The Black Queen (The King’s Daughter Book 3)
by J. Kathleen Cheney
In this third book in the series we get to see how the prophecy about Ellis Daetron, neglected daughter of the King and trained guardsman, plays out. It was both foretold that she would marry her despised cousin Anton—who lusts for the throne—and that she would marry the guard. Did the Seer mean she would marry the Guard, in general, or one particular guard? And if so, which one? To make matters worse, no less a Seer than the disturbed King himself told a guardsman who asked for Ellis’s hand, fatalistically, “You can try.”
It was also foretold that her young half-brother Jerrin would do something pivotal that would either plunge the land into civil war or create a war on one of their borders. We get to see what that foreseen event was. By the end of the book the die is cast.
But even more importantly, Ellis gets to meet her estranged mother, who is now queen of another land and desperate to protect her young Seer son and Ellis’ full brother, Kerrin. Things are extremely tense between them until finally Ellis learns at least part of why she was abandoned and then her mother never so much as wrote her.
To cap it all, “Grandfather”—a non-human shape shifter who tries to help those humans who will protect his beloved mountains—is back. And he’s back because the rogue shape shifter who menaced Ellis and her guardsman cadet classmates is back and playing for much higher stakes. No one, and nothing, is as it seems.
On life’s chessboard, Ellis is the black queen. It’s the enemy white queen’s move, and all they can do is react.
I love this series so much. It’s one of those situations where it’s actually painful for me to wait for the next book in the series. RECOMMENDED, and it works as a standalone novel, but I suggest you read the other books in the series first for a richer experience.
