Status Updates From The Fourth Queen

We’ll see how this goes. There was one paragraph with 3 analogies to describe the same thing. So far.

‘She was glued to him with some shameful mix of sweat & slime. His brown belly was smeary with the stuff, its black hairs matted & shining.’ ….Read this book if you want to kill all arousal in a hundred mile radius. 🤢 Otherwise, I don’t recommend it.

Two more words for the Annoying Repeat List: ‘totie’ & ‘blether.’ 😑 Also, the constant mentions of how fat all the women are. I GET IT. STOP BEATING ME OVER THE HEAD. Perhaps if there was more happening than, y’know, nothing at all, I wouldn’t get so cheesed off, but c’mon. Literally every scene shift means more discussion of fat women being fat. Zzzz.

Debbie Taylor really loves to use ‘lassie,’ ‘wee,’ & ‘wean.’ I get it, okay?? The MCs are both from Scotland. But I’m already tired of lassie, wee, & wean. PLEASE FIND OTHER WORDS.

Helen is dumb as a sack of hair. She’d better learn some street smarts right quick to survive in the Emperor’s harem.

‘There is nothing in my memory to compare to the muddy hives where these cast-off queens will live out their lives, in cells no bigger than a closet, there to be stung & stung until they die. Aye, truly, I would save them all, marry them all, if I could. For tho I can contemplate a skewered brain or bisected testicle with insouciance, yet the sight of a woman scorned makes me fairly tremble with rage.’

Loving that this is based on a true story... haaaaating the back and forth between two characters perspectives.