The Queen and the Cure

The Queen and the Cure by Amy Harmon

Genre: fantasy

I read it as a(n): audiobook

Narrator: Steve West

Length: 10:57:00

Her Grace’s rating: 2 out of 5 stars

Amy Harmon’s The Queen and The Cure, the highly anticipated sequel to The Bird and The Sword, unfortunately falls short of its predecessor’s brilliance. While Harmon’s writing style and world-building skills are still evident, the book suffers from weak character development, a lackluster setting, a generally weird approach to magic, and a failure to establish strong connections to the previous installment.

Character development plays a crucial role in any story, and it’s here that The Queen and The Cure stumbles. The main character, Kjell, who we met in the previous book, lacks the depth and complexity that made Lark so interesting. Actually, Kjell himself was more interesting in The Bird and the Sword than he is in his very own book. His journey felt underdeveloped, and I felt there was a sense of disconnect and missed potential. Sorsha/Saoirse was just weird to me. She doesn’t remember, which, fair. Then proceeds to wrap Kjell around her little finger, falls in love with him in turn, then discovers her true identity and just like that can return to it? Sure, it says she wanted to stay with him but couldn’t. But why? It’s not even her home to begin with that she was returning to. It was an awkward plot device just to get Kjell to Sorsha’s home and have those events transpire. The supporting characters also lacked the growth and depth necessary to become fully fleshed people on a meaningful level.

The setting, a world filled with enchanting magic, was a standout feature in The Bird and The Sword. It was woven into the politics and culture and everything else. However, in this book, it felt almost like an afterthought. Like Kjell might be able to heal, but he does so reluctantly and still with a sense of shame that he is gifted. Either make him come around to the fact that he has an awesome skill, or else work out deeper reasons for why he continues to resist. But Harmon’s descriptions about that felt lacking in detail and failed to create a satisfying explanation. 

The lackluster setting also added to the overall disappointment of the book. Maybe it’s just me but I never got any real sense of the places where the action took place. I don’t know about the kingdom Kjell traveled to, or any sense of the trip itself, or the palace once we got there. Maybe I just didn’t care about the story much by that point.

The connections to the previous book were another letdown. I had hoped for a continuation of the story and a further exploration of that world, its politics, and its characters, but other than a few of the same characters making cameos, the sequel felt disjointed and lacked a strong connection to its predecessor. The references to the events and characters from the first book felt forced and superficial.

Despite its flaws, the book still had her signature writing style, which is fluid and engaging. Harmon’s ability to craft beautiful prose is evident throughout the book, making it a pleasant read despite the disappointment in other areas. The real saving grace for me was the narrator, Steve West. He did a terrific job with his reading and made the book more interesting to me than I think it would have been had I eyeball read it.

Overall, The Queen and The Cure falls short of my expectations. I didn’t hate it but I definitely didn’t love it as much as The Bird and the Sword and I have no intention to read it again.