Mar 9

Mar 9 Arca (The Five Queendoms, #2)

Author: G.R. Macallister
Publisher: Saga
Goodreads | The StoryGraph

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Note: Content and trigger warnings are provided for those who need them at the bottom of this page. If you don’t need them and don’t want to risk spoilers, don’t scroll past the full review.

Cover Description

***Description is a spoiler for Scorpica***

Return to the Five Queendoms in the sequel to Scorpica, a sweeping epic fantasy that Rebecca Roanhorse called “ambitious and engaging,” in which a centuries-long peace is shattered in a matriarchal society when a decade passes without a single girl being born.

The Drought of Girls has ended, but the rift it broke open between the Queendoms is not so easily healed. Political tensions roil the senate of Paxim, where Queen Heliane vows to make her son Paulus the nation’s first ruling King or die trying. Scorpican troops amass on the border of Arca, ready to attack. And within Arca itself, its young, unready queen finds her court a nest of vipers and her dreams besieged by a mysterious figure with unknown intentions.

As iron and magic clash on the battlefield and powerful women scheme behind the scenes, danger and violence abound. Can anyone stop chaos from ripping the Queendoms apart?

TL;DR Review

Arca is the second book in the Five Queendoms series, and I think it was even stronger than book one (Scorpica). I’m definitely enjoying these enough to want the next book!

For you if: You like sweeping epic fantasy with lots of characters, geographies, and plotlines.

Full Review

Arca is book two of G.R. Macallister’s Five Queendoms series. It’s the sequel to Scorpica, which I read last year and liked enough to keep going. I’m happy to report that Arca is even better. It’s going to be tricky to review it without including any spoilers for book one, but here goes.

The Five Queendoms series has been called a “matriarchal Game of Thrones,” and while nothing is truly like Game of Thrones, the comparison isn’t totally off. There are (you guessed it) five queendoms at play in this world, many people are vying for the crowns, and the books jump between the POVs of many different characters across all of those realms. It’s a sprawling, true epic fantasy. It’s also matriarchal, but not in a utopic sense — in fact, the men in this world are treated pretty darn badly (kind of like women in GOT, but thankfully without the sexual violence). At the start of the series, the Drought of Girls begins — no girls are born for basically an entire generation — which you can imagine causes quite a bit of chaos and political unrest.

The execution of all this wasn’t terrible in Scorpica, but it was a little rocky. But Macallister really found her groove here in Arca, and the structure felt much smoother, especially as it related to POV switches and time jumps. That gave it more momentum in a good way. I also loved the doomed romance plotline in this book. Oh, my heart.

I don’t know how many books we’re going to get in this series (five, I’d presume, but I don’t think that’s certain), but there will be a book three next year. After liking but not loving Scorpica, I wanted to read Arca before I decided whether I’d continue with the series. Now I can definitely say I’m excited for book three!