Book written by Samantha Shannon, published 2019.
The West and East are divided. The Abyss is the geographical line that separates them with a vast expanse of water, and religious differences make any possibility of bridging that gap next to impossible. In the West, the people are united by their faith in the Saint and his Six Virtues. All of Virtudom looks to Queen Sabran the Ninth of Inys, the direct descendant of the Saint and the carrier of his power and strength that keeps the forces of evil at bay. In the East, the people look to dragons, living gods over the sky and the sea, for direction and warnings of unseen dangers. The only thing the West and East can agree on is that the ultimate evil is a wyrm known only as the Nameless One. And his imminent return is fast approaching. In order to save the world, the West and East must find a way to come together, but can a millennium of prejudice be cured in a matter of months? The Queen of the West, a dragonrider of the East, and a wyrm slayer of the South may have the answer.
Whew! I will say this about The Priory of the Orange Tree: it may be long, but it is worth the hype. The world-building is extensive, somewhere between Leigh Bardugo’s Grishaverse and Tolkien’s Middle Earth. The religions and lore of the East, West, and South are given a lot of detail, and all of those details are necessary to know for the progression of the plot and character development. There are a lot of characters to keep track of, but I was impressed by how well Shannon was able to keep everyone’s stories and developments balanced. Almost all of the characters have their religious beliefs tried and tested, which is a big deal in this book, but no one’s journey felt rushed or improbable. And none of them directly mirrored another. There were lots of similarities, but Shannon made each character’s progression unique to themselves, and that’s rather impressive when you have to provide your audience with a glossary to help keep everyone straight.
However, as impressive as I found this novel, I probably won’t add this one to my bookshelf just because I can’t see myself picking it up again any time soon. This book is lengthy—804 pages, in fact. It’s a large commitment to make to a book; it took me a little over a week to get through the whole thing. I know I’m not the only one that would advise you not to start it until you feel certain you’ll be able to get through it. In my opinion, that warning is warranted mainly due to Shannon’s writing style. This isn’t like Harry Potter, which is almost as thick but written for a younger audience. This novel is directed toward an adult audience, so it’s very sophisticated in its word choice and style. If you put it down for a few days between chapters, you might have trouble finding the flow again.
So, in conclusion, The Priory of the Orange Tree is a very well-written novel and I recommend that you read it, but just be sure you will have the time and energy to give it what it deserves. Also, don’t be surprised if you find yourself Googling the ending. I won’t spoil anything here, but I will warn you that some of it was confusing.
If this novel were a movie, it would be rated R. Lots of blood and graphic images of injuries/corpses, swearing including f-bombs, and steamy romance scenes. Again, definitely directed at adult readers.
Okay, now I’m going to start talking about the ending, so if you don’t want anything spoiled for you, this is your warning!
"In darkness, we are naked. Our truest selves. Night is when fear comes to us at its fullest, when we have no way to fight it. It will do everything it can to seep inside you. Sometimes it may succeed—but never think that you are the night."
I’d like to hope I’m not the only one that Googled the end to make sure I understood what happened to Tané and Captain Lintley. The last we see of our favorite dragonrider, she’s on Komoridu, a white butterfly is in her hand, and her side is bleeding for some undisclosed reason. From what I could tell on the internet, Tané’s ending is supposed to be confusing because it’s meant to pave the way for a potential sequel. So, interesting and forgivable, but also not all that exciting to me. I’m curious, but if any sequel is going to be as long as this one, I won’t have the energy to try and get through it—not for a good long while anyway.
What really irks me is that I had to turn to Google to make sure Captain Lintley hadn’t actually died. In that final scene, we see Lintley, injured and “still”, and Meg is by his side. Loth comes in and comforts his sister. Meg says she thinks Lintley will be all right because he was attacked by a soldier and not a fire-breather, and Loth’s response is, “He’s dead. It’s over, Meg.” And it wasn’t clear if Loth was referring to Lintley or the Nameless One. When I went to the internet for clarification, I found Shannon’s reply to a reader who had asked the same question on Tumblr. Shannon said, “Lintley isn’t dead . . . I’m really sorry for any confusion with that, evidently I wasn’t clear enough . . .” Now, I don’t necessarily blame Shannon for this confusion. She’s proved herself to be an excellent writer, and with an 804-page manuscript that took the better part of three years to write, I think she deserves a pass. I reserve my irritation for the editor, who should have been able to anticipate any confusion within that scene and worked with Shannon to remedy it. Other than those two quibbles, the ending was satisfying. I can happily walk away from the other characters, knowing they’re all going off to live their lives as they would like.
I’m curious to hear your thoughts and opinions on the book, especially if you don’t consider yourselves to be fans of high fantasy. Me, for example, I usually really struggle to get into books written by authors like Brandon Sanderson and J.R.R. Tolkien, but I surprised myself with The Priory of the Orange Tree. Did this one surprise any of you? What other books pleasantly surprise you?
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