The Priory of the Orange Tree (The Roots of Chaos)Kindle

Wow, this book. I was not quite sure what my thoughts would be on it before diving in, but I am so glad I finally read this huge novel! I haven’t read many 500+ page books since high school, so I was looking forward to seeing how I would do with one now.

Let me tell you, this book sucked me IN!

THE PRIORY OF THE ORANGE TREE is an adult high fantasy standalone novel set in the world where dragons are either reviled or worshipped—depending on which side of the world you live in. In the West, there is the Queendom of Inys, the seat of Virtuedom. Here we meet Ead, one of the two main heroines of the novel, who is a mage on a mission set down from the Prioress, the leader of the Priory (a secret group of mages who live halfway across the world). Her mission is to protect Queen Sabran, as it has been known for a thousand years that as long as a Berethnet queen sits on the throne of Inys, the Nameless One will never be able to return.

Who is the Nameless One, you ask? He is the leader of the wyrms, also known as the “evil dragons”. They are what you think of when you think of dragons—fire breathers who reign destruction on their enemies. The Nameless One surfaced over 1000 years prior to the events of PRIORY, and has been entrapped in the middle of the ocean since. As far as Virtudom is concerned, all wyrms are evil spawn of the Nameless One, and must be destroyed.

In the East, however, the dragons are worshipped. Here we meet Tané, the second of our main heroines. She is in training to be a dragon rider. And yes, in the East there are dragons, not wyrms. The dragons of the East are the opposites of wyrms—they get their power from water and cannot breathe fire. They are thought to be sacred gods.

Thus, throughout the story, we the readers are taken on a fantastical journey that explores the vibrant worlds present in PRIORY, as well as seeing a magnificent take on the growth of characters who learn that all they have been taught to believe is a lie. I think some of my favorite parts of this novel were ones that reminded me of our society today. The characters who lived in Virtudom held deep prejudices for those who lived elsewhere. Seeing how those characters grew (or didn’t) out of those prejudices reminded me of what I wish our real world was like.

Another favorite part of mine was all the amazing women! No matter which part of the world a character was in, there was at least one woman leader, whether that be militarily or in the government. It was so refreshing for it to be so ordinary to have women be the leaders. Another high point for me was how LGBT+ relationships were not thought of as abnormal! If there were any oppositions to a relationship, none of them dealt with the gender or sexual orientation of the participants. Honestly, there are many people in our society who could learn a thing or two!

Overall, I rated this book 5 stars. I thought the worldbuilding and character development were amazing, and I loved the unexpected twists. I think Shannon did a great job of telling this story as a standalone. The way the book ended was enough to spark my curiosity on what happened next, while also ensuring that there was nothing missing. I highly recommend this novel!

The Priory of the Orange Tree has been one of my favourite reads of the year thus far! The book looks super imposing so I put off picking it up for a few weeks and then ended up absolutely devouring it over the course of three days! It has everything one could possibly want-- strong character arcs, religious zealots, cultural clashes, magic, DRAGONS (which, Clan Miduchi will have you know, are NOT the same as wyrms) and writing that literally transports you elsewhere.

The premise of The Priory of the Orange Tree is a bit hard to describe because it tracks the perspectives of multiple characters from East and West, but essentially: Ead has been a transplant at a foreign court and is meant to protect Queen Sabran, who is the current ruler of the Virtudom and claims descent from the supposed defeater of the Nameless One (a big scary fire-breathing wyrm). She protects the queen using forbidden magic, which comes from her training as a mage in the Priory of the Orange Tree. In the West, a girl training as a dragon rider is trying to overcome her lack of pedigree in a fiercely competitive struggle to be named as one of the warriors in the most prestitious dragon rider clan of all time, the Miduchi. There are two other POVs that come from less major characters that sketch in some of the gaps around the world, but the book basically threads together disparate pieces of heritage, us vs them mentality, religious fanaticism, developing romantic interests, and the history of three magical trees and women they made powerful into one epic, lush fantasy with world-building for days.

What I Loved:

• Ead was an incredibly interesting character. Her ambition, thoughtfulness, and protective nature make her one of the fiercest characters I've ever read without the typical sass and aggression that we might see in one of those characters. She doesn't have a problem speaking her mind, but she isn't hot-headed or explosive.
• The world building was just.... intensely lush. It was so richly detailed, and while I spent a lot of time in the beginning having to double check where I was, the chapter headings with "East" and "West" simplified a lot for me (which is saying something because I am TERRIBLE with geography).
• Dragons and wyrms. Just... dragons and wyrms.
• The kind of ongoing commentary on historical manipulation and the lies our ancestors tell us was really incredible and I think very, very fitting when we think about history today. (This is just a little nugget that really made an impression on me, even if it wasn't something we were beaten over the head with.)
• The descriptions of scenery. WHOOOSH. This book was descriptive AF without clogging up the pages with unnecessary prose.
• The backstory was so well done and so clever. There were so many amazing elements of the story-- three trees, the stars and the earth, and so on. I still find myself daydreaming about the intricacy of everything Samantha strung together. LOVE.

