The Priory of the Orange Tree

“Margret,” he said, “you are my child. I forgave you all your sins on the first day of your life.”



This book has been lauded for a lot of things – supporting feminism, its share of LGBT characters, its absolutely gorgeous cover and I'm sure it would heal the Draconic plague as well were the latter real.

The problem is, though: This book is way too long. The entire first third of the book basically consists only of (court) politics and scheming. There is no real storyline to follow yet; it's basically all just building up slowly to the real story which is all the more sad as behind all the convoluted, long-winded, stilted writing hides a decent (albeit not very original) story:

After a thousand years of imprisonment by our heroes' ancestors, the “Nameless One” – a dragon – is going to return and wreak havoc all over the world. Few people know this secret and even fewer are prepared and willing to actually do something about it.

Tané, a young lowly-born orphan, wants to become a dragon rider of “the East's” sea guard but hides many a secret herself, harbours self-doubt beyond any reason and is one of those glorious few who rise to the challenge and act.

Sabran is the queen of Inys, a part of “Virtudom”, a political and religious alliance based on chivalric virtues, both pretty much the religious and secular leader and – by religious doctrine – the final bulwark against the Nameless One's return.

Ead is a spy from the eponymous Priory of the Orange Tree at Sabran's court and the latter's confidant. She's a capable combatant, honourable and virtuous (in more than just name) and fairly ambitious, aspiring to rise (out of her murdered mother's shadow to beat!) from her respected but lowly position to much more exalted positions in the priory, meanwhile protecting and counselling Sabran, battling the Nameless One and pretty much anything else that threatens her or her charge.

And Ead is pretty much the boulder upon which this book precariously rests – and remains standing albeit an avalanche of issues. In short: Ead rocks!



So, to quickly summarise: We have a time-proven (formulaic) plot of good versus evil, we have three young women who will have to rise and shine beyond anything they ever expected, we have chivalric values codified into religion which complicates an already complex court and we still have about 70% of the book ahead of us...



And I must not forget to introduce the last two narrators:

Niclays Roos, an aging alchemist, on the other hand is a scoundrel, a villain from the books (sic!), an opportunist of the worst kind. Having tried to find the formula for a potion for eternal life his whole life long, he has been banished from Virtudom because Sabran lost her misplaced belief in Roos. He's willing to blackmail himself out of any situation and would pretty much sell his grandmother or his own soul if it gave him an advantage.

Last but not (quite) least, there's Loth: Sir Arteloth “Loth” Beck is the proverbial knight in shining armour – good-natured, honourable, an embodiment almost of the chivalric virtues but, alas, pretty much hapless and forgettable. He's a nice-to-have-but-expendable sidekick, reliable and more lucky than competent.

That concludes the story and the most important dramatis personae but don't despair if you're into complex settings – after all there are about (wait for it...) 130 characters in total you'll read about.

The long-winded, stilted narration in the beginning and the complexity are in fact the most important issues that drag this book down. Yes, the plot is formulaic, yes, the characters are “somewhat” archetypical as well but – and this is why “Priory” still gets three stars from me – when Shannon overcomes her own inhibition to go beyond what she seems to feel are the limitations of her genre, you feel the raw potential of an author who needs refinement, who needs someone to encourage her to break free from convention.

Shannon already does this fairly nicely when it comes to her heroines: First of all, almost all major characters (and lots of minor ones) are female. Not the helpless “damsel in distress” kind either but the strong and independent kind. I like that. What I like even more about it is, that it is – mostly! –unobtrusive – I didn't even really notice this until I actually thought about it analytically. Of course, I knew Ead (did I mention she rocks?) and Tané are young women but I didn't really care at all – why shouldn't women be heroic and protagonists in fantasy?

So, yes, Priory can be read as feministic but in the way I personally prefer – not artificially trying to make a political statement or to throw it in the reader's face but to simply “organically” make the point.

Similarly, the LGBT aspect works well for me: The LGB (T is missing) relationships are mostly well-written and believable – at least the female perspective (which, naturally, eludes me to some extent) reads well and is intrinsically plausible. I'm not quite as convinced about the male perspective: We only get to witness Roos's and Jannart's (Roos's dead nobly-born lover) relationship post-factum as Jannart has died years before the book even starts. To me, a bisexual man, while not outright wrong, the remembered interactions do feel a bit “off” but that could be me.

