Tyrant Lizard Queen: The Love, Life, and Terror of Earth’s Greatest Carnivore

by Riley Black

From the author of the beloved The Last Days of the Dinosaurs, an imaginative celebration of T. rex from hatching to adulthood

“Paleontologist Riley Black’s vivid writing and Wren Mack’s wonderstruck narration make these vignettes of prehistoric life on Earth fascinating listening.” —Kirkus Reviews on When the Earth Was Green

Tyrannosaurus rex is a prehistoric celebrity. Exceeding 40 feet in length and weighing over 9 tons, the largest individuals of this dinosaurian species were intimidating predators capable of crushing bone and consuming more than a hundred pounds of flesh in a bite. But the last of the tyrant dinosaurs had a life beyond ripping and tearing. More than 66 million years ago, T. rex courted each other, nested, watched over their offspring, slept, drank, and explored ancient floodplains inhabited by a fantastic cast of impressive dinosaurs like the huge long-neck Alamosaurus and burly, three-horned Torosaurus. For the first time, the life story of this impressive, sensitive predator is told as if you were there to watch it unfold.

In her latest prehistoric nature walk, bestselling and award-winning author Riley Black follows the life of plucky T. rex Snaggletooth from the time she hatches through her tumultuous adulthood. The prehistoric forest Snag emerges into is full of danger, and yet, as Riley bases Snaggletooth's life on the latest scientific discoveries, the carnivorous dinosaur survives to play, court, fight, sleep, nest, and more as she grows up in Cretaceous North America. She tussles with rival tyrannosaurs, hunts for delectable prey, and finds soft moments of connection in the forest. Even the most die-hard dinosaur fan will come away with a new perspective and appreciation for the Tyrant Lizard Queen.

A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin’s Press

Genres: Nonfiction, Science, Nature, History, Animals, Dinosaurs, Audiobook

Audible Audio

Expected publication October 27, 2026

About the author

Riley Black has been heralded as “one of our premier gifted young science writers” and is the critically-acclaimed author of Skeleton Keys, My Beloved Brontosaurus, Written in Stone, and When Dinosaurs Ruled. An online columnist for Scientific American, Riley has become a widely-recognized expert on paleontology and has appeared on programs such as Science Friday, HuffingtonPost Live, and All Things Considered. Riley has also written on nerdy pop culture.

Reviews

[QuirkyTofurkey]

TYRANT LIZARD QUEEN.

A more perfect title simply does not exist.

[Brendan (History Nerds United) · Rating 5 out of 5]

I mean, how much do I need to expound upon when a book is titled Tyrant Lizard Queen about a T. Rex? If you are reading this, you are going to want to read the book. It's very simple.

You want more? Okay fine. Riley Black, the author, is an honest to goodness paleontologist. You know, the thing we all said we wanted to be as kids, but somehow life ruined everything. Black also wrote the beloved (by me and a lot of other people) Last Days of the Dinosaurs. That book and this one have something in common that is quite rare. Technically, they are both fiction. I also read both of them and loved them.

Calling Tyrant Lizard Queen fiction is slightly misleading. It might be better to call it extremely informed dinosaur conjecture. Black tells the story of Snaggletooth (her maiden name, not sure if she ever got married). Black weaves a story about her life from birth to her apex predator status. Ultimately what Black is doing is using a story to tell you oodles of T. Rex facts from why their arms are so little to how badly they smell. Instead of a list of facts, though, Black takes Snaggletooth on a life adventure and brings us along for the ride.

And if you are a huge pain in the butt about making sure this story can be supported by the facts (which is me, I'm that person, and no, people don't appreciate it), well, Black has an extended section at the end of the book which explains where all the conjecture came from. Turns out you can have it all.

(This book was provided as a review copy by St. Martin's Press.)

[Maria · Rating 5 out of 5]

I will read everything Riley Black writes because she is just so damn good. You can feel how engrossed and enamored she is with her subjects through her writing. Her passion bleeds through the pages and is amazing to experience.

This story follows Snaggletooth, a t-rex, from her first moments hatching out of an egg, to her having her own children. It’s a beautiful blend of science and storytelling, leaving me immersed from beginning to end.

I hope Riley continues to write more stories like this, because this is one of the best non-fiction books I’ve ever read. I can’t wait to pick up a physical copy when this comes out!

[Melissa Stordahl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you so much to St. Martin’s Press for the ARC and to Macmillan Audio for the ALC!

If you would like to have a plethora of dinosaur facts to toss out at parties, this book might be for you. I enjoyed this one mostly on audio, because listening to narrator Wren Mack felt like I was on a relaxing guided tour of a natural history museum.

Tyrant Lizard Queen follows the life of one Tyrannosaurus Rex named Snaggletooth from the moment she hatches until she is fully grown with her own nest of hatchlings. We follow everything she does to survive, from hunting to fights to escaping a flood, all while learning how her body develops and functions. Did you know that a T-Rex couldn’t chew, only cut her prey and swallow huge chunks? I’m going to toss that one out at my next work dinner.

The author weaves so many interesting facts about various other species into the story; she explains about the world and climate they lived in, what advantages different animals had.

The appendixes and notes make up about a fourth of the book, but I’d recommend not to skip these—they are so interesting and not dryly written at all.

