Reviews with content warning for Gun violence - The Priory of the Orange Tree

I honestly highly recommend reading A Day of Fallen Night first if you haven't. I believe SS recommends that you try and it does make ADOFN a bit of an uphill struggle with all the world building, but it pays off when you get to TPOTOT and you're just breezing on through (well... it's easier at least)!

My biggest critique of this book is the Niclays POV - I just did not care enough about him as a character and I felt his was the weakest POV and that side of the story could have been told differently. Also slight pacing issues as the end feels a bit rushed and doesn't match the pace of the rest of the book.

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dragonaion's review against another edition

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adventurous hopeful lighthearted reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

I found this book on accident and had no idea it was popular on social media. I read it because it's a big fantasy book with dragons and oranges-my favorite creature and fruit in one.

I have heard many say that is is an "epic fantasy" that is better if not similar to Game of Thrones or Tolkein, but I was sorely disappointed. The story was pleasant, although riddled with clichés like a magical dragon-slaying sword (even sounding like Excalibur), evil witch doing witchy things (including making the previously mentioned sword), Western winged dragons are bad, and Eastern serpant dragons are good. The tone of the book was also too formal for it to be engaging; it felt as if the "court parlance" of hiding ones emotions were how everyone talked normally, so I felt a lot of emotional and tender moments were lackluster and fell flat. With certain scenes in mind... I feel the author is straight, could not really empathize or relate to the characters, and/or was too timid to write them with more than "casual interest". I've read romance trash that had more engaging and written intimacy scenes.

Then comes the tempo of events; I've read books recently that brilliantly show how plots are suddenly revealed from loose threads, and this story felt as though a series of "random" events fell on each page one after another without laying seeds for the reader to follow and "suddenly" connect. The villain of the story was only mentioned in a story between characters halfway through the book, it appeared that she came out of nowhere to suddenly be important, so I had very little connection or empathy. It also felt that key bits of the story were done for in-the-moment drama and even if there was a plot explanation later, it seems to fall on its face. It almost reads as though the author had writer's block and suddenly found a way to loop things together once she let the story sit for a bit.

Lastly, the novel is very female-centric with a greater female cast of characters than male. While otherwise fine, they failed to make themselves special; the main characters seemed to "fall into" their roll and did not leave any lasting impressions, so it felt they were "quantity over quality" characters. Even having finished the book, I'm starting to forget some of their names.

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tyr2607's review

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adventurous challenging emotional hopeful mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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talonsontypewriters's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

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marleywrites's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

I had 320 highlights for this book, and I didn’t even highlight everything I wanted to. I’ll have to do a reread to highlight them anyway.

I rated this book 4.5 stars out of 5. I was very invested in this story, starting around the 20% mark. The first 20% took me awhile to get into, but then we were flying. So if you’re trying this book for the first time, give it some time to get started.

Overall, I loved the characters and the complex world building. I’m almost sad this is technically a stand-alone because the book could so easily keep going. However, I was very satisfied with the ending we got.

This book was funny, as well, which surprised me. I didn’t expect to find humor in these pages but I did!

Another aspect of the writing I really enjoyed was the descriptions. Shannon has some serious skill when it comes to descriptions! I was blown away by the intricacies of this world and the magic system, as well as the rich history in this story.

I appreciated how many queer relationships there were in this story, and I’m glad that it was a relatively normal thing in this world.

Now for the spoilered section:

Spoiler

I’m head canon-ing Loth as asexual. I love him and will not hear otherwise.

I also am thrilled with Sabran and Ead’s relationship. Like thank you Ms Shannon, that was perfect!!

I love Ead’s powerful friendships in this story, they saved her as much as she saved them.

I wasn’t sold on Roos until like, 90% into the story. But now I am happy for him. His love with Jannart is one of my favorite parts of this book.

The witch of the woods character, Kalyba, damn! I did not see her coming! She could have had another several chapters, she could have her own book. Oh, I wonder if that’s in A Day of Fallen Night 😂 I haven’t read that one yet.

The dragons were so cool. I wish we could have had even more dragons. I loved Tané’s fierce love for her dragon and all of the. dragons and would have loved some fluffy dragon ride scenes.

Connecting with the East at the end for the battle against the Nameless One was great, but confusing. Their emperor agreed so quickly and without the marriage proposal. It felt unbelievable after how much build up we had telling us that the East is completely closed off to everyone else.

This was a great book, which I read as a buddy read with my friend. It took me a month to finish it when usually I finish books in just a few days. I was surprised it took me so long but I felt like I wasn’t making progress so I think that discouraged me overall to keep pushing, even though I loved the story overall.

Amazing book, would probably read again to see what I missed the first time! 🐉

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