#maevana

[venabulisvinco]

“say bye to jack”

—

after taking these photos, lana continued to play softly as my portrait of jack fell off of my table taking the vase (which did not shatter) with him. the glass broke and the flowers rested gently on him and i find it all too poetic

[andreai04]

We are ready because of sisterhood, because our bonds go deeper than blood. We rise for the queens of our past, and for the queens to come.

[vanona-camp]

Maevana Lorren from Age of the Andinna by Kristen Banet

It's the first time I've made a collage, and it shows

[books-to-add-to-your-tbr]

Title: The Queen's Rising

Author: Rebecca Ross

Series or standalone: series

Publication year: 2018

Genres: fiction, fantasy, romance, historical fiction

Blurb: When her seventeenth summer solstice arrives, Brienna desires only two things: to master her passion and to be chosen by a patron. Growing up in the southern kingdom of Valenia at the renowned Magnalia House should have prepared her. While some are born with a talent for one of the five passions - art, music, dramatics, wit, and knowledge - Brienna struggled to find hers, eventually choosing knowledge. However, despite all her preparations, Brienna's greatest fear comes true: she is left without a patron. Months later, her life takes an unexpected turn when a disgraced lord offers her patronage. Suspicious of his intent, she reluctantly accepts...but there is much more to his story. There is a dangerous plot to overthrow the king of Maevana - the rival kingdom of Valenia - and restore the rightful queen - and her magic - to the throne, and others are involved, some closer to Brienna than she realises. With war brewing, Brienna must choose whose side she will remain loyal to: passion or blood. A queen is destined to rise and lead the battle to reclaim the crown...but who will that queen be?

[imagine-lilareads]

THE QUEEN'S RESISTANCE by Rebecca Ross SPOILERS!!

[murielleazzi78]

During a lesson

**Cartier internally** I love that girl she's so smart . Damn cartier don't make it obvious

**Ciri internally** He has taught me for 7 YEARS . He should favor ME not HER . I have done everything to impress him

Brienna : Will l passion?

[cozyreadings]

«Eres hija de Maevana. Estás hecha de canciones antiguas, estrellas y acero».

-La Resistencia de la Reina by Rebecca Ross ✨

Una bilogía que me encanta de principio a fin, una historia pura y mágica y hermosa. 🤎

[just0nemorepage]

The Queen's Rising || Rebecca Ross || The Queen's Rising #1 || 439 pages ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Top 3 Genres: Fantasy / Young Adult / Romance

Synopsis: When her seventeenth summer solstice arrives, Brienna desires only two things: to master her passion and to be chosen by a patron.

Growing up in the southern kingdom of Valenia at the renowned Magnalia House should have prepared her. While some are born with a talent for one of the five passions—art, music, dramatics, wit, and knowledge—Brienna struggled to find hers until she chose knowledge. However, despite all her preparations, Brienna’s greatest fear comes true: she is left without a patron.

Months later, her life takes an unexpected turn when a disgraced lord offers her patronage. Suspicious of his intent, she reluctantly accepts. But there is much more to his story, for there is a dangerous plot to overthrow the king of Maevana—the rival kingdom of Valenia—and restore the rightful queen, and her magic, to the northern throne. And others are involved, some closer to Brienna than she realizes.

With war brewing, Brienna must choose whose side she will remain loyal to—passion or blood. Because a queen is destined to rise and lead the battle to reclaim the crown. Who will be that queen?

Publication Date: February 2018. / Average Rating: 4.03. / Number of Ratings: 10,300~.

[toomuchtimenerd]

Review for ‘The Queen’s Rising’ series by Rebecca Ross

I stayed up until 3am last night to finish this 2-part series and wow oh wow do I not regret it at all. Both the first book, The Queen’s Rising, and its sequel The Queen’s Resistance had pretty slow starts... but jeez once the plots got going they really got going. This duology was one of the many books that I had put on hold awhile ago. I think I originally wanted to read this during my sadgirl post-breakup phase exactly two years ago, a 3-month long period of time where I got broken up with, had an identity crisis, and proceeded to drop out of my sorority while fully embracing my inner nerd. Disclaimer: I loved being in a sorority, I really did. It just took up way too much of my time and I had realized juggling sorority duties and school left me with no time to pursue my own personal hobbies. 

