The Winter Queen

by Devin Cary

The King Is Dead

The northern kingdom of Albor is in mourning. The realm's benevolent ruler has falen victim to a fatal accident. Under his reign, Albor has known peace and prosperity, and all the denizens fear that this time has come to an end. The king's son is too young to assume the thron, and a regent must be chosen to rule until the prince comes of age. With his dying breath, the king chooses his wife--Queen Elissa.

Long Live the Queen

Elissa isn't prepared to become a regent, but she must if her children--the prince and princess--are to survive the machinations of the kingdom's lords and nobles. They will never accept a woman on the throne and will do anything to usurp her power. But the aristocracy of Albor is unaware of just how much power Elissa possesses. Descended from a family of mages, she secretly practices her skills in sorcery.

But she can't completely control them...

Also published under the name: Cary G. Osborne

Genres: Fantasy

282 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published December 1, 1999

About the author

Also writes as: Cary G. Osborne https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...

Reviews

[Addoris (Adi) · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book started off grand, with a fabulous intro of recently widowed queen fighting for the right to be regent to her five year old son. However, my one complaint is that the story didn’t seem finished. It tied up most of the plot, but the world is so rich that I️ felt there could have been many more pages to fully complete the story.

[˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚ · Rating 2 out of 5]

- another random book I picked up from one of my local used bookstores solely because I liked the cover
- while overall I enjoyed the writing, at times it felt rushed and disjointed and took me out of the story
- Some of the plot points seemed to have been left loose or concluded in a way that wasn't exactly explained? there were things that seemed to happen out of nowhere solely to keep the plot going
- on that note, wtf was the plot at times? it seemed like we kept losing track of that
- the writing style was the only thing carrying honestly, even if it also got repetitive (the amount of times warm mead, or just mead in general, was brought up... like, we get it. queenie wants to get toasted and likes her mead. alas, she cannot. anyway.)
- all in all, I'd have liked it more if it had been more fleshed out and jumped around less

[Mark]

It's an okay medieval fantasy novel. It ended on a bit of a cliffhanger, though, as if the author just decided to stop or ran out of room. The paper version is actually a cut-down version of the original manuscript, though. The author has released the complete version as an ebook, but I haven't made my way through all of it yet.

[Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was really good. Kept the action interesting but not gory, the queen was someone the reader could relate to, the romance wasn't a big factor, but a nice compliment to the whole story in general. The only reason this book got 4 stars was the ending. Left much to desired. So much.