The Shadow Queen
by C.J. Redwine
Ravenspire #1
Young Adult, fairy tale retelling, fantasy
Lorelai Diederich, crown princess and fugitive at large, has one mission: kill the wicked queen who took both the Ravenspire throne and the life of her father. To do that, Lorelai needs to use the one weapon she and Queen Irina have in common—magic. She’ll have to be stronger, faster, and more powerful than Irina, the most dangerous sorceress Ravenspire has ever seen.
In the neighboring kingdom of Eldr, when Prince Kol’s father and older brother are killed by an invading army of magic-wielding ogres, the second-born prince is suddenly given the responsibility of saving his kingdom. To do that, Kol needs magic—and the only way to get it is to make a deal with the queen of Ravenspire, promise to become her personal huntsman…and bring her Lorelai’s heart.
But Lorelai is nothing like Kol expected—beautiful, fierce, and unstoppable—and despite dark magic, Lorelai is drawn in by the passionate and troubled king. Fighting to stay one step ahead of the dragon huntsman—who she likes far more than she should—Lorelai does everything in her power to ruin the wicked queen. But Irina isn’t going down without a fight, and her final move may cost the princess the one thing she still has left to lose.
Goodreads
I love fairy tales and I love fairy tale retelling even more, it’s something about looking at a story that I know told in a totally new way that I can’t help but love if it’s done right. I can’t even begin to express my thoughts and feelings for The Shadow Queen, it was done right. The Shadow Queen is the retelling of Snow White and while it has all the basics that make it a more traditional fairy tale and has all the concepts of Snow White it also has a nice spin to the traditional story that makes it also seem modern and a refreshingly new story. You know how the traditional story goes, there is a princess in a castle (Lorealai), a queen who died and left the king a widower and the evil witch (Irina) who marries the king, kills the king and takes the throne. The princess escapes, lives in the forest, huntsman (Kol) comes for her, she defeats the witch and finally gets her throne back. We have all this and more. Redwine has created a complicated magical world that is beautiful, intriguing and deadly. In this world there are several neighboring kingdoms, some kingdoms have witches (one guess where Irina is from), others have the fae and there is even one with dragon-shifters, in fact the huntsman is an dragon-shifter who needs help to save his own kingdom. The princess is also a witch (a mardushka) and she fights to help her people and when I say fight I mean fight. She has honed herself to be in physical condition so she can steal from the queen and give to the people in need. She is one hell of a warrior who is constantly planning coming up with strategies to help her people and take back her throne. And beside her is her little brother Leo and Gabril a trusted knight that had helped Lorealai and Leo flee the castle the night the queen killed their father, who raised the children as his own and helps them get stronger everyday so that they can defeat the queen. I love the magic in this book, it is such a huge part of the story right a long with the action, adventure, romance. There is also betrayal and murder, I mean there’s a body count that would put the movie John Wick to shame, yeah Irina is that evil. This is an intricate and complicated world that Redwine has created. The details that went into this story that makes this story seem familiar and new at the same time. The Shadow Queen is everything I could have wished for and so much more. This book is the first in a series, up next in the series is the Wish Granter and I most defiantly will be purchasing it. The third book in the series is coming out soon and I believe it is called The Traitor Prince I will be getting that as well. I can’t tell you how CJ Redwine did it but she is a fabulous author and I highly suggest that you pickup this book, it’s now one of my favorites.
