Queen Among the Dead

Volume XXX / Issue 13 - December 1 / 2023

Queen Among the Dead

Author: 
Lesley Livingston
New York, Zando Young Readers, (Distributed in Canada by Canadian Manda Group), 2023
406 pp., hardcover, $25.99
ISBN: 
9781638930181
Grades: 
Grades 9-12
Ages: 
Ages 14-17
Review by: 
Tara Stieglitz
4
Excerpt: 

Neve knew the story like she knew her own name. The bards sang of it! On the night of her birth, a ban sidhe demon had crept over the palace walls and spirited her away, hurling her out into the dark waters of An Bhóinn, where she would have drowned, were it not for the divine will of the gods. Of course she’d heard snatches of court gossip. The whispers that it was Queen Anann herself who’d thrown her child into the river. But no one had ever dared utter those filthy lies in Neve’s presence.

Neve buried her tear-streaked face in her pony’s shaggy mane as it ran.

A monster tried to kill me that night. Not my mother…

“No!” The pony, already skittish with the storm, reared to a stop in the lee of a barrow and tossed its head, snorting and stamping, Neve slid from its back, sobbing and fell to her knees. “It wasn’t her! It was a ban sidhe…”

The tears spilling down her cheeks splashed the front of her tunic and vanished into the earth. The sound of her weeping echoed off stones and turf. Neve should have known better than to weep on Dead Ground. Known better than to utter those words, like a summoning.

She fell silent as the storm winds shrieked and the long grasses in front of her began to spin, funneling up from the ground, coalescing into the grotesque, ghoulish shape of a ban sidhe demon. Its eyes burned with pale green fire and its gaping mouth was a cavernous maw, hungry to devour her soul.

“Neeeve Anaaannn Eriiuuu…”

Neve is the neglected younger daughter of the Dagda, the King of Eire. She frequently sneaks out of the castle, and, on one such excursion, she encounters Ronan, a former Druid’s apprentice and a current thief. Over time, Neve and Ronan continue to cross paths, and she comes to understand that there is more to him than being a common thief. He knows more about magic than he should in a land where it has been banished and forbidden. When Neve finds a strange magic growing within her, she realizes that her fate is much more significant than she’d ever imagined, and she needs to decide if Ronan is her ally or her enemy and she discovers the truth of her past and her future.

Queen Among the Dead is fast-paced and full of twists and turns, leaving the reader guessing at whom Neve can trust and who will ultimately betray her. Neve is a fierce warrior who develops from a petulant and neglected young princess into an insightful and shrewd leader through the course of the novel. Ronan is also a deeper character than he initially appears, with intriguing acquaintances and an admirable resourcefulness. While there is a hint of romance between Neve and Ronan, it does not occupy very much of the plot.

Queen Among the Dead is a thrilling tale of ancient betrayal and revenge where the stakes are the very survival of the kingdom. Lesley Livingston mixes Celtic mythology and original fantasy to create an exciting and original page-turner.

Highly Recommended
Reviewer: 

Tara Stieglitz is a librarian at MacEwan University in Edmonton, Alberta.