A Challenging Journey through The Blood Queen – A ´Bhanrigh Fuil

David H. Millar’s The Blood Queen – A ´Bhanrigh Fuil transports readers to a magical realm rich in Gaelic mythology and sorcery. I gave the book a three-star rating because, despite its complex and engaging plot, I didn’t like it as much as I could have.

The Blood Queen ♦ David H. Millar

Opinion

A notable obstacle I faced was the multitude of characters whose names had strong roots in the Gaelic language. Authenticity offers a depth of cultural complexity, but it also puts readers who aren’t familiar with Gaelic linguistics at a disadvantage. It was difficult to keep track of the individuals, their relationships, and their parts in the story since there were so many names. The reading experience lost its natural flow as a result of having to frequently turn to the glossary (which I highly appreciated). An easier-to-read strategy, like adding a pronunciation guide or simplified guide to the text, might have resolved this problem.

The Blood Queen’s speed was another important element that affected how I read it. The story progresses slowly, which may try the patience of readers looking for a more dynamic and fast-paced adventure but also allows for extensive world-building and character development. Some passages felt drawn out, and there were too many descriptive ones, which occasionally took away from the plot’s general drive. Finding a middle ground between a fast-paced narrative and rich, evocative storytelling might increase the interest of a larger audience.

Still, it’s important to recognize the novel’s positive aspects. It is impressive how well Millar knows Gaelic mythology and how he can craft a multi-layered, intricate story. He skillfully captures the essence of Celtic folklore in his vibrant and captivating work. The fantasy genre gains a distinct taste from the cultural authenticity, giving readers a novel and engrossing experience.

Conclusion

The Blood Queen – A ´Bhanrigh Fuil, in summary, is an engrossing story that transports readers to the fascinating realm of Gaelic magic. The novel’s vast ethnic diversity and intricate storytelling make up for its flaws, which include a lot of complicated names and slow pacing. This novel might appeal to a wider readership and provide greater enjoyment for fantasy fans by adopting a more comprehensible approach to character names and improving the tempo.

I found it a bit hard to get into... I really tried. I did enjoy all the descriptions though. But I took me way too long to read ;(

This is a take on historical fiction, featuring descriptive battle scenes.

in 394 BC at a remote loch, nine innocents are sacrificed by a priest, and below the water, something is feeding on the blood of these innocent lives and soon it starts to take form, it becomes sentient and starts to hunt, humans cannot defeat this abomination. The only remedy to defeat him is the blood queen.

I really wanted to like this book. The premise sounded super interesting. Unfortunately, I couldn't get into the story, despite several attempts. It wasn't badly written; I think the main issue for me was the abundance of names, places and Gaelic words in the first few chapters, which kept breaking the immersion as I flipped back and forth trying to make sense of them. The author provided a glossary and pronunciation guide at the beginning, too, which should have helped me, but didn't for some reason.

I won't post this review anywhere else as I don't like to review books I haven't finished, but felt I should give my feedback in case other readers have the same problem I did.

If difficult to pronounce names and violence against women don't bother you, then this is a good fantasy for you. If they do the maybe skip this one. It would help if this book came with trigger warnings.

Thank you to NetGalley and publisher for an ARC of this book for my honest review.

The author did a great job immersing you into this world with the Gaelic language and dialogue between the characters. The pronunciation guide is an essential to understand how to read the names of the characters and towns and I appreciated that reference. Maybe it was the language barrier or digital format but having to constantly refer to the pronunciation guide until you get the hang of it was disruptive to the story in the beginning but got easier over time. With the writing broken up into short passages from multiple POVs, it was kind of disorienting keeping each character distinct. There were a lot of action and gorey scenes that were very descriptive and immersed the reader but the story overall lacked individual character development and felt like there were a lot of time skips in places where they could have expanded on the characters more. Historical fiction is hit or miss for me and personally I didn’t enjoy this piece and wished for more character focused development rather than action.

Thank you Netgalley for an ARC of this book.

I am sad to say that I had to DNF this book. The premise, location, and time period really intrigued me, but I could not get into the book. It felt more like a draft than a finished product.

I did appreciate the pronunciation guide at the beginning of the book and the glossaries in the back of the book.