[Mere · Rating 3 out of 5]

Anyone who knows me in real life knows I am an absolute dinosaur fanatic! So when I got the approval email for this book, I nearly jumped for joy, I was so excited!! I really enjoyed reading and I found the journey was Snaggletooth was full of beautiful imagery and was a well written story with the evidence we have now. I just didn't love the book and at times found the story to drag a bit, so that's why I gave it 3⭐


I received a copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for my honest review!

[Nadine in NY Jones · Rating 3 out of 5]

My thanks to NetGalley and St Martin's Press for this early review copy.

Full disclosure: I was completely seduced by the amazing cover art and title.  I mean:  Tyrant Lizard Queen?  Who would NOT want to read that???  I had no idea what to expect, all I knew was that I NEEDED this book!   I was NOT expecting lesbian dinosaur sex. 

This  is a fun mix of fact and educated speculation.  Black is a respected paleontologist, so I assume her speculation is pretty factual.  I am not very knowledgeable myself, so I just trust that she got it right.

I've never read a novel that is basically narrative nonfiction that doesn't call itself nonfiction.  I'm not sure what to make of it.   Is this the most fun paleontology textbook possible!?  Is this a novel that over-explains itself?   It's hard to decide.

Snaggletooth is hardly through swallowing the first leg before she begins preparing to pull off another. Hardly any other part of a kill is more prized to a tyrannosaur. Just like in her hot-blooded body, the thighs of the oviraptorosaurs are wrapped in thick dark muscles. The bundled fibers  provided the push and pull required to move the prey’s legs, assisted by the bulging caudofemoralis muscles threaded from the base of the tail to the top of each thigh bone. In life, the muscles contract and pull the femur backward—contributing much of the power behind each step. Such as they are now, the bulging straps of muscle are choice cuts to be peeled away from the skeleton. Other delectable morsels are tucked away inside, especially the fatty liver and other organs held within the skeletal bars of the rib cage, but it’s the thighs that provide the most succulent and rewarding bite. Easy to digest, and, to Snaggletooth, quite delicious raw, the legs of the caenagnathids offer a pleasant change from bug-riddled carrion and small prey that often feel a little scratchy as their little bodies slip down her esophagus.

Because of the information-dense style, I found it worked best if I read only one (or maybe two) chapters at a time.  It was enjoyable to dip into it every day, but I think I would get information fatigue if I tried to read it for a long time.

There are many comments about smells.  Everything is very stinky in this dinosaur world, and I have to assume most of this is speculation, since the things that create smells are soft bodies and would rarely survive fossilization for study today.

Black repeatedly describes Snag's feathers, the colors of her feathers, the patterns and types of feathers as she ages, etc.  It's a shame the cover art does not represent that, especially since it's the cover art that made me want to read this.

This book may struggle to find its audience.  It's too information dense for a casual reader like me, but it's too full of speculation for a serious “just the facts” NF reader.   I wanted to enjoy reading this, but the constant tsunami of details overwhelmed me.  Even the formation of storm clouds is explained:

The sea, so warm in these days and so full of life, is also such a vast pool of moisture that the warmth of Cretaceous summers causes thunderstorms almost daily. The summer heat turns liquid water to vapor, puffy domes of clouds climbing high into the air. Some grow dark, busting to trail purple curtains between sky and whatever is in their path below.

… And as warm air laden with moisture from its interface with the sea rises, it eventually cools and condenses into storm clouds that shower the land.

… [Snag] seeks the limited shelter of the trees, even as they sway and drip in the storm. Her three-toed feet are already picking up clumps of soaked earth as she moves, leaving messy tracks behind. She slips on a balder patch of ground, the broader part of her heel gliding forward for a split second before she regains her step. The soaked mud is so fine that it records the slip of each individual scale on the sides of her foot.

It's a bit much.  

And added to that, there are three named dinosaur characters in this book: a male and two females.  One female is our protagonist, Snag (aka Snaggletooth because of her odd skull formation - I believe this is based on the actual skull on display in the AMNH in NYC).  The other female, Sweet, is both a stronger noble rival and a sex partner.   The only male in this story, Skinny, is a sex partner and an unskilled, conniving cheat.  I'm fine with the female characters, but why did the only named male have to be such a boor?

The lengthy appendix at the end is a joy to read. Black explains the many discoveries and scientific data that informed her choices in this book.

I hope this book finds its audience.  I wish it well!

[Emma Belica · Rating 3 out of 5]

An entertaining read about our prehistoric friends!! Overall I loved following snaggletooth in her journey, but I have to say a lot of information would be lost or misunderstood if you don’t read the appendix. That is where truly the info is and some really interesting stuff on why we don’t know everything about Dinos but that doesn’t mean we never will! So overall, enjoyed but the appendices are necessary and I fear not everyone will read them.

[Jenn · Rating 4 out of 5]

The summary of Tyrant Lizard Queen describes it as an imaginative celebration of Tyrannosaurus rex from hatching to adulthood, and I think that describes this book perfectly. Using scientific findings alongside a lot of imaginative interpretation, we follow “Snaggletooth” from the moment she hatches all the way to the moment her own eggs hatch.

Overall, I really enjoyed this! The book is an easy and engaging read, told more like a fictional story than a traditional nonfiction book, while still incorporating plenty of scientific details along the way. We learn about T. rex, of course, but also other dinosaurs and the Cretaceous Period more broadly, including the plants, animals, reptiles, and mammals that shared this world.

