Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published Jan 2020
592 pages
Genre: Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
Publication Information
Tessa Gratton's Lady Hotspur is a sweeping, heart-stopping Shakespearean novel of betrayal and battlefields and destiny.
STRIKE FAST, LOVE HARD, LIVE FOREVER
This is the motto of the Lady Knights--sworn to fealty under a struggling kingdom, promised to defend the prospective heir, Banna Mora.
But when a fearsome rebellion overthrows the throne, Mora is faced with an agonizing choice: give up everything she's been raised to love, and allow a king-killer to be rewarded--or retake the throne, and take up arms against the newest heir, Hal Bolingbrooke, Mora's own childhood best friend and sworn head of the Lady Knights.
Hal loathes being a Prince; she's much more comfortable instated on the Throne of Misrule, a raucous underground nether-court where passion rules all. She yearns to live up to the wishes of everyone she loves best--but that means sacrificing her own heart, and so she will disappoint everyone until the moment she can rise to prove those expectations wrong.
And between these two fierce Princes is the woman who will decide all their fates--Lady Isarna Hotspur, the fiery and bold knight whose support will turn the tides of the coming war.
"Readers turned off by flowery, lyrical writing should look elsewhere, but Gratton maintains a dreamy tone that suits the story nicely. ... Not for everyone but an impressive feat." - Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"The wondrous worldbuilding, strong female leads, and plot filled with regicide, regrets, prophecies, and magic create an intricate and layered story of honor, family, and love." - Library Journal (starred review)
"Thrilling, heartwarming, and original, Lady Hotspur is a glorious epic." - Karen Lord, author of Redemption in Indigo
This information about Lady Hotspur was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Tessa Gratton is the author of the Blood Journals duology, Gods of New Asgard series, and nonfiction books on writing fantasy for teen writers. She works for Serial Box Publishing as a lead writer on Tremontaine. She lived all over the world before returning to her prairie roots in Kansas with her wife. The Queens of Innis Lear was her debut adult fantasy novel.
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