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If you’ve ever come across Priory of the Orange Tree in a bookstore, then you know this book is humungous. Literally. It’s a heavy, wieldy 800 pages – and it felt like it.
What’s it about?
In this epic fantasy set in a world besieged by wyrms and dragons, we follow four characters across several countries:
- Ead, a servant tasked to protect the queen until she gives birth
- Loth, an exiled lord struggling to survive on his quest
- Tané, an ambitious dragon-rider-in-training who jeopardized her future and country
- Niclays, a dishonored alchemist
It felt like something was missing.
The world-building was superb. It’s incredibly detailed – we don’t just get several unique countries; we also get their individual cultures, languages, political turmoil, societal expectations, religions, social beliefs, and histories.
My only critique on that front is that I’m not sure we needed to know all of it. I started tuning out the “tales” characters would go on about halfway through.
Another thing I enjoyed: the diversity. In this story, people of color and LGBT+ people were a given, not a token. Of the four main characters, only one is white. On the sexual identity side, one forms a same-sex relationship (which is never implied to be unusual by their counterparts), one was essentially “widowed” from a same-sex relationship years prior, and the other two don’t form romantic relationships during the story at all. And nearly all the leaders are women.
When it came to the characters themselves, Ead and Tané made for great main characters. I can’t say the same for Loth or Niclays. Almost every time we came around to Loth, I had to ask myself whether his POV actually added anything to the story. I could see the relevance of Niclays – but I wouldn’t say I liked his character and I found his chapters boring.
Now – the plot.
The pacing was a little off to me. The action sequences held my attention, but the many chapters between those sequences struggled to keep my interest. Looking back, I don’t remember much of what happened between the 50% and 75% marks. Having a stronger emotional core would have made the story more compelling. In fact, the scenes I enjoyed best had the highest emotional intensity.
For a lot of the book, the writing itself weighed down the pace. It lacked immersion – there seemed to be a lot of telling rather than showing. It was something that barred me from really entering the world.
Overall, it was a very slow read and then seemed to end very suddenly. 750 pages led up to the final conflict, only for the climax to last about 20 pages.
Should you read it?
If you enjoy epic fantasy with a lot of emphasis on the political side of things and enjoy a diverse, queernorm world where women are at the helm, then you may enjoy The Priory of the Orange Tree.
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One response to “The Priory of the Orange Tree: Somehow too long and too short”
I 100% agree with your comment “Having a stronger emotional core…..” should be in all books. When your emotionally connected, your “in it” 😉