A lot of the dinosaur behavior is based on what paleontologists have been able to discover through the fossil record, while other parts are necessarily educated guesses. Since we can’t observe T. rex behavior directly, the author uses modern-day birds and other living relatives to help imagine how these dinosaurs may have behaved, and I really enjoyed seeing those ideas brought to life through Snaggletooth’s story.

I’ve also enjoyed Riley Black’s previous books, The Last Days of the Dinosaurs and When the Earth Was Green . Compared to those, I would say Tyrant Lizard Queen felt the least scientific and was definitely the more casual read. That isn’t a bad thing, though! I really enjoyed the storytelling approach, and I think Black has a great writing style that makes these topics accessible without losing the science behind them.

I would definitely recommend this to anyone interested in paleontology, dinosaurs, or the Cretaceous Period, but also to anyone looking for an interesting and fun imagining of what life might have been like for a T. rex.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the eARC. All thoughts are my own.

[Amy (amyrose.reads) · Rating 3.5 out of 5]

Thank you so much to the MacMillan Audio Early Listeners Program for this ALC!

This non-fiction read is a bit outside of my typical comfort zone, but Riley Black does an excellent job of weaving information with the story of “Snaggletooth.” The narrative format of this book made it really easy to build a relationship with this dinosaur.

I’ve always found dinosaurs to be very interesting. This past summer, I even visited a museum in Montana where I got to see a variety of bones and fossils. I appreciated how I was able to connect information from that experience to this book.

Throughout the book, you follow Snaggletooth through her grappling with escaping her egg to her adulthood. I appreciated how the book made it feel like time was moving fast and even recognized relationships happening between dinosaurs.

I particularly appreciate Riley Black’s insistence on depicting Snaggletooth as a female dinosaur. As she mentions in the afterword, society defaults many animals and dinosaurs to women. Tyrannosaurus Rex literally means Tyrant Lizard King…thus, our Queen.

I would highly recommend this as an audiobook. I think it makes a lot of the nonfiction more accessible, especially considering the pronunciation of many dinosaur names.

If you’re interested in dinosaurs in any capacity, I think this book is worth the listen!

[Mikey ಠ◡ಠ · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was SUCH a fun book to read, I highly recommend it!

I'll be the first person to admit I read nonfiction because I want to broaden my literary horizons, but I can struggle with it sometimes due to particularly dense writing. I'm SORRY, I wish I was better but the fact of the matter is: I'm not that smart. You're shocked, you're shocked. Take your time, I know.

Anyways, all that to say I really appreciate any nonfiction book I find that's written in an engaging way that's easy for the every day person such as myself to approach. I loved following Snaggletooth and learning about her life as she might have lived it during the Cretaceous period. I also appreciate that while this was nonfiction that obviously leaned on the creative side, as there's no way for us to POSSIBLY know how Snaggletooth lived her life day to day, the author outlined at the end what facts and research they drew on to bring Snaggletooth to life before our very eyes.

If you want to branch out and read more nonfiction, but you feel intimidated or don't know how/where to start, I absolutely recommend starting with this book!

Thanks to NetGalley, the publisher, and the author for the opportunity to listen to an ALC and provide an honest review, all opinions are my own.

[Laurie · Rating 4.5 out of 5]

I’ve read this author before and she has a talent for story telling and not just sharing the interesting facts of science. She weaves the story of Snaggletooth’s life into the actual science of why and how, effortlessly flowing together a fun and informative way to explain about Tyranasaurus Rex. Starting with Snag’s mom waiting for her babies to hatch and then Snag hatching her own babies later on in her life. This book is of course fiction because we don’t know exactly how life was 66 millions years ago, but I appreciated the appendix full of facts and theories supporting and explaining every detail that went into Snaggletooth’s story.

Thank you for NetGalley for the ARC

[Peter Tillman]

Nice review at Science: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/s...
Excerpt:
"Tyrant Lizard Queen is a wonderfully fascinating and gripping interpretation of the fossil record that animates one of Earth’s most iconic dinosaurs. It will entertain and educate readers of nearly all ages and offers a refreshing celebration of the great circle, and great science, of life."

[J.S. · Rating 0.25 out of 5]

This book is NOT non-fiction. It is FICTION, or perhaps historical fiction. (Pre-historical fiction maybe?) I wish I had realized that before I requested it from NetGalley (which classifies it as nonfiction). Black has chosen to tell a highly imaginative and anthropomorphized story of a female T. rex called "Snaggletooth" from hatchling to adulthood.

What I am about to share with you is my vision, a slice of what I see when I visit with an animal that our puny protoprimate ancestors lived alongside. But I am more of a guide directing your field of view than an omnipotent narrator, and the dinosaurs can only move, only live, if you bring your own inspiration to the scenes that unspool through the following pages. We will be dreaming together as I offer the gesture and outlines as you fill in the colors. Together, ears perked for the whispers of bones, we can indulge each "what if" and every "I wonder" as we do something indelibly human – speak the dead back to life. (from the Introduction)

Naturally, you would assume that this is based on facts and solid theories and that we would be told the evidence, and if something was based on conjecture we're given those details. We aren't until the Afterword and Appendices. And even then it soon becomes apparent that there's an awful lot of wild guesswork and tenuous assumptions going on here. I found that very annoying. The first thing anyone says when they see a depiction of dinosaurs with feathers or varied colors is "How do they know that?" I had that question on nearly every page.

