Pale Queen Rising by A.R. Kahler

I swear I haven't disappeared again! I definitely thought school would slow down after finishing my competency exam but that was a little bit of wishful thinking. I've been slogging through internship applications and cover letters galore for the past few weeks in between me trying to take a little time for myself to recover from the madness of graduate school. While I've been reading books (hooray!) a lot of them were the series after Poison Study and I didn't want to bore people with reviews of the same series. Unless someone actually requests me to review a later book in a series, I'll probably try to stick with the first books of series. But we'll see.

As far as Pale Queen Rising goes, I should state that I received the book for free as part of my Amazon Prime membership (I do love my Amazon Prime!) as part of a First Look email they sent me? I got a lot of books for free, it was super exciting! My boyfriend is all, do you actually need more free books? Are you ever going to read them all? And the answer to that is yes, and yes!

Anyways, onto the review!

What the back of the book says:

As the royal assassin, Claire is used to moving between the mortal world and the Winter Kingdom. When the queen commands her to kill, Claire does the job and doesn’t ask questions. Her deadly skills and loyalty are soon tested when Claire is sent to the Immortal Circus, one of the many places where “Dream” is harvested from the imaginings of mortals. There she must find the culprit who is causing Dream to mysteriously disappear before the Winter Kingdom’s supply is depleted enough to threaten its very survival. But when she meets Roxie, a beautiful mortal singer with a strange link to the Dream thieves, Claire quickly recognizes an odd and unexplained connection that may cloud her judgment. As each new clue unveils another secret, Claire finds herself confronting the riddle of her own buried past—and a dangerous illusion that, as part of the Immortal Circus, is just another act in the show.

What I say:

Faeries and faery assassins! I'm in! One of the first things that drew me in in this book is Claire's sense of humor. I would imagine a sense of humor would be important in her particular line of work, which she refers to as "bloody thankless work" in the second sentence of the novel, just after she excuses the pun. It's that sense of humor that drew me in as a reader. Despite the fact that she kills for a living (usually a turn-off for likability, unless you're Dexter), Claire is likable. A.R. Kahler does a great job making a faery-assassin seem completely human, throwing in quirks, likes, and dislikes that make her relatable. I'm reading her dislike of the cold (funny because she's an assassin for the Winter Kingdom) with an agreeing nod. As far as the other characters, I think I found Kahler's portrayal of Mab to be very interesting. A look back in this blog will show a review of another few books featuring Mab (Iron King, Iron Daughter, Iron Queen, Wondrous Strange), so I clearly like to read books about faeries. And I think it's fascinating how each author writes these standard set of characters. In Pale Queen Rising, Mab is waaaay less scary than she is in most of the other novels I've read. She is, on some level, still relatable. Claire describes her at one point as looking like a lost little girl - not a description I'd ever expect to be used with Mab.

One character I couldn't get myself to like was Roxie. Much of her role just didn't make sense. Until it did, I suppose. Even Claire couldn't understand why she liked the girl, which is important to note. Even in real life, if you can't figure out why you like someone, it might be worth a little more introspection! But that's slightly tangential, so we'll move on.

I really did like Kingston's character, as ringleader of the Immortal Circus. I wanted to see more of him, have him play a bigger role. I didn't realize when I read this that the series was a spin-off of The Immortal Circus series, so now I definitely want to go read those since a few characters in Pale Queen Rising made their debut there.

My biggest complaint about this novel was the fact that a lot of the questions about Claire's past and why it's important aren't answered (yet). Book 2, Cold Dream Dawning, isn't set to come out until May of 2016, so I have high hopes that these questions will be answered. There were just a few times where Claire would be going about, doing her assassin-thing, and the transition to the mystery of her past would jump in and seem very abrupt. Like it didn't quite relate to what was going on. The ending definitely hints that it will relate once Kahler is done with the series, but for now, I feel a little unsatisfied. But is that really a bad thing? 

Who would I recommend this book to? New adults (the 20-somethings), mature young adults (there's a lot of discussion of sexual topics, and Claire presents herself as bi-sexual so just keep that in mind), fans of novels about faeries, fans of fantasy novels. Not much romance to be found here, so I'd look elsewhere if that's what you want. Overall, the book was very entertaining, I enjoyed it quite a bit, and I can't wait to read Cold Dream Dawning when it comes out! 

More about the author:

Alex is many things, but first and foremost, he's a Sagittarius.

In the past few years he's taught circus in Amsterdam and Madrid, gotten madly lost in the Scottish wilderness, drummed with Norse shamans, and received his Masters in creative writing from Glasgow University. And that's the abbreviated list.

He is the author of many things, including THE IMMORTAL CIRCUS, BLADE OF WINTER, THE HUNTED, and RAVENBORN (yes, all series, because his brain doesn't condense).

When he's not writing or climbing in the rafters, he's probably outside, staring at the clouds. And seeing as he now resides in Seattle, there are clouds aplenty.

He is represented by Laurie McLean of Fuse Literary.

Also of note - he wrote some spin-off novels of The Vampire Diaries, a TV show I happen to enjoy (but I'm at least a season behind so no spoilers). Some cool stuff!

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