What I Liked:

• It was immersive, rather than full of info-dumps, which is great. It does have its drawbacks, because there was stuff I wanted more information on, but stuff generally came together neatly.
• The pacing was very well done and kept me engaged in almost all of the storylines at once, though sometimes I was impatient to pop back to another storyline I liked more.

What I Didn't Like:

• At times, I did get a little bit lost with the epicness of it all-- there were so many tiny cultural details and the words used to describe clothing or certain scents were things that I was completely unfamiliar with (and were often unique to the world) BUT I FOUND A GLOSSARY IN THE BACK AFTER. So make use of that!
• There were a couple times that I got very frustrated by the same character, again and again. It was not a main POV character, but because of all of the contact between these characters, we saw a lot of her. I came to appreciate her in the end, which I feel like is a testament to the beauty of Samantha's writing.... she made me convinced I should love a character I originally wanted to punch in the nose.
• I have conflicting feelings (still) about the way that Tane was treated in the middle of the book by the people who claimed her as family. Won't say anything else because spoilers, but I felt like Tane was a better person than I am if she still felt such intense love and respect for them.
• There was one character who I low-key shipped with Tane for a enemies-to-lovers relationship and it didn't pan out, which was fine... but it seemed like this character just literally ghosted after the antagonistic bit of their relationship was over and it served her character development, which was kind of a bummer. There weren't too many loose threads like that, but this one was fairly memorable for me. (Really though, all of these are tiny gripes.)

Overall, I absolutely love this book and would highly recommend it. If you enjoy epic high fantasy, then this would be a great choice. If you like feminist books with empowered female characters, then Priory of the Orange Tree might be your new favourite. If you like multiple POVS, intense world building, F/F relationships, or to be dropped into a new world and left to explore, then this book is definitely for you. But if epic fantasy isn't your thing or if you get confused by multiple POV, then this book could be a bit much to handle... though I'd definitely give it a go anyway!

5/5 stars!

The Priory has been on my TBR list for years now. As someone who fell into a reading slump for several years and recently (2020) got out of it, I had a lot of catching up to do, and frankly, the size of this behemoth novel was uninspiring as I worked my way back into regular reading. Two years later, after my bookish side was finally back in full force, a book box I subscribe to announced special editions of the Priory and it's standalone prequel, and I knew the time had come.

If you want to read a review outlining the story and the characters, there are plenty of those other than this one. The Priory is fantasy unlike any I've ever read before, and I say that in the best way possible. I can honestly say that I had almost zero spoilers before reading, except I knew there would be a sapphic romance involved. Since that was quite literally all that I knew (minus knowing there would be dragons, due to the cover - which is honestly what appealed to me to begin with), I went in completely blind and with moderate expectations. It blew all of them out of the water. I devoured this book; it was physically hard to put down when I had to stop reading for whatever reason. Shannon's pacing and prose are something I've rarely encountered, and I can't get enough of the story or the characters. I honestly wish the book was twice it's size so I could read more about this world and these characters. I also felt so much in this novel. I felt the anguish, the joy, the uncertainty, the victory, the defeat, the duplicity, like it was happening to me, and it's not even written in the first person.

I have a love/hate relationship with multiple POV books, and this one is done exquisitely well. There wasn't a single character that I inwardly groaned at when I got to their next chapter; I was always excited to read what was next, even for the character who becomes (sort of) an antagonist. This is the first book I've read with multiple POVs that hasn't been like that (yes, I'm looking at you, ASOIAF).

The female characters were diverse not only in their origins/appearance, but also in how they can be a strong female character without having to be a sword-wielding, curse-breaking, "the one who was promised" type role. There is female strength shown in a myriad of ways, and I appreciated that as a female reader who generally (especially in fantasy) has to constantly read about how this poor, malnourished girl learns how to fight and becomes hot and strong in like, a month, and cool, now she's a strong female character. I also appreciated how the few romances included stemmed naturally, and not from forced circumstances (another pet peeve with romantic fantasy novels).

As my second favorite reading genre is history, I also loved the clear research into actual history reflected in the book. While it's a made-up fantasy realm, many elements of the story and the societies stem from the real world, which helped cement the believability of the story in my brain. I especially loved the East/West dynamics and how the two eventually collide.

If I had to nitpick, the part the book that disappointed me was the final conflict. Compared to the rest of the novel, it felt rushed and glossed over, like she wasn't sure exactly how to write it so she just kinda skipped over it. 800+ pages of buildup, and then it just...is over. I am glad that we still got to see each character after the final conflict and that each arc felt (mostly) completed, but that would be my only issue if I had to pick one.