BUT ANYWAY, I’m really glad I finished this series and really glad I took my time with it. The Queen’s Rising has a pretty slow start and by start I mean probably the first half of the entire book. But it became super complex with all the court politics going on and honestly it went from slow to holy shit whaT’S HAPPENING AHH over the course of like a chapter halfway through the book. The Queen’s Resistance was more or less the same, except with way more political twists (in my opinion, of course) and a touch more romance. Emphasis on touch, because neither of these books were romance-focused or even had that much romance at all, which was kind of a bummer because hello it’s me the lover of all things sappy romance. But I’ll get to that in a second.

The Queen’s Rising follows a young girl named Brienna who essentially gets dumped by her grandfather at a prestigious academy that trains young girls to become ‘passions’. This refers to someone who is master at one of the five subjects: art, music, drama, wit, and knowledge. Brienna’s mother dies before the start of the story, and Brienna’s father is purposefully kept a secret from her. Brienna herself dabbles in each of the five passions before settling on knowledge, which is taught by Master Cartier. Her biggest fears at the beginning of the book is not being picked up by a patron who will endorse the utilization of her passion, and unfortunately this comes true. But she’s offered by the academy headmistress to stay the summer and continue studying her passion, and the headmistress will try her best to pair her with a suitable patron in a few months. Brienna agrees to this and stays in contact with Master Cartier through letters for much of the summer when suddenly everything changed when the fire nation attacked. Just kidding. Brienna shares her strange visions of a Maevana lord from over a century ago with the headmistress, who gives her the choice to choose a strange man who goes by the name of Jourdain as her patron father. Brienna complies, and basically her entire fate is changed at this point.

So my first thoughts were that I really liked the sisterhood that went on throughout the six girls at the academy. Even though the book opens with the conclusion of their schooling we, as the reader, can still get a glimpse of how deep their relationships go. Ciri was a little bit of a brat, but I personally don’t blame her due to her unusual circumstance of sharing an instructor with someone else and Merei was LITERALLY Brienna’s ride-or-die. Obviously spoilers (because my reviews are always ridden with spoilers), but Merei’s role later on in the plot while they’re all in Maevana had me mentally screaming “YESSS SIS”. Cause honestly if I was Brienna, that’s what I would’ve done, especially when Merei shot Allenach on the battlefield. Well, maybe not if I was bleeding out on the ground but still. 

And how could I forget, Brienna the main character. I liked her quite a bit, truly, but if I’m being nit-picky then I definitely do have an issue with how her character progresses in The Queen’s Rising. Brienna starts off as someone who is clearly headstrong and determined, so I guess that’s ultimately the drive that keeps her going through the revolution and such. But I kind of felt like she went from “sheltered girl who’s only ever had time for books” trope to “Maevana warrior who is willing to fight and die for her rightful queen” a little too quickly. I get that she is half Maevan on her dad’s side (who is holy shit such a dick) but it just seems kind of abrupt for her to go from “I grew up as a dainty fair maiden in Valenia my whole entire life and don’t know anything about Maevana outside of what I learned from books” to “I’m going to beg the cruel king of Maevana for my adopted father’s safe passage back into the country and then when no one’s paying attention to me I’m going to scout this land I’ve never been on to look for a stone that has been lost for over a century and everything will be fine” all in the span of... maybe two or three chapters? We are shown that she receives sword/combat lessons from Isolde, the rightful queen of Maevana, but if my mental timeline for this story is correct then those lessons should have only been over the course of maybe two weeks. How much sword technique can a sheltered eighteen-year-old girl actually learn in two weeks? Enough to walk around enemy territory with a concealed weapon and be confident enough to use said weapon when needed? Errr... I don’t know fam that just doesn’t seem realistic. 

