastern dragon lore, with a dash of Tolkien. Shannon's feminist saga has enough detailed world-building, breath-taking action and sweeping romance to remind epic fantasy readers of why they love the genre in the first place. Modern sensibilities integrate seamlessly with genre tropes; same-sex marriage is an accepted fact of life, for example, but marrying across class boundaries brings scandal. Occasionally political exposition bogs down the pacing, but the inclusion of giant talking mongooses and brilliant female warriors more than makes up for that. The major story draws to a definite close, but much work remains for the characters at the conclusion. Readers will beg for a sequel that explores more of this mythos-rich setting from dragon-back. --Jaclyn Fulwood, blogger at Infinite Reads
Shelf Talker: This epic fantasy--Samantha Shannon's first standalone novel--takes place in a women-led world of dragons and mage-craft.