Queen’s Advantage

The Rogue Queen Series, Book 2

De: Jessie Mihalik

Narrado por: Rachel Dulude

When Queen Samara Rani fulfills the promise she made to Emperor Valentin Kos to visit his court and meet with his advisers, she knows they won't welcome her with open arms, especially when she's been tasked with discovering the traitors within their ranks - traitors she tricked out of five million credits.

As soon as Samara begins her investigation, it becomes clear that Valentin's advisers want her gone and they aren't picky about how. After their tactics turn violent, Samara and Valentin race to unravel the web of treachery and lies before the next attack ends in tragedy.

When the conflict escalates in ferocity and rumors start blaming Samara, she is forced to continue her hunt alone. Uncovering traitors is difficult when courtiers learn to lie before they learn to walk, and one misstep could cost her life. However, Rogue Queens aren't easy to kill, and Samara has more than a few tricks of her own.

©2019 Jessie Mihalik (P)2019 Tantor

Action

Plenty of peril in this story along with brainwork. The chemistry between Valentin and Sumara is well depicted so I'd like to have seen more than the brief meeting moments they had.

Did anyone else get wigged out by the cover art?

The cover art looked to me like she had zombie eyes. Had to zoom in to see it was just an illusion.

“How about a plan than ends with neither of us being shot?”
Sigh. For a plot featuring a kickbutt rogue queen heading into enemy territory to suss out who is undermining Valentine Kos, this was a pretty ordinary listen with pretty stock dialogue and characters.

I think this had to do with the lack of details for anything that wasn’t strictly necessary for the plot. Character descriptions and development are very bare bones. For example, Valentine’s head of security is some looming growly guy, but what else about his looks, personality, or background do we know?
The romance between Valentine and Samara grows, but there aren’t any interludes where they have a date, or a moment, or romantic experiences … they apparently just get feelings for each other while they investigate. Most disappointingly, the bad guys are shallow and uninteresting, with little detail or deviousness to inspire listeners to love to hate them.