I was surprised to find that I'd actually read this author before, although it was when the author was a man named Brian Switek. I recall that I liked that book, although it was the first non-fiction dinosaur book I'd read (12 years ago). I bring this up only because several reviews are criticizing the author for injecting modern-day social politics into the book. In chapter 7 we find out Snaggletooth is a lesbian T. rex, and in the appendix we are told that although there's no evidence, "there can be little doubt" that dinosaurs engaged in same-sex relations for pleasure and not just for breeding. As evidence she offers human sexuality and reports from naturalists who have observed penguins and other birds and reptiles engaging in such relations, and says puritanical scientists have just ignored and buried this information. This was the last 'you gotta be kidding me' straw for me.

Honestly, if I wanted fictional dinosaurs I'd reread Jurassic Park. I hate marking a book DNF but this one has been annoying me since the beginning and I'm pulling the plug on this "imaginative dream." If you want a science-based book on dinosaurs there are many better options such as (for starters): Dinosaurs Rediscovered by Michael J. Benton, The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs by Steve Brusatte, Dinosaurs Without Bones by Anthony J. Martin, or The Dinosaur Heresies by Robert T. Bakker.

[J · Rating 1 out of 5]

***The book contains political components to hit basically every DEI checkpoint instead of standing on neutral ground as should any book based on nonfiction. Furthermore the author chose the reader would benefit from a LGBT portrayal with basically no notes mentioning examples of predatory single creatures participating in such behaviors***

Tyrant Lizard Queen is a fictionalized scientific-based telling of what life may have been like for a tyrannosaur from hatching to her first brood, basically stopping before she gets to full maturity. The author chose a female (Lord forbid there should probably be neutral pronouns instead of sex ones according to the author) pov since apparently dinosaurs need feminist retellings instead of it being a better choice since a female would have more to present in a tale than a male whose life routine stops short of parental care.

Give the fact the rock records can only save and share so much, the author has taken liberties to base behaviors captured in these records while at the same time supplementing these with behaviors found in modern reptiles and birds. A deeper look of this can be be found in the back within the Notes for those curious to read them. I agree with a fellow reviewer that it would have been been nice to have a hyperlink allowing readers of the digital book to easily flip between the two sections or put the notes in a section behind each chapter.

Most of the Woke arguments unfortunately can be found in the said notes although the Introduction had enough warning triggers to make me roll my eyes that a man's legacy to his work can't be also presented without his flaws.

Otherwise the information was decent and the book had plausible merit on its own without the fripperies but since of the latter I couldn't get into it. When can we get back neutral nonfiction books that aren't politically driven and/or mostly memoirs of their said authors?

***I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review***

[Jim Razinha · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was between seven and eight years old when my parents got me a Scholastic book on dinosaurs - Dinosaurs and More Dinosaurs by M. Jean Craig. The science is outdated now - we’ve learned so much in the past 56 years! - but I devoured that book, rereading it again and again. So much that the eight year old me declared he was going to be a paleontologist when he grew up. The next year, I read a How and Why Wonder Book of Primitive Man and declared then that I would be an anthropologist. ( The year after, it was a book on ancient civilizations and … archeology. as long as it was science, I was in.) We also lived 50 miles from the Peabody Museum of Natural History in New Haven, Connecticut, and there is the wonderful, if a bit outdated, mural The Age of Reptiles. All that just means I was primed for this book. I moved on to physics, and ultimately engineering, but the love of dinosaurs has never left.

The principal part of this is a creative nonfiction construction of the life of a tyrannosaur. The narrative is easy to read, with an imagined T. rex being hatched, growing to adulthood and encountering normal life events like hunting, eating, treating with rivals, mating, reproducing, and continuing the cycle. It’s a good story and the real meat, so to speak, is in the Appendix, which is a third as long as the main text. In that Ms. Black explains the known science and deductive/inductive reasoning they used to speculate on each of the stages they cover. And their approach is grounded in the best as we yet know it science because as they say, “Evolution doesn't follow our expectations of what seems optimal, logical, or even useful.” While there is a robust bibliography, I wish the sources were tied to the text (the Appendix text, I assume) through callouts and keyed notes. I like being able to follow up on specific information that prompts my curiosity more than the usual “everything”

I received an uncorrected digital review copy of Tyrant Lizard Queen from the author and publisher, St. Martin’s Press through NetGalley, which I very much appreciate. Highly recommended.

One additional highlight:
“The bulk of the dinosaur fossil record comes from animals that were just the right size to become fossils. They were large enough to be resilient to destruction, sometimes lying on the surface for months as they dried out, but were small enough that a local event such as flooding following a storm could move enough sediment to bury them. Such dinosaurs are also just the right size to be spotted by paleontologists out in the field, and so they have historically been the species found first in any given formation experts search within. Adult Alamosaurus certainly had sturdy skeletons that were resilient to destruction, but they were so large that a truly incredible amount of sediment would be required to bury them and give them any chance at becoming articulated fossils. This is why it is often so difficult to say what dinosaur species was the largest of all time because all of the hundred-foot-plus giants were so huge that their bodies resisted burial and were pulled apart by scavengers, and the elements, before burial.”