As well as with feminism, tolerance/acceptance/open-mindedness/you-name-it towards LGBT (which is one of two major topics in my life) isn't asked for or forced upon anyone. On the contrary: The relationship between Ead and her lover develops believably (again, from a male point of view at least) and organically which I appreciate greatly.

And, still, “The Priory of the Orange Tree” is, sadly, not a great book albeit written by an author who has the potential for greatness.

Whereas other authors simply try to bite off too much for their own good and overexert their limited talents, Shannon does have the talent required to write a great tale but lacks in experience. Thus, she makes a lot of mistakes even beyond the length of her novel, like killing off characters without it making much of a difference to anyone:

“Forgive me,” he said thickly. “Forgive me, [...].”

... says one of our protagonists after one such needless death and that's pretty much it. The victim does get a few “honourable mentions” but his death changes nothing. Do not kill off characters without a good reason and without an important impact on either the story or another character. The death here does nothing of the kind.

At other points in the story, Shannon is needlessly gory in her story-telling, e. g.:

“A musket fired and blew her guts across the cobblestones.”

This is simply not warranted and often annoys me and turns me away from a book.

Similarly, in contrast to her afore-mentioned subtlety and sensitivity Shannon sometimes has a tendency to be too explicit or in-your-face-ish:

“Something was changing in her. A feeling, small as a rosebud, was opening its petals.”

At the point in the story this occurs, any even slightly sensitive reader will long have envisioned said rosebud themselves. We've just been witness to the change we're explicitly being told about here so it would better have been left unsaid.

Another even more poignant example comes towards the end of the book where Shannon thinks she has to really spell it out:

“A woman is more than a womb to be seeded.”

Yes, any sane person knows that and – I'm sorry – those who don't are beyond redemption anyway.



Anyway, before I fall prey to overstaying my own welcome, let me summarise: “The Priory of the Orange Tree” is definitely overly long – only after almost two thirds of the book things really do start to happen.

There's also way too much religious stuff around for my taste (“Virtudom”, “Dukes Spiritual”, I don't need any of that) and, yes, some of the characters are formulaic and some sentences make me cringe (“Abandoning all hope of Halgalant [paradise], Loth waded after the murderous wyrm-lover.”)

Behind all that verbosity, formulas and some cringeyness hides a story that's worth telling, characters worth knowing (Ead!) and an author that I'm going to keep an eye on.

“My heart knows your song, as yours knows mine. And I will always come back to you.”

rating- 3/5

SO. I FINALLY finished reading this. Took me almost a month (yes) and since i can't read more than a book at a time, it put me into a maaajor slump. But well, it is what it is. You'd think that after spending THAT long reading it, it would atleast be a 4 star read, but here we are.
To say that I'm disappointed is an understatement.

WRITING
First off, the world building is commendable. The author definitely put in a lot of work into research and character building. However, it somehow didn't work for me.
I knew going into a standalone fantasy; there were going to be lots of names, characters and places, but didn't anticipate the slow pace. I think that was definitely the book's setback. While a lot seemed to be happening event-wise, the writing was slow and prolonged. In contrast, the ending the book leads up to, is rushed and very averagely done.
The writing during the battle scenes was also not the best and I had trouble picturing it, due to lack of significant details (and abundance of insignificant ones- for example, i don't want to know how the sides of the ship look like, but would very much like to know how exactly they're positioned relative to the other ships, since characters seem to be swimming from one ship to another? and there's also a huge draconic beast in the water??)
I also had a really hard time trying to figure out the religion of the six virtues in Inys. Dukes? Duchesses? Knights?? of different virtues?? and places??
For like the first 200 something pages I was constantly referring to the characters and glossary section in the back (i was reading the ebook, which made it so much harder) trying to remember who Duchess of Justice was, and who in the world was Duke of Edinburg.
Honestly, still don't think I've figured it out.
Don't get me wrong, i love well thought out complex worlds but somehow i was lukewarm about this one.

CHARACTERS
The Priory of the Orange tree is definitely more character-driven, which is usually not the case in the fantasy genre.
In this case, character-driven =
-the plot is practically non existent/not done well
-the characters pretty much CARRY the book. so if you don't like them, then it is very likely that you WILL hate the book.

