by Annie Sullivan
Kateri waits for the day when she will be able to claim her mother’s crown. All she has to do is defeat a few more suitors in the arena and she will have proven her right to rule. Once she is queen, Kateri will be able to avenge her mother and baby brother on the Desert Boys, vagabonds who steal water from the already drought-stricken city and are responsible for her family’s deaths.
However, when Kateri learns who the last person she will have to face in the arena is, she knows that it is a fight she won’t win. That is, not without help.
Kateri has to win this fight. And so, she goes looking for the best swordsman there is, the very person she longs to kill—Cion, the leader of the desert boys.
However, when Kateri is out in the desert, she learns truths that will reshape her world.
I was excited to read Tiger Queen when I got it from the library. While I felt like I had a hunch where the plot would be going, I was curious to see how the author was going to get there.
This is the second book that Annie Sullivan has written, her other being A Touch of Gold.
When I read A Touch of Gold, I felt like the setting struggled a little while the characters were pretty solid. The situation was reversed in Tiger Queen. I felt pretty quickly immersed in the desert kingdom, but it took me a little bit to connect with the characters. However, once I connected with the characters, the story felt a lot better.
Overall, I enjoyed Tiger Queen. While the plot and how it ended didn’t shock me, and the characters took a little bit to connect with, I still enjoyed the book and will probably read it again.
Cautions: brief mention of an illegitimate child; two kisses; mild romance; mild-moderate, non-graphic violence
Hailey Huntington 