I received this book for free from Netgalley, Publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
Tear Down the Throne by Jennifer EstepSeries: Gargoyle Queen #2
Published by HarperCollins on May 3, 2022
Genres: Action & Adventure, Epic, fantasy, Fiction, Romance
Pages: 464
Format: ARC, eBook, Paperback
Source: Netgalley, Publisher
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Bestselling author Jennifer Estep continues her Gargoyle Queen epic fantasy series where magic reigns, alliances are tested, and a dangerous attraction could tear down a throne. . .
Crown princess. Clever spy. Powerful mind magier. Gemma Ripley of Andvari is all those things—and determined to stop an enemy from using magical tearstone weapons to conquer her kingdom.
Gemma’s quest for answers leads her to a trade Summit between the various kingdoms. Among the other royals in attendance is Queen Maeven Morricone of Morta and her son, Prince Leonidas—Gemma’s charming and dangerous nemesis.
Gemma knows that Maeven always has a long game in motion, and sure enough, the cunning queen invokes an arcane tradition that threatens the fragile truce between Andvari and the other kingdoms. Despite her best intentions, Gemma once again finds herself thrown together with Leo and battling her growing feelings for the enemy prince.
When a series of deadly attacks shatters the Summit’s peaceful negotiations, Gemma realizes that someone wants to tear the royals down from their thrones—and that this enemy just might succeed.
You win, Jennifer Estep, you win. I am already in the middle of reading everything you’ve ever written. Seriously, I’ve read this in-progress series, I’ve got one more book in the Crown of Shards series to read. I’m, I think, 4 books or so in on the Elemental Assassin series, and holy Bob, I’m finding these aren’t even close to the only series she’s written. Thank the feline overlords for the library!
I received this book in both hard copy and e-book format, that’s how much the publisher is all-in on this series. Which is great, because it’s a fantastic series. I think I actually like Everleigh (from Crown of Shards) better as a protagonist than Gemma, but the whole star-crossed-lovers thing of Gemma and Leonidas is captivating me. Okay, yes, I’m a sucker for a great guy with a terrible family.
Tear Down the Throne is the second book in the Gargoyle Queen series, so if you haven’t read Capture the Crown, you should probably do that. [Find my review of that book here.]
What can I say about this series besides “uh, read it!”? It’s got a very tight story, nothing seems wasted. There’s a lot of history in the relationships between characters, thus the prior series, but I read these first couple of books without having read those, so I don’t see that as a barrier at all. You’ll know enough about the history for Gemma’s story to make sense, but if you’re like me, you won’t waste time picking the previous series up so you can know everything.
This book has captivating, full-fleshed characters who have genuinely unique personalities. No Eddings-esque retelling of the same story with slight variations here. The only element that really repeats from Crown of Shards to Gargoyle Queen is the “We want each other but can’t be together!” element of the main romance. Which pretty much repeats in every romance novel ever, so I’m not going to count that as a strike.
I try to very rarely give things 5 stars, because if you do that for everything then it loses it’s weight. But in this case I’m calling it: this series is 5 stars, I’ve found a new author to follow. Now, excuse me, but I have a lot of catch up reading to do.