[Nicole Reads Romance · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had no idea what to expect from this book - how would a non-fiction follow the life of one T.rex?! Turns out with a lot of speculation! While I really enjoyed the journey this book took us on, I was continually wondering "how do they know?" and a quick author's note addressing this at the start rather than after the fact would have been great. This book is presented as non-fiction and it's not entirely. That said I had a great time, and I think this format is ideal for fans of wildlife documentaries.

So go in knowing that the first three quarters are a documentary-style life-of, following one T.rex (Snaggletooth) across two decades from embryo to her own nest of babies, and the final quarter of the book is appendices which you absolutely should not skip! In them the author details, chapter by chapter, what is based on direct evidence and what she extrapolated (and from where, eg. how emus hatch from their eggs).

Despite semi-regular visits to dinosaur museums I have not read a dino non-fiction in years, especially not one geared towards adults - and I learned so much! And though this book is intended for an adult audience, I would say that 99% of it is totally appropriate to read with most ages, with one small section of the appendices discussing clitorises and their purpose.

I thoroughly enjoyed Wren Mack's narration, and reading via audiobook added to the documentary-style vibes of the narrative portion of this book. I was invested in Snaggletooth's journey, and only hope I will be able to remember which bits are from current hard evidence and which are speculation! I will definitely be revisiting the appendices, and look forward to reading more by this author.

Thank you to Macmillan audio for an ALC via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

[Elisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

In the afterword, the author says she “wanted to write a dinosaur book like no other.” Mission accomplished. From its fantastic title to its extensive appendix, this is a terrific read. Black imagines the hard life of Snaggletooth, a T. rex, from birth onward. The result is dramatic, fun, and genuinely moving, making you care about a creature that has been extinct for millions of years. As I read, I kept thinking, Yes, this is fun, but how does she know? That’s where the appendix comes in. Black explains the reasoning behind her ideas, drawing on what little we know from the paleontological evidence as well as what we can infer from the behavior of living animals. And yes, she backs it all up. She is candid about what we don’t—and perhaps can’t—know, making clear that this is an educated reconstruction rather than a definitive account. Still, Snaggletooth is every bit as compelling as any human character I’ve encountered in fiction, and the world she inhabits is vividly brought to life. Until the day we invent a time machine—or a TARDIS—this is about as close as we’re going to get.
I chose to read this book and all opinions in this review are my own and completely unbiased. Thank you, NetGalley/St. Martin's Press.

[Kaitlyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

**Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the digital ARC of this book.

This was easily one of the cutest, most fun, interesting, and informative books I have read in a long time. I absolutely LOVED it!

Tyrant Lizard Queen follows Snaggletooth (how cute is that?? 😊), a Tyrannosaurus rex, throughout her life, and I mean from the very beginning! We meet her while she is still inside her egg, trying to kick her way out of her shell, and then follow her through all of the good, the bad, and the ugly that comes with surviving in her world.

One of my favorite things about this book was just how descriptive it was. With a story like this, those details make such a difference. The writing made it incredibly easy to visualize the world around Snaggletooth, and there were moments when I genuinely felt like I was there witnessing everything happen alongside her. At the same time, I was learning so much without ever feeling like I was reading a textbook. It was informative while still being completely entertaining.

This was also such a refreshing change from what I normally read. It has been a very long time since I picked up something like this, and I am SO glad I did. I had an absolute blast following Snaggletooth through her life, and I didn’t want the experience to end.

An easy ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ from me. I will absolutely be picking up more books by Riley Black after this one! 🦖

[Julie Witt · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a very interesting fact based story about a Tyrannosaurus rex from the time she hatched to the time she herself became a mother. The author definitely knows her stuff, as evidenced by the detailed way she told this story.

While this book is fact based, there was a lot of speculation in there that just made the story that much more interesting. You could feel the love and admiration the author has for her subject, as well as her excitement. The way she melded the two together, fact and speculation, made the story so much more immersive. You literally had no idea how much you were learning because she, like all top educators, made the lesson so fun you just got sucked into the story. The world building was phenomenal; you could feel the humidity and hear the bugs buzzing around your head as you read.

All in all, I enjoyed this book very much and commend the author on her ability to bring this ancient lizard queen to life.

5/5 stars

*** I would like to thank NetGalley, St. Martin's Press, and Riley Black for the opportunity to read and review this book.

[Cat · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh how I love non fiction books that feel so alive!
I love learning and I love how mysterious and fascinating dinosaurs are, so when I saw a book based on our best theories of a dinosaur's life written like a biography, I knew I had to read it!
I was instantly pulled in by the story of Snaggletooth and I couldn't stop reading. Not only is the story of the giant so interesting, I also learned so much about how much we know and don't know about the tyrannosaurus its contemporaries in the appendices (which was honestly my favourite part of the book, I adored getting this behind the scenes view of how and why the author decides to include each information and where that knowledge comes from).

A favourite of the year and now I can't wait to go back to read the author's other books 👀

Thank you Macmillan Audio for the ALC and St Martin's Press for the ARC. Tyrant Lizard Queen comes out this week on October 27th, 2025.

[Cherish · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was such a joy to read! There is a ton of technical jargon and long names when you are talking about dinosaurs, but Riley Black did an amazing job at making it accessible. I hate when my nonfiction reads like a textbook, and this was not like that at all! We are following a T-Rex named Snaggletooth from her birth all the way into her 20s when she has her own little brood. I learned so much about these awesome creatures! There are also appendices at the end that tells you how Black came to their conclusions in the book. If you are a casual dino lover, please check this out! If you are a dinosaur expert, you may not find any new info, but may still enjoy!