Another related issue I have with Brienna is that I feel like she embraces Maevana as her home incredibly quickly. In The Queen’s Rising we found out that Master Cartier is actually Lord Aodhan Morgane, the son of Kane Morgane who had survived the failed first uprising as an infant. He, like Brienna, spent virtually his entire life growing up in Valenia and was schooled in the passion of knowledge. In The Queen’s Resistance every other chapter was in Cartier’s POV, so we got a lot of glimpses into his personal thoughts and his own struggles with returning to Maevana. Unlike Brienna, Cartier/Aodhan really struggled with settling into Maevana, being a Lord, finding his place in a land that he didn’t grow up in, and trying to be a leader to people he had never met before. A lot of the first half of The Queen’s Resistance was centered around Cartier/Aodhan’s inner turmoil in these regards, whereas Brienna (in BOTH books) never seemed to have this struggle despite having a very similar upbringing. Brienna just seems to fit right into Maevana in a way that doesn’t seem particularly realistic or natural given the circumstances that surround her upbringing. 

Now onto the romance! The romance is all centered between Brienna and Cartier, and there are some subtle hints at the beginning of The Queen’s Rising that indicates this is the main relationship throughout the story. However, like the plot this relationship does not really exist or evolve in any way until after the halfway point of the book, when Brienna finds out that Cartier and Lord Morgane are one and the same. Which, by the way, came as a HUGE shocker to me. I DEFINITELY did not see that coming. I assumed Cartier would show up in Maevana in some way or another, but definitely not like that. It was a great twist though, and having both Brienna and Cartier in Allenach’s castle made for a great yet somewhat slow-burn romance. Admittedly, the romance aspect was pretty negligible in The Queen’s Rising. There’s a little bit more emphasis on their relationship in the sequel, but even then it’s not all that much... unfortunately. I really liked these two, and I thought the matching constellations on their passion cloaks were JUST SO DAMN TOUCHING. And the ending of The Queen’s Resistance with the whole golden thread tradition low key had me clutching my chest for a solid two seconds. So the final verdict here is that for the little bits of romance that this series featured, it was beautiful. But ultimately romance wasn’t the focus, nor was it even an emphasis, and if I could have things my way I would’ve definitely liked there to be a little more romance building and one-on-one moments between the pair.

Let’s see... I’m racking my memory for any notable thoughts on some of the side characters. Not gonna lie, Isolde fell pretty flat to me and despite her being the queen I personally could not bring myself to care all that much for her. Luc was a jolly guy, but again not very notable or stand-out-ish in a good way. While it doesn’t bother me, I do have to ask what was the point of Neeve’s character? She shows up in The Queen’s Resistance, and we learn pretty early on that she’s actually another one of Brienna’s half siblings through her father. I don’t understand why Neeve was cast aside by Allenach, after all wasn’t she a daughter that he so desperately wanted? Illegitimacy didn’t matter to him anyway, he could’ve just legitimized her and the fact that Neeve’s mother was dead meant that Allenach didn’t need to worry about anyone influencing Neeve aside from himself. Was Allenach banking THAT much on Brienna? I dunno, none of Neeve’s backstory really makes sense to me or brings much value to the plot either. I like the character just fine, I just don’t understand her purpose... aside from being a long-lost half-sister to the main character. 

I also kept thinking Sean Allenach would eventually betray the queen’s side but he never did, which also makes little sense to me. I mean I guess deep down he really is just a good kid, but it just seems so unlikely for that to be the case when both his older brother and his father are incredibly cruel people. I understood why Ewan and Keela didn’t take after their father, Declan Lannon, because after all they always had each other and they had Tomas who was always a good guy trying to set them on a better path. So for Sean, who seemingly did not have any kind of positive influence to counter the shitty influence that is his brother and father, to be such a kind person willing to undermine his own father’s power just seems statistically unlikely I guess?

