book review: four dead queens by astrid scholte


Four Dead Queens by Astrid Scholte
G.P. Putnam's Sons Books for Young Readers, 432 pp.
Published February 26, 2019



DISCLAIMER: I received a free physical ARC of this title from the publisher via BookishFirst for review purposes. This did not inform or influence my opinion in any way.

Seventeen-year-old Keralie Corrington may seem harmless, but she's, in fact, one of Quadara's most skilled thieves and a liar. Varin, on the other hand, is an honest, upstanding citizen of Quadara's most enlightened region, Eonia. He runs afoul of Keralie when she steals a package from him, putting his life in danger. When Varin attempts to retrieve the package, he and Keralie both find themselves entangled in a conspiracy that leaves all four of Quadara's queens dead.

With no other choices and on the run from Keralie's former employer, the two decide to join forces, endeavoring to discover who has killed the queens and save their own lives in the process. When their reluctant partnership blooms into a tenuous romance, they must overcome their own dark secrets in hopes of a future together that seemed impossible just days before. But first they have to stay alive and untangle the secrets behind the nation's four dead queens.

You'll LOVE it if...you've always wanted a fantasy/murder mystery mash-up.

Scholte combines a unique world — a kind of cross between the districts in The Hunger Games and the factions in Divergent — with a twisty murder plot. Readers might be spoiled by the title alone that yes, four Quadaran queens will wind up dead, but exactly how and why remains shrouded in doubt. These are arguably the two most difficult genres to combine. A fantasy requires extensive world-building and well-crafted exposition so that readers feel comfortable in a new environment; mysteries require careful plotting, with just enough foreshadowing to make the grand reveal plausible, but not so much that you can predict the ending well in advance. Scholte balances both responsibilities nicely, making for a fantasy-mystery mash-up that I suspect many readers have been waiting for!

You'll LIKE it if...stories with multiple perspectives intrigue you.

Multiple narrators can hinder a narrative as much as they help it. Too much information can confuse readers, while voices that sound too similar to one another start to blend together over the course of a novel. Four Dead Queens predominantly follows street thief Keralie, occasionally peppering in the perspectives of each of Quadara's four queens. Every woman has a distinct personality and voice, as well as a few secrets to keep hidden; they're also all experiencing different facets of the mystery, which keeps the chapters from turning repetitive. Keeping a mystery intriguing when you already know the victims can be difficult, but introducing several perspectives outside of the main protagonist's keeps the story interesting.

You MAY NOT LIKE it if...you're expecting an atypical YA plot.

The unique arrangement, however, doesn't fully make up for the fact that Four Dead Queens ultimately follows a familiar, reasonably predictable trajectory for YA fiction. It's a shame considering all of the excellent work that created a new world and built up a great deal of anticipation around the four murders, but by the final page characters feel like often-used tropes and the plot has taken several turns telegraphed too obviously, too far in advance. While far from bad or boring, the initial chapters had me longing for a conclusion as singular as what came before.

RATING:

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