[Cece · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was fooled or maybe I didn't understand the book blurb. This is being marketed as nonfiction; it is not nonfiction. It's a highly imaginative account of tyrannosaurs via a story about Snaggletooth, a (fictional) lesbian t-rex. Three stars because I wanted a technical and engaging nonfiction on tyrannosaurs, but the writing here is fun and descriptive albeit not technical dry facts. I think the right person will love this, and I'm interested in reading more of this author's work. It was so immersive and read like I was inside a movie, and that was fun for me.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press (Macmillan) for my arc!

[Megan Ketcher Gayer · Rating 1 out of 5]

I really thought I was going to enjoy this read. I wanted something different. A (marked as NONFICTION) life of the dinosaur book sounded like I was going to get one of those awesome documentary style stories.

This is 100% fiction. Yes there are cool facts, but you can tell this is a story the author just wanted to imagine what dinosaurs were like. And she really went out on a limb on some of her theories. The writing was actually pretty boring if we weren’t following Snaggletooth’s daily activities. This book was not bringing me joy, so I put it down at 48%. 🙂

[Kara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you Netgalley for an advanced copy!

Dr. Black takes all the latest research on T. Rex, plus, she admits, her own imagination, and presents the daily life of young T. Rex 61 million years ago. I was absolutely fascinated to read the descriptions of life in this lost world, and fascinated by how Black speculates the T. Rex looked and acted - but the sheer amount of speculation gave me pause, since there was just so much not found in the fossil record that Dr. Black had to make up, even though it was based on logical guesses from known facts. So, I wouldn't take this as the only source on this time period, but definitely would recommend as a place to start to get your imagination flowing with what-ifs.

[Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tyrant Lizard Queen is Riley Black’s imagining of the life of a Tyrannosaurus Rex during the Mesozoic period in lush basin area in Utah, specifically AMNH 5027, whose skeleton was seen by the author as a child in the American Museum of Natural History.

Black does a startlingly impressive job of bringing the skeleton to life as a living, breathing tyrannosaur she names Snaggletooth, aka Snag, for the tooth that doesn’t sit quite even in her jaw. Through Black’s story we see Snaggletooth go from a hatchling to adulthood, encountering the risk to infant dinosaurs, growing old enough to be forced to live on her own, trying to find and feed constantly, facing rivals, and having a nest of her own.

Black also explores the anatomy of Snaggletooth, how she would have kept herself fed at different points in her life, the roles she and other dinosaurs would have served in their ecosystem, and how natural events could risk throwing that ecosystem out of balance.

Black does such a great job of incorporating what is known about dinosaurs and what we can take away from what we know about birds and modern reptiles and amphibians that it feels like the reader is following the life of a living, breathing creature with a camera strapped to it to record its behaviors that it’s hard to believe that this is a hypothetical exploration of an animal dead for well over a million years.

I’m glad Black chooses to set this “biography” over a million years before the asteroid hit Earth that killed the majority of the dinosaurs (except of course the feathery ones chirping outside your window). By avoiding sensationalism, Black allows us to see what life would have been like in the circumstances that all but a very few (very dead) dinosaurs experienced.

Admittedly on a personal level, I could have done without the very detailed explanation of how Snaggletooth’s body processed and digested (or did not digest) her food, because in depth explorations of anatomy of any kind is not my vibe, but there are plenty of people who probably feel differently.

I do wish Black had covered more of Snaggletooth’s life, as I felt there were parts not covered that her unique style of writing would have provided a great perspective on.

This is the first two thirds of the book. The next quarter of the book Black uses to provide context for each one of the chapters told from Snaggletooth’s perspective, sharing what is known about tyrannosaurs from their remains and the fossil record, hypotheses based on similar species we can actually observe today, and the record we have of the geology and climate of the time.

This section is drier the following along with Snaggletooth’s life on a day to day basis, but provides a lot of context without weighing down the primary story with so many facts that it distracts the reader from the main point Black is trying to accomplish.

The book is definitely on the short side, likely because there really is only so much we know about species who lived over a million years before us, but it is a fun and interesting read for anyone who has a fascination with dinosaurs, or who can happily sit for hours on end watching animal documentaries on National Geographic or Discovery Channel.

A complimentary copy of this book was provided by the publisher. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

My thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for an advance copy of this book that is biography of a very dangerous creature, a look at the times in which it lived, how science has changed in studying these creatures, with a whole lot of chomping going on.

True confession, I was not much for dinosaurs as a child. I had some toys, little plastic figures, maybe even a pop-up book or two, but dinosaurs were never really that important to me. Even Jurassic Park kind of slipped past me, I liked the book as a Michael Crichton fan, but a whole park, yeah not for me. I don't know how, maybe being an uncle of fans of dinosaurs, but in the last few years I have done a lot of reading about thunder lizards and their ilk. Which has shown that many of the things I thought I knew, or were taught were wrong. Science is always changing, moving forward with new theories and new ideas, and new facts. All of which appear in this book, a unique one at that. A biography of a Tyrannosaurus rex, starting from the shell, and exploring a whole wide world. Living, loving, and chomping. Tyrant Lizard Queen: The Love, Life, and Terror of Earth’s Greatest Carnivore by Riley Black is a story of the past, featuring a creature over 40 feet long, nine tons in weight, just trying to make it through the day, based on the latest ideas about dinosaurs written by one of their great memorists.