The book sounded so interesting and I really wanted to read it. I started it but it was very hard to follow. A lot of characters are introduced at once, and it took me a long time to remember who is who. What adds to difficulty is that names are unusual. I loved the history and learning how names were back then.

I had to stop the book as I struggled to follow it. I have some attention difficulties that likely contributed to this. I hope to return to this book in the future.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me access to this arc.

4 stars / 5 stars

Things I loved:
Amazing world building
Very informative, helping to understand what’s happening
WOMEN WARRIOR!!
Loved the gore
Things I didn’t love:
A lot of characters to keep up with
Not overly fond of the characters either

I really wanted to enjoy this book, but unfortunately I found it a bit hard to get into. There are a lot of characters introduced at once, so it is hard to keep track of them all.

There is also quite a bit of battles and war in the book, which is not an objectively bad thing, it’s just not my cup of tea.

I had a bit of a hard time grasping the plot of the book, but that might just be me having a hard time keeping the characters apart since I’m not used to only having Irish and Scottish names on the characters.

Book Review 📚
The Blood Queen by David H Miller - 4/5 ⭐

A historical fantasy with elements of battles (gore included) and a fast paced plot!

The writing in this book is phenomenal - it flowed together so nicely that it just keeps you reading on and on. There are a lot of details and names to keep record of but it's done amazingly. The clans and kingdoms were the best thing about this book, the detail was insane.

I wasn't a huge lover of the characters in this book, but that's just the way they were wrote - so I guess that's a good thing. There is a lot of character development throught the book and I don't feel like they could of been made any better. On top of that, I feel like the book was very fast-paced. So much so that we could of done with slowing down and having a lot more detail through certain aspects of the book. But nevertheless it's still a fabulous story.

Thank you to NetGalley and BooksGoSocial for allowing me to read this ARC - this is an HONEST review from my own personal opinion.

The Blood Queen is an erudite take on historical fantasy, featuring descriptive battle scenes and a fast paced plot that is easy to get lost in!

The book starts out very informative, building the world up for you and helping you get aquatinted with the complex vocabulary. After about five or so chapters, I could easily recognize the characters and different setting that the scenes would take place in.

I really enjoyed the warrior women of this novel, how they seemed like the primary focus in battles and ALWAYS were fierce and non-accommodating to the men around them, even though the men were written just as misogynistic as they would be given the time period.

The length of this novel really surprised me, as I went through it so fast. I felt myself dragging my dry eyes over the screen of my kindle as fast as they would let me go. It was very easy to get lost in the fantastical setting of The Blood Queen.

I really look forward to future novels in the series, and will be recommending this to friends and family with similar interests as well as picking up a physical copy for myself.

Thank you NetGalley for the opportunity read and review this very fun historical fantasy!

I would like to begin my review by saying that if your favorite parts of fantasy books include battles, battle strategy, and gore, then this book is for you. If you enjoy a slow burn with character development and a deeper unfolding plot, this is potentially not the book for you.

Let’s start with the pros. I love the writing itself. It flowed and I read the entire book in one day. Even though there were a lot of names to keep track of, I felt it was done well and the story was cohesive.

I also really enjoyed the “world” in this story. It sucked me in right away. I thought the various clanns and kingdoms were interesting and the history between them was intriguing.

This leads me to the cons. I felt the character development throughout the book was confusing. For example, we would witness a character committing an absolutely heinous crime, but in the very next scene that character is incredibly introspective and self-critical, which would not be typical of someone who would commit said heinous crime. I felt the characters were acting… out of character, quite often. This would be fine if there were some established characterization at the beginning, followed by a growing number of scenes that would lead this character to begin to change their behavior, but there was none of that.

This leads me to my second critique. I felt like the author pressed “fast forward” on a lot of the plot. There were so many really promising scenes that I would have loved to read over the span of a few pages at least, but it went by in about a paragraph or two. I felt a lot of the character development was also at 3x speed, so I couldn’t really feel emotionally connected to anyone. It felt like the characters’ emotions were being kept at arm’s length from me as the reader.

It really was a shame because like I said, I really enjoyed the story itself. I loved the world and the characters, and I really wished I could have gotten more from both. I would love to see a sequel that goes much deeper into each character and the history of this particular world.