Long May She Reign by Rhiannon Thomas

Long May She Reign by Rhiannon Thomas is one of the few books I've ever found of this rare and wonderful genre that I don't even have a name for:  a pseudo-medieval setting, an imaginative culture, royalty…and no magic!!!!  No magical creatures or time travel or vampires.  I love fantasy, but I also a good non-fantasy fantasy.  It allows great world-building without letting the characters depend on magic to save the day (or ruin the day).  To me, it's one beautiful permutation of how the child of fantasy and historical fiction would look.  

I love to read this non-fantasy fantasy genre, on the rare occasions when I find it, and I also love to write it.  The very first novel I wrote--my so-far-unpublished baby--is this genre.  One day maybe it will see the light of day.  

Anyway, enough gushing on the genre.

As for this particular novel, I really enjoyed it.  The queen was a scientist!  Awesome.  Throughout the whole novel I was wondering who our main character could trust.  Awesome.  The story wasn't very violent.  I mean, there was a mass murder by poisoning at the beginning, but the main characters tried—and often succeeded—in solving their problems without violence.  Awesome!  At the end, the queen had to decide what to do with a gray character:  show mercy and weakness or show strength and cause more bloodshed.  I find that what often happens in novels is that the problem character conveniently dies or something, so the main character doesn't have to be merciless OR weak.  Not so here.  Our MC actually made a decision.  Awesome. 

I did think some of the science and politics felt a big simplistic and easily solved.  Like, how did they manage never to fight in this kingdom?  Especially with bad leadership and unhappy people?  And what about other kingdoms who might take advantage of their defenselessness?  But these weren't big issues that affected my enjoyment.

Some readers might think it a tad slow, because there wasn't a ton of really actiony action.  But for readers like me, the pacing was perfect. 

The writing was good, the characters interesting.

I absolutely recommend it and will soon read Rhiannon Thomas' other books.

Rating:  4.5 stars out of 5