Queens of the Sea

By: Kim Wilkins

Narrated by: Sarah-Jane McGerty

The unthinkable has happened. Warrior queen Bluebell has lost her kingdom to the Crow King, Hakon and her demented trimartyr sister, Willow. While Bluebell would like nothing more than to storm the city with her army and crush Willow underfoot, the enemy's threat to burn its inhabitants alive prevents her. Worse, Willow seems to have the terrifying god Maava on her side.

Bluebell's niece Rowan has otherworldly power and can help her unite the warring tribes, but her third sister Rose is in hiding with her son and her fourth sister Ivy, Queen of Sæcaster is fleeing abuse with her children. Ash, under-magician, is the only sister who might be able to help Bluebell solve the conundrum. Together they must cross the sea to the land of giants and try to recover Ash's power and save the kingdom and those they love.

As the sisters' journeys converge and the terrifying power of Maava threatens all they hold dear, matters come to a head. To survive they must fight the last battle together, but even with the gods and giants on their side, can they overcome the might of Maava and the unending malice of their errant sister Willow?

©2019 Kim Wilkins (P)2021 Bolinda Publishing

Critic reviews

"The writing is elegant and lucid, and the story unspools swiftly and strongly...one of the best fantasy series I've read in a long while." (Kate Forsyth)

I love the series and story

The story of the 5 sisters is Thyrsland was so good. I'm heartbroken that it's over. I just wish the final book was available in the US in actual book form, but I'm glad the audiobook was available to hear the end.

Narrator is Awful

I would really love to leave a proper review, but the narration of the story was so bad I didn’t make it past chapter 10. Which is a shame because the first two were wonderful. Please please please re-release the story with a different narrator or at least publish the book in the US.

Loved

Loved the story was a good pace as always can’t wait for next book please

5 stars for book, negative stars for narrator

I wish the rating system here was split and I could review the book content entirely separate from the audio recording content. I don’t want to punish this lovely author with bad ratings that have nothing to do with her work but I feel like my 5 star review for her is going to mislead others to jump into this audiobook with the same anticipation and excitement the previous two provided. And since I can’t make the narrator provide credits back to the fans who suffered through this, here’s my review:

In an effort to not be unnecessarily cruel, I will forgo my ever growing list of grievances with this new narrators work.
All I will say is that had I not been waiting for YEARS for the final books in this beloved series to get printed/recorded in the US, I’d rather hear a computer generated voice read me a synopsis of this story over one more freaking second of this woman’s butchery. I’m only on chapter 3.
Also, so you don’t just think I’m some sort of mean Internet troll….out of the 500+ audiobooks I’ve listened to over the years, this is one of maybe a handful of times I’ve felt it necessary to leave a dang review. And I’ve never preferred cliff notes over a story.

Just wanted to give a little warning for fellow fans because these books have been magical and engrossing and finding new decent fantasy is hard and I’m sure this story is going to end wonderfully but a little warning would have been nice for me, so there you go.

Pros and cons

Pros: Though the main portion of the story heads in a forward direction, various characters have their own struggles and growths “outside” of the main plot. I really really enjoyed that because it helped keep things from being so predictable and also added length and further interest to the story without becoming annoying.
My favorite characters make it to the end and have favorable things happen to them, so that is a big pro to me. :)

Cons: Some character’s deaths felt kinda flat and predictable. Not wrenching or sad, but rather like the necessary footfalls that moves one forwards.

One group of characters deaths was predictable from the very mention of them in the book and their deaths felt rather like it “had to” happen vs plot development and intricacies of the story bringing it about.

Overall, I very much enjoyed this trilogy and will be recommending it to friends and family. :)

The book(s): very good...the new narrator not good

Loved the first two books and the narrator was very good. This book was half ruined by the reader. For huge fantasy tales with multiple characters and beautiful places with much repeated place names, the experience is firmly tied to being able to identify characters voices. This reader isn't good at giving characters a believable and appropriate voice. Hence immersion is ruined frequently. Also, this reader mispronounces key names (especially of places) repeatedly. This causes confusion and immediately ruins immersion.
The reader also has a somewhat haphazard cadence at times which, again, disrupts immersion. They should really re-release this last book with a better reader. Such a shame... was so excited for this book.

a strong conclusion! but very rough narration

I love this series as a whole! and this final book brings all the threads of the world and characters together very well. well not everything about it is perfect I found the ending to be satisfying and surprisingly emotional as I hadn't realized how attached I got to these characters. I will miss them and this world but hope perhaps the author will return to them someday. I strongly recommend the series and this book, however the audio narration for this particular edition could have been much better. the narrator was awkwardly stilted and paced. I played around with the speed a lot but could never find something that worked as smoothly as I would have liked. I would have preferred to read this book in physical or ebook edition but it doesn't seem to be available in the United States even 2 years after it's initial release. if you can get a physical copy I would recommend it instead because I think the narration will be too much for some people.

Terrible narrator better to read it yourself

I really like Kim Wilkins. Decided to try her on Audible. Big mistake. Narrator read in same flat voice in a choppy cadence no matter what was going on. She had a total disregard for the punctuation. Sentences were broken up and lost whatever impact they might have had. Fear, happiness, anger, sadness all sounded the same. All of the characters sounded like English duchesses at high tea including men and children. It did not matter if they were princesses, peasants, soldiers or druids. Only the giants were a little different with Irish accents but still with the same flat delivery and a choppy cadence.