Lucky for the author, I did like the characters. (well, most of them). The Characters and their relationships are extremely well done.
◆ Ead's pov is refreshing. Her character, backstory and personality makes for a good protagonist. I loved reading her chapters and the way the book starts with her pov as an outsider in the castle really sets up the story.
◆ In contrast, i did not like Tane's character in the beginning but warmed up to her eventually.
◆ I had mixed feelings about Loth's character, there was a little inconsistent characterisation but it was minor and didn't divert from the plot.
◆ Niclays Roos, was a brilliantly done character. His flaws were laid out for everyone to see. He's selfish and grief stricken and thinks only and only for himself. His decisons were so terrible that I absolutely despised him and his pov from the get-go, and i think that makes his character well written.

THINGS I LIKED
Despite the few things I've mentioned above, there's a lot to like in The Priory of the Orange tree:
-I loved the consistent theme of duality: the east and west; wyrms and dragons; siden and sterren; water and fire. It stands out to the reader and is conventional yet refreshing.
-The characters in a female-female relationship. Absolutely love them.
-Dragons
-Diversity and the rep.
-The gender equality (women also in positions of power)

It's worth noting that it took me SUPER long to read this book and I was mostly relieved to be done. The pacing was a major issue for me and I debated giving it two stars. However, when I did start listing the things I liked, I realised there's plenty for the average fantasy-reader: Dragons, queer relationships, talking birds, mythical creatures, (did i mention dragons?).
You should definitely pick this up if you've been meaning to read a standalone epic fantasy, it's easy to follow and doesn't have very complex writing.

This is a book with a lot to offer. We have four POV's from two main characters and two slightly more secondary characters. The narrative swaps between these four in a chronological fashion, as opposed to simultaneous so the book covers a good period of time and develops events and characters over this. Our two key protagonists are Ead and Tané, two women from opposite sides of the known world who each come to discover their importance to the endeavour to save the world from the returning Nameless One: a big, nasty fire-breather dragon (or wyrm as the book prefers) who will destroy humankind just as he attempted to do before, 1000 years ago.

Both face danger, tragedy and huge feats of endurance and strength to reach the end battle; Ead as a member of the eponymous Priory of the Orange Tree and Tané as an Eastern dragonrider. The East reveres dragons - these are water and air dragons, not fiery fiends - as gods and to be a dragonrider is a great honour that requires years of training to compete in a once-every-50-year selection process. These Eastern dragons are graceful and beautiful and able to live in harmony with humans; the Western dragons/wyrms are the fire-breathing kind who seek to dominate the world and they are waking up from their slumbers to heed the coming of The Nameless One.

Without going into the story much more (trying to avoid spoilers) I can only attest that it is well pace, cleverly written and highly engaging. While I found the first few chapters a bit of an ‘info-dump' and a little difficult to get used to the dialog, after this I was constantly wishing I could stay awake a little longer to squeeze one more chapter in. Shannon does a great job of dripping mystery and questions into the story; as one resolves, another question appears to keep you intrigued.

It is a long book at 804 pages of story and while there are sections/parts that this is divided into, each part could not be separated out to make this into 2 or more books. It all flows together and is well worth the commitment. Commendations to Shannon on creating such a massive tome that doesn't feel like a chore and keeps the reader interested throughout.

There are a lot of themes that are explored in the course of the story including, love, duty, justice, courage, honour, religion and the overcoming of our differences. The two key Western religions both venerate a female figurehead of one sort or another; and same-sex relationships are not frowned upon in these societies. There is a historical m/m relationship and a present-day f/f one; while both encounter resistance, this is not because the relationships are queer, as we would see it, moreover because they each involve a member of nobility or royalty who is controlled by other forces to conceal their relationship - one of the men is already married and a father, honour-bound to remain so; and one of the women is controlled by external, malicious, forces to the extent she keeps her true self thoroughly hidden.

While there are battles and tragedy, romance and intimacy, there is nothing particularly graphic or gory in this book; if that is any concern to you. What you will find are beautifully written characters and compelling story with mages, witches, queens, emperors, dragons, wyrms and many other magical beasts besides. It is a great read and this edition has magnificent cover art so that The Priory of the Orange Tree will shine on your shelves for years to come.