The Star Queen

The Sunken Kingdom #4

by Kim Wilkins, D.M. Cornish (Illustrator)

AN EXPLOSION WAKES Asa and Rollo in the middle of the night. It’s their enemy, the evil emperor Flood, destroying the homes of innocent people in his search for the two royal children! In order to protect the people around them, Asa and Rollo know they must leave and search out the man they have been avoiding all along. They sail the invisible ship Northseeker to Flood’s stronghold, Castle Crag. If they are lucky, they will find their mother and father in the castle’s dungeons. But one thing they know for sure—it’s time for a final showdown with Flood!

Genres: Fantasy

96 pages, Paperback

First published September 23, 2008

About the author

Also writes under the name of Kimberley Freeman.

Reviews

[Travis Berketa · Rating 1 out of 5]

Well, I'm kind of glad that the series is over with the completion of book 4 of The Sunken Kingdom series; and it seems like the author, Kim Wilkins, felt the same.

After such a long, tiresome build up to trying to find their parents, Princess Asa and Prince Rollo find themselves in the evil Flood's ominous dwelling, Castle Crag. Asa had been taken there and thrown into a dungeon, while Rollo uses his enchantment of fish gills and swims there (encountering a few problems along the way). Then it's like Wilkins gets the wind up call and hurries to get through to the end. Rollo gets sick, as he had been told would happen the more he uses his enchantment, so Asa decides to leave him in a quiet corner of the labyrinth of dungeons and goes it alone. The person who had told them about the limitations to their enchantments, the Sorcerer Ragni, apparently escaped from being tied up to a rock by a whirlpool with the help of the magic of the Moonstone Star that Asa left with him and has been running around the dungeons for some time trying to find the King and Queen (not sure how he managed to escape the eyes and ears of the guards - it appears there is only the one who looks after the dungeons day and night without any shift changes). Asa eventually finds her parents after passing the test of the mystical keyholes and sets them free with Ragni's help. Reunited with the Moonstone Star, the Queen makes Rollo feel better and then the family and Ragni move to make their escape. Apparently Flood comes down to the dungeons to deal with the troublesome family by himself and, just to prove how evil he is, he shoots Ragni with a bolt of light and kills him. The Queen wants to fight back, but Flood nimbly gets himself between the Queen and King, cutting off their ability to get to Asa and Rollo (even though the family were all trying to escape together and were cut off from escape to Flood... without any of his soldiers for back-up). But, fear not, because while Flood is telling the Queen to give up or he will kill the children, Rollo uses a magic rope given to him by some mermen type creatures and makes it wrap around the villains hands so he cannot use magic and the Queen takes back the magic Flood had and transports it back to the Moonstone Star. Phew! The final battle is over! So we end with a quick few paragraphs that state that Katla and Skalti get married and the family celebrates, with Una (the youngest and quite pointless child) getting a bit of a mention too.

Although some of the ideas in this book were quite good, I did not like the way they were relayed to the reader in the story. Reading this series with my 6-year-old and 8-year-old also reinforced my thoughts about this series, as the girls (and I) were not overly concerned about the characters - there was nothing that made us connect and, over the four books, I do not feel that the characters endeared themselves to any of us. My youngest said that she liked Una after the first book and was ready to see more of her, but Una was virtually a non-entity - just a name in the book. My eldest sighed heavily whenever I said that we'll read The Sunken Kingdom tonight, probably because her interest was dashed after book 2 (hence why it took so long to get through).

This series could have been more with some more evolved characters and better writing, but to be honest, I would not recommend it to any age group.

[Jennifer Wardrip · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reviewed by Jaglvr for TeensReadToo.com

THE STAR QUEEN is the fourth (and final?) novel in THE SUNKEN KINGDOM series. Kim Wilkins wraps up the story nicely by the final page of the book.

THE STAR QUEEN starts out with Asa and Rollo being awakened during the night by loud explosions. It takes a bit of prodding, but the two children are able to get their Aunt Katla to reveal what is going on in the surrounding countryside. Evil emperor Flood is destroying the homes of their neighbors in his quest to locate Asa and Rollo.

Torn by guilt at the destruction on their account, the two children leave behind their baby sister, Una, and their aunt and head off on the Northseeker on a final quest to locate their missing (and hopefully still alive) parents.

As one of the children gets captured by the Sky Patrol, it's up to the other sibling to find the Castle Crag and rescue not only their sibling, but also search for their parents.

Once inside the Castle Crag, characters from the past three novels come to play a part in bringing a resolution to the childrens' quest.

I don't want to give anything else away, so I'll leave it at that. The story moves along quickly with much excitement and anticipation. For those readers that have been enjoying the first three books in the series, THE STAR QUEEN will not disappoint. The story is appropriate for all ages. The beautiful illustrations enhance the story as it comes to
its conclusion.

[Chloe · Rating 3 out of 5]

We want to read more about Asa, Rollo and Una!!!!

[Eloise-mae Varga · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was a very good book and i was glued to it until i finished it.