Book Review: The Orphan Queen by Jodi Meadows

Wilhelmina has a hundred identities.

She is a princess. When the Indigo Kingdom conquered her homeland, Wilhelmina and other orphaned children of nobility were taken to Skyvale, the Indigo Kingdom’s capital. Ten years later, they are the Ospreys, experts at stealth and theft. With them, Wilhelmina means to take back her throne.

She is a spy. Wil and her best friend, Melanie, infiltrate Skyvale Palace to study their foes. They assume the identities of nobles from a wraith-fallen kingdom, but enemies fill the palace, and Melanie’s behavior grows suspicious. With Osprey missions becoming increasingly dangerous and their leader more unstable, Wil can’t trust anyone.

She is a threat. Wraith is the toxic by-product of magic, and for a century using magic has been forbidden. Still the wraith pours across the continent, reshaping the land and animals into fresh horrors. Soon it will reach the Indigo Kingdom. Wilhelmina’s magic might be the key to stopping the wraith, but if the vigilante Black Knife discovers Wil’s magic, she will vanish like all the others.

Jodi Meadows introduces a vivid new fantasy full of intrigue, romance, dangerous magic, and one girl’s battle to reclaim her place in the world.

Me before The Orphan Queen:

Me during The Orphan Queen:

Me after The Orphan Queen:

WHAT DID YOU DO TO ME, JODI MEADOWS?! I OBJECT. I object towards the ending of this oh-so-AMAZING and life-ruining book. It’s just TOO MUCH. My feelings are out of control and I just can’t catch a break from them.  I also blame my friend Becky of practically shoving this book in my face. It’s your fault too that I’m filling buckets with my tears.

But I’m masochistic. I would be a liar if I said I didn’t enjoy, no, LOVED this book. And I did, I loved this book so, so much and  I can say with certainty that it’s been one of the best books I’ve read this year (so far). It’s exciting, magical, surprising, heart-smashing, tear-inducing and probably everything else that ends with -ing.

Let me start off by praising the main character, Willhelmina better known as Wil, is one cool queen/princess. She knows how to fight, steal to help the needed, forge handwriting, and wield magic to make things come alive. Her magic is something that terrifies her, but she lives with what her father taught her: to use it only in times of extreme need. Despite of being orphaned at such a young age and of having seen her parents’ murders, she still has a loving heart, though she carries a strong personality on the outside as an armor. Willhelmina might come across as weak at first since she lets someone else make decisions for her, but I think she has the kind of grace-that only a great queen has-to accept the help of others and to listen to their opinions until she’s ready to take the lead.

I loved Willhelmina’s character, and she’s my favorite, but I also enjoyed (loving, hating, glaring daggers-you name it) the rest of the fantastic characters of this book. The Ospreys were an interesting bunch. Brave young boys and girls trying to recover their fallen kingdom. I suffered for them. Patrick is the leader and Willhelmina’s right hand,  though he just might be my least favorite of them all. However, he’s the most interesting for certain reasons. I won’t even begin to explain my feelings for Melanie (Wil’s best friend) because I just don’t know. I’ll just say that I kind of trust her.

But of course, if there’s someone I have to talk about and could talk about all day long, is the alluring, the mysterious, Black Knife *cue mad fangirling*. I swooned all the swoons for this guy. Heck, I want to marry him. He’s a somebody that’s been fighting the horrible monsters produced by wraith. At first he’s introduced as an enemy, but later on… it get’s GOOD. And I’ll leave it at that because boo, spoilers. Nobody wants them, right?

Oh, and just when I thought this book couldn’t have been any more perfect, Jodi Meadows decided to include a PRINCE. I love princes, no matter how big or small their participation in the story is. I could totally marry this one as well. He he.

To not make this review (rambling?) any longer, I’ll end off by saying that the plot, the characters, the magic, the world-building, and everything about The Orphan Queen is astounding. However, this book with its “I’m sorry” scene at the ending was like a dagger to my heart. No, worse than that, it was like if someone had bound me to a chair while they ripped and burned all of my precious books right in front of me. Imagine that kind of torture. And here I am, praising it of course, but let it be known that I’m also shaking my fist at this book. It was terrible. Amazing. Horribly beautiful.