The book begins in the past, over 66 million years give or take, in a North America that is very wet, loaded with smells and lots and lots of creatures, some big, some mean, and some T-rexs. The book begins with our hero, Snaggletooth, names for the one tooth that juts out of her mouth, becoming aware of life inside an egg, and wanting to get out. Snaggletooth is one of ten eggs their mother has laid and cared for, protecting from creatures big and small. Two were lost, leaving eight little babies, Soon reduced down to three. Snaggletooth learns how to fight with her siblings, and hunt from their mother, which comes in handy as Snaggletooth is asked to leave. The book follows as Snaggletooth matures. Getting in fights, losing a fight. Making a life on their own, Finding love, having children. And chomping all the way. Black looks at the science not only of Snaggletooth, but of the Cretaceous period that Snaggletooth lives in, dispelling old myths, making sense of new ideas, and showing a life in full, even about a dinosaur.

I enjoyed this book for a lot of reasons. One of them, and the best is that Black is an excellent writer. This is the thrid book I have read by Black, and I have learned quite a bit, not just about dinosaurs, but about plants, and about the beauty that was the past. The book is really well done, told in a way that is really a biography about Snaggletooth, their life and times. The constant need for food, how the world appears to these creatures. And the animals they share the world with. Black makes everything clear, never lecturing, always showing in a way that makes learning fun. As I wrote earlier I have learned quite a bit, and too my nephews have sounded far smarter than I am.

A really well done book, one that sounded weird to begin with, but really very well done. A mix of action story, with a lot of facts that fit well in the narrative. A book I really enjoyed, and eagerly wait what Riley Black has planned next.

[TheHonorableSirChewbacca · Rating 4.5 out of 5]

"Eyes locked onto her chick, the mother tyrannosaur lifted her tail and lowered her head, jaws parted to display the curved tips of her coarsely serrated teeth. She hissed, long and unmistakably upset with Snaggletooth's presence. Her mother was just another tyrannosaur now, her last kindness expressed as a warning. Snag chirped and hopped before her mother, much as she did when she was a nestling. Perhaps this could be some kind of play. But her mother opened her jaws and slammed them shut with a muffled thunk...The little tyrannosaur kept trying, Snag strutting and calling even though her mother didn't even need to hear her to know who she was."
—

"If Snaggletooth is to survive, she must find a stretch of habitat that is familiar and nourishing. It can all too easily be taken. Any challenge is not merely a personal confrontation, but one that will vastly affect her survival. Especially for an animal her size, living in between the territories of other aggressive rex is not a workable possibility. The territory boundaries will always shift and be somewhat permeable, but her effort must nevertheless be continual."
—

Book review:
This book is so engrossing and was a pleasure to read! If you've ever been enthralled by a David Attenborough show, this is for you.

This is also for people who:
-like dinosaurs
-like nature/animals
-enjoy vivid writing/imagery
-like coming-of-age survival stories
-appreciate the coexistence of power + tenderness

The writing is vivid and immediate. I could almost SEE/hear/smell what was going on like I was there with our young Snaggletooth aka "Snag" (such an endearing name). It is also surprisingly emotionally evocative at times, such as when young Snaggletooth is kicked out of the nest by her mother.

Riley Black gives a bunch of fascinating information — such as why T. Rexes have such short arms and how it's actually HELPFUL to them — in a very digestible/accessible/engaging way. I'm no expert or paleontologist, so I have no idea about the fact checking the author has done or the accuracy of the info (or highly-informed conjecture), but the details are nonetheless intriguing and captivating.

The only note I have is that sometimes the verb tense shifts from present to past tense, which feels a bit confusing. I think it makes sense grammatically, but I wish the book could be in one verb tense for a more continuous feel.

Audiobook review:
Wren Mack's narration was captivating, evoking a sense of wonder and power. The voice was pleasantly soothing while simultaneously bringing an exciting energy to the book. I really enjoyed the audiobook and was somewhat entranced by the stream of images popping into my head as I listened to the vivid storytelling. The only feedback I'd have for the audiobook is that the inhales between sentences are audible/noticeable, and I would prefer they be edited out or made quieter, if that's possible.

4.5/5 stars

Thank you to St. Martin's Press, Macmillan Audio, and Netgalley for the book and audiobook ARCs! It was a joy to have Snaggletooth's company these past few days.

[Daniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This review originally published in Looking For a Good Book. Rated 3.5 of 5

Who doesn't like dinosaurs, right? Even my 2 year old grandson knows what a dinosaur is. They're on toys, they're on his pajamas, they're on TV shows!

The first half of author Riley Black's book is a narrative, with an anthropomorphic T-Rex, looking for a safe place to lay her eggs, find food, and then to protect her young and teach them how to hunt and scavenge for food.

Honestly, I didn't enjoy this. I am not a fan of non-fiction that is written like fiction - giving people words and intentions that we really don't know they had. Doing this for animals take this, which I already don't like, and magnifies it. We don't really know the thought pattern of modern animals (birds and alligators - two dinosaur-related species - are still a bit of a mystery), how can we hope to know what a creature who live a millennia ago thought? I nearly gave up on the book, but decided to power though and see where it was going to go.