And finally, the ending of The Queen’s Resistance with the whole thing about Cartier/Aodhan’s mother still being alive was... good GOD. She was the bone sweeper??? SERIOUSLY? Now that’s a fucking plot twist that I would’ve never saw coming. My heart definitely hurt for Lile, and her written account of what had happened to her over the last 25 years nearly brought tears to my eyes. I do wonder though, when Declan said he loved Lile was he referring to romantic love or the love shared between a mother and son? I was assuming the second type of love, since Declan kept referring to Cartier/Aodhan as ‘brother’. But in Lile’s written account of what happened in her life she writes that she took the Lannon name after ten years in the dungeons. I feel like there’s a lot of ambiguity as to what that actually means. Did she essentially become Declan’s consort? Or did she remain a motherly figure to him and her sharing Declan’s family name made it more real for him? I hope it’s the second one, because I would feel VERY uncomfortable if it were the first case.

When I started this series, I thought I had it all figured out. I guessed that Brienna was the rightful Kavanagh queen within the first chapter, but little did I know the author wanted to tell the story about the queen’s right hand woman, not the queen herself. Which is a very unique approach to a story and I think Ross did quite well (despite the queen herself falling flat as a character. Perhaps some sacrifices need to be made if the story is to emphasize someone other than the queen). Again, I do wish there was a bigger emphasis on Brienna and Cartier’s relationship. I enjoyed Brienna enough, but I simply adored Cartier/Aodhan and I admit I really wanted to see more interactions between the two through Cartier’s POV. I almost wish the last chapter of The Queen’s Resistance was written in Cartier’s POV because I wanted to know what thoughts swirled through his head while he was looking for the golden thread in the tapestry. Petitioning for a prequel novella, completely through Cartier’s POV, during the seven years he spent watching Brienna grow up dabbling in other passions before choosing to become a passion of knowledge. I would pay dumb money to read this. And I would go broke, because I would pay a lot of money to read a lot of things. 

[libertyreads]

Book Review #102 of 2019:

The Queen’s Resistance by Rebecca Ross. Rating: 4.0 Stars

Read from November 20 to November 22.

I finally got around to wrapping up The Queen’s Rising duology. I’m so glad I got around to these books so quickly. I enjoyed reading both of them so much. There’s so much world building and found families in these books. I also really loved the setting so much.

I absolutely love the world in these books and the setting is just part of it. I think Maevana is probably my favorite fictional world outside of Harry Potter. There’s such depth to their history and it all feels so real. Each house has their own history and their own culture that fits into the country of Maevana. I’m glad we got to explore it all. I also love the characters in this book. Specifically the female characters. They’re real and they struggle, but they’re also fierce warriors. I absolutely loved the scene where Brienna is injured and she struggles so much to make it out alive. Because it’s real and she’s not just powering through the way most action sequences happen in books. I would kill for Ewan or Keela so jot that down. And I really enjoy the friendship Brienna finds with Isolde. 

I would say that my chief complaint is that there wasn’t enough. I think this could have easily been a five book or more series that starts with the original resistance and goes from there up until when this book ends. It does have a lot of depth and world building but there could have been so much more. I also feel like we could have had a greater bond with the characters if we had some fluff or filler in between all of the heavy stuff to make us love them more. It also would have paid off more with the twist at the end of this one. I could easily have read 500 pages per book for 5 books and been perfectly content.

Despite this book being nearly 500 pages long, it didn’t take a lot of reading time to finish this one. The plot really pushed the story forward and I enjoyed it so much. I can’t wait to see what this writer publishes next.

[venabulisvinco]

venabulis vinco —

more portraits at home

[abookandacuppa]

The Queen’s Rising review

The Queen's Rising by Rebecca Ross

Rating: ★★★★

This book was incredibly lovely. The writing was very lush, fluid, and descriptive; the story played out like a film in my head the whole time. And not only was the writing brilliant, so was the plot.

This story revolved around Brienna, an ordinary girl who was taken to Magnolia House (basically a fancy, selective, specialized boarding school) by her grandfather when she was ten so that she could study a “passion”. The five passions are art, music, wit, dramatics, and knowledge, and usually a child needs to display a knack for a passion to even be admitted into a school such as Magnolia House. However, Brienna isn’t a child savant, but she is admitted into the prestigious school after her grandfather tells the headmistress of the school a little about Brienna’s past and her father, whom Brienna knows absolutely nothing about.

