The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon

800 pages was an audacious ask, and I of course crammed it into the last ten days (spending the first 20 staring at the insane width that spanned from cover to cover, paralyzed by fear of the commitment it required). I have not read a book of this size since Harry Potter, and that was a time even before the distractions of a social life and an iPhone. As a general rule, any book with a reference map, glossary, or a separate section for character names is, in my heart, an immediate no. But I’ve always said I’ll try anything twice.


Now that I have all the actual readers rolling their eyes, let me reel it back in. It was an exercise of patience to get through the first 150 pages as i became familiar with the language and the long list of characters and geotags. I didn’t do the work of referring to the glossary (I was racing against the clock after all, fueled only by familiar patterns of elite procrastination)—I went in blind and trusted it would all make sense in the end. Great news for lazy readers like me, I had a handle on it all by the halfway point, if not well before.


This novel so intricately knits together tales of power, loyalty, selfishness, guilt, love, and DRAMA.

SO. MUCH. DRAMA. I ate it up.

A handful of powerful and engaging storylines all come together in the end in the most beautifully-crocheted blanket of a story that I sort of just want to sit under and marinate.  It all worked together in a flawless swirl of descriptors and exceptional creative decisions. And I LOVED the focus on powerful, headstrong women. I wasn’t expecting that in a sort of medieval setting—bravo to Ms. Shannon for flipping the stereotype on its head.

My favorite line was nestled in the middle of page 798—“A woman is more than a womb to be seeded”—a strange bit of comfort during a horrendous political time in America, that I hope reaches every reader and their peripherals.

For the people out there who already love the fantasy genre, Samantha Shannon has given you a serious masterpiece. And for me, well… i might just be a convert.