Then I got to the second section in which author Black explains the reality behind the first part of the book, chapter by chapter. Ahhhh.

Here we get the play-by-play, answers to questions I had and questions I hadn't thought of ... why this location for the eggs? What are they eating? Do they really eat bone? Why, why, why. Riley Black's answers to these questions is what I was looking for in the first place when I opened this book, and while I'm still not convinced that this was the best way to present it, I understand that there are probably a lot of readers who prefer the fictional narrative to present non fiction.

I learned a fair amount, which I appreciated and it is one of the main reasons I like non-fiction. I'm hardly an expert on dinosaurs now, but getting some insight into some of the new methods of identification and how much the bones and eggs that have survived have revealed, was truly enlightening.

I wish I had known that we'd be getting the background on the narrative section. I'm confident I would have enjoyed it more. I also probably would have gone chapter by chapter - narrative, then the background, narrative, then the background, and so forth. If you read reviews before reading a book, take note: whether you like narrative non-fiction or more history/science based non-fiction, both are here.

Looking for a good book? Riley Black's Tyrant Lizard Queen starts this non-fiction book with a narrative account of a female T-Rex raising her off-spring, complete with dinosaur thoughts and concerns. The narrative is followed by a chapter-by-chapter explanation of how this narrative makes sense today.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

[KC · Rating 4 out of 5]

Book Review: Tyrant Lizard Queen by Riley Black

This book reconstructs the life of a female Tyrannosaurus rex named Snaggletooth from hatchling to apex predator, responsibly tethered to current paleontological research. We follow her through a perilous adolescence, an explosive teenage growth spurt, and her eventual rise to an eight-ton adult capable of casually rearranging her ecosystem simply by walking through it. Black frames the story as a biography, which sounds ambitious for an animal extinct for sixty-six million years, but she pulls it off by leaning heavily on fossil evidence. Bone growth rings, healed injuries, and biomechanical modeling keep the narrative from drifting into full-blown dinosaur fan fiction.

One of the book’s most striking elements is scale. This is an animal that may have required hundreds of pounds of meat at regular intervals and could deliver over 12,000 pounds of bite force. That is less villain monologue and more hydraulic press. Yet Black consistently reins in the spectacle. Snaggletooth’s typical walking pace, closer to three miles per hour, replaces the cinematic sprint. She is not racing through the floodplains in slow motion. She moves with deliberation, governed by environmental and ecological pressures. Constantly regenerating teeth and an eighty-degree jaw gape sound dramatic, but in context they are practical design features for a bone-crushing predator.

Thematically, the book pushes back on the idea of dinosaurs as mindless engines of destruction. This tyrannosaur must survive more than a decade before reaching reproductive maturity, which is thirteen years of not getting eaten first. Juveniles likely filled different ecological roles than adults, suggesting an animal that changed careers as it aged. Fossils with healed fractures and bite marks hint at a life that was less invincible tyrant and more battle-hardened survivor. Even the mating scene, which could easily tip into spectacle, is portrayed as a logistical challenge involving several tons of muscle and balance. Apex predator does not mean immune to physics.

What makes the book work is its balance between imagination and restraint. Black is clear that every behavioral detail rests on inference from bone, trackway, and comparative anatomy. The tension between what can be known and what must be reconstructed becomes part of the appeal. The result is not just a portrait of a Tyrannosaurus rex, but a reminder that deep time is assembled piece by piece. The tyrant lizard queen emerges not as a movie monster, but as a biologically plausible animal doing her best to survive in a world that was not built for comfort.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for this ARC. This is my honest and voluntary review.

[Ebbs · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5⭐
It’s amazing what a difference there is between the Dudebro paleontology books and one written by a woman. This was such a breath of fresh air, and I’m definitely going to read more of Black’s backlog (When the Earth Was Green looks especially interesting)

I do think the narrative style is a bold choice that is going to be pretty polarizing. I did struggle with the “okay but we don’t KNOW if that scene you just described really happened” of it all, but I trusted the process and went with the flow and really enjoyed it. And then it was a very nice surprise to realize that the last third of the book is actually notes from the author, about her reasoning and evidence for the ‘scenes’ she showed us from Snaggletooth’s hypothetical life. I loved this section, partly because it felt like director commentary, which was fun, and because it made me excited to read more of Black’s nonfiction.

One thing I really appreciated about Black’s narrative is how much she centers the idea that all living things are part of the broader ecosystem, whether they are an apex predator, prey animal, or bacteria. That’s always been such a frustrating aspect of the Dudebro Paleontology™, is how they talk about large carnivores as though they are reigning over a conquered kingdom, rather than one part of an entire ecosystem. I also found the section that pointed out how the giant sauropods probably had no natural predators once they surpassed a certain size, but if one died of illness, then large carnivores such as T-rex were still needed to rip and tear through their thick hide, opening up a cretaceous equivalent of a whalefall for the rest of the animals in the area. I had never given that any thought before, I found that whole section very interesting.

I think the people that definitely won’t like this are anyone that’ll get too stuck on the “but we can’t KNOW if that actually happened that way” of it all, and people that get really mad at the fact that animals have gay sex sometimes. For everyone else, I highly recommend it.

I received an advanced copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.