Anyway, Brienna tries her hand at all of the passions but can’t seem to master any of them. The closest she comes is when she finally begins to study knowledge, but this was her last passion study and as such she only had three years to master is when all of the her other classmates had seven years. But Brienna works harder than her peers to prove that she is able to master her passion.

When it comes time for Brienna and her classmates to choose a patron (someone to become an apprentice under), she isn’t selected by anyone. However, the headmistress allows Brienna to remain at the school while she tries to find other patrons for her; this leads Brienna to a mysterious lord and a dangerous plot of treason and revenge that will ultimately lead Brienna to discover some of the secrets of her heritage.

This book had bits of everything: a strong female protagonist, rich fictitious history, magic, friendship, treason, and love. I really enjoyed going on this journey with Brienna and learning about the two feuding kingdoms of Valenia and Maevana.

There are a great number of side characters, but after getting into this story, it was relatively easy to keep track of everybody. It was also extremely helpful that the front of the book contained multiple detailed family trees. The presence of these family trees did spoil a few surprises, but as a reader, I don’t mind being spoiled about certain plot points. However, if you do, I would recommend skipping over them and coming back to them after you’ve finished the book.

The political tension and turmoil was amazing, and I loved all of these characters as they fought to get back their homeland from a tyrannical king. However, the climax of this book was kind of predictable and it seemed to wrap up incredibly quickly. It was as if there was all this build up, and then it sputtered out unimpressively. That’s one of the reasons I knocked this book down a star.

The other reason is the romance between Brienna and Cartier, who was her teacher of knowledge. The romance seemed a little forced, and I personally am not a huge fan of teacher/student relationships. The relationship didn’t form until well after Brienna left the school, but still--they were at one time master and pupil. However, knowing that this story is set in a time inspired by the Renaissance era, I can more or less get over this small grievance.

Overall this was a quick, easy, and enjoyable read. I thought everything wrapped up fairly nicely, but I’ll be eager to see what this author has in store for the sequel.

[vanona-camp]

[writerebeccaross]

Book three in The Queens Rising series? 🤞

Hi there! I am sad to say there will not be a third book in THE QUEEN’S RISING series. My publisher asked me to deliver a new Young Adult Fantasy for the third book of my contract, so my next book will have a new cast of characters and world, and is titled SISTERS OF SWORD AND SONG. It will be publishing on June 23, 2020 (and I’ll be sharing more details about this book soon!).

There have been quite a few readers who have asked about a third book in the TQR series, and I know it’s a bummer to hear it’s a duology. I will say that I am very happy with how I left things in THE QUEEN’S RESISTANCE (Brienna’s story arc definitely feels complete to me). 

BUT....if the stars ever align and the chance to add more books in the series arises, I would love to return to the world of Valenia and Maevana.

[imagine-lilareads]

The Queen's Resistance 🔹Rebecca Ross🔹496p.🔹YA, Romance, Retelling🔹4🌟

Short synopsis

As the Lannon trial rapidly approaches, Brienna and Cartier must put their feelings aside to concentrate on forging alliances, executing justice, and ensuring that no one interferes with the queen’s coronation. But resistance is rumbling among the old regime’s supporters, who are desperate to find a weakness in the rebels’ forces. And nothing makes a person more vulnerable than deep-seated love.

My Opinion

The war between the families for the throne of Maevana continues. The secrets are many and when they will be revealed the loyalties between the characters are more sensitive than ever. This is an honourable sequel to this story with secrets, war, betrayals and of course love. I would like a quicker pace and we don't see any action until almost the end of the book but the writing is very good and we see a little more development to the characters.

[ventureswithbooks]

ARC Review of The Queen’s Resistance by Rebecca Ross

Come check out my review of The Queen's Resistance (book 2 of The Queen's Rising)!

Release Date: March 5, 2019

Publisher: Harper Teen

  **This review WILL contain spoilers for the first book, The Queen’s Rising, please read at your own risk if you have not read the first book**

  My Rating:

4 Stars

Synopsis (from Goodreads):

Finally, Brienna is a mistress of knowledge and is settling into her role as the daughter of Davin MacQuinn, a disgraced lord who returned to Maevana to…