((SPOILER)) Side note: this is fully just my opinion, but I do find it ironic that the Priory is presented as good for worshipping the Mother, and the people of Virtudom are presented as brainwashed sheeple, when both "religions" worship a mere human. The Priory has magic and the truth, and yes the story of the Saint is a lie, but at the end of the day both Cleolind and Galian were humans. The members of the Priory worship a human just as the people in Virtudom do. So, the Priory is kind of also a cult, just one based on a true story and not a lie. It's hard to discern what (if any) "afterlife" in the world of the Priory actually exists, but both religions exalt a figure who was just a human and likely has no bearing on any sort of afterlife or answering prayers.

All in all, 5/5, and I highly recommend getting the Kindle version like I did because this beast of a book is a lot to hold onto. Also, I've attached a photo to show the beautiful edges of my special editions :)

They described this book as a feminist fantasy that is perfect for fans of Game of Thrones andI totally agree. I just read the ASOIAF books and this one holds to that standard. It's just such a cool, interesting story that despite its' length, doesn't feel like a difficult read. It also didn't drag for me at all. I was always enrapt by something that was happening in one of the four main POVs. I love reading books where there are multiple POVs and they begin to intersect with one another in a dramatic way. Though this one was certainly frustrating in more than one part, you were almost constantly begging characters not to do something headstrong, it was also very satisfying. I was completely in agreement with the ending, it felt like a strong end to a strong book.

The way that Shannon was able to weave the different points of view together so that they fed on one another was great. Just, the story in general was great. The combination of Eastern and Western politics and the way that their world views differed so significantly was fascinating. The world views of the different places were also so well developed. It served to illuminate the concept of religions being closely based on one another, but disagreeing on minute details. Then it emphasized how those details culminate into something bigger until there are wars or feuds happening over something so unlikely. The idea of religion being based on real events and how little changes in the canon can be so detrimental to historical accuracy was a nice touch. It was just such a well-developed story okay? There was always enough action, backstory, or intrigue to keep the reader interested.

Seeing the different point of views of the four of the characters also allowed for the opportunity to understand their different world-views and their various cultures. They all possess these deep-seated beliefs and ideals (well, maybe not Niclays) and it was so interesting to see how they clashed and intermingled. The characters themselves were just interesting to read about. They felt not only well-rounded and interesting, but also realistic. They didn't feel stiff or abnormal, they just felt like people with their own thoughts and emotions. Not only that, but there was a very diverse cast of protagonists. Three of the four primary characters were people of color. Two of the four were queer and the society itself was essentially a post-queer, post-racial society. Really, the main biases that existed within the society were primarily based on religion. The romantic aspects of the story were very touching, though I will say that it wasn't necessarily the focus. Really only Eadaz's POV was the one with a big, active romantic influence and it isn't constant, nor is it for the entire four. What I'm saying is, the plot doesn't take a back seat for the romance. In fact, it's far more heavily influenced by the plot than the romance. So, come to the book for the queer romance, but stay for the over-arching plot. Also, let me just say that I found Niclays's backstory regarding his romance with Jannart and his desire to accomplish what Jan set out to do was heart breaking. Their whole dynamic was simultaneously so sweet and so gut-wrenching. Just, very well-written.

The setting of the story was established very well. The cultures of the East and West were well-rounded and simultaneously all-encompassing. It was important that the reader understand the different cultures and the impact that it had on character behavior and potential consequences. It was developed beautifully, just like everything else. The magic system felt wonderfully original and also understandable. I saw a review where someone said that they wished it had been developed more, but I totally disagree. It felt like it was done well to me. It was all explained in such a straightforward way, that I felt like I had a great grasp of it. Shannon's writing style in general was simultaneously beautiful but understandable. Like, the story wasn't dumbed down, and once you got used to the writing style it added a layer of believability to the story. You were never taken out of the story by writing that was too modern or far too complex. It was simple enough to keep the story going (which is great because 804 pages has to be kept at a constant pace), but not so simple as to lose its' lovely nature.

My only problems that I had are relatively minimal. Every book has its' issues and this one isn't exempt. First off, it felt like we didn't get nearly enough of Tané's POV. Her point of view was one that I felt like I didn't see nearly enough, especially since her's and Eadaz's are the two that I was the most interested in. You just really want the warriors' points of views when you know you're going to have a battle at some point. My other issue was that it felt like some of the problems that happened within the story were solved way too fast. Like, when they needed to solve a puzzle that somehow nobody has been able to figure out for years, they solve it on the first try. Or when they need to find something important, it's in the first place that they look. Like, just a little more struggle felt necessary. It gave the illusion that they were really non-problems. That's it though. Those are my only two qualms and given the expansiveness of the book, they're very minor.

Now that I've read the book, I completely understand the hype. This is a must-read for any high fantasy lovers. It really gives you everything you could want in a fantasy book and it's done in a way that just makes you want to devour it as quickly as possible. This was definitely a top read for 2021 for me. I'm so glad I enjoyed it and that I made the decision to read it this year. By all means, if you've been considering reading this book, take this review as your sign to read it!