The Queen of Atto­lia by Megan Whalen Turner opens with the Thief of Eddis spy­ing on the Queen of Attolia. Eugenides makes quite a few trips to the Queen’s palace with­out get­ting caught. It is a game of cat and mouse for him that he enjoys play­ing.  How­ever, Eugenides is even­tu­ally caught and expects to hang. How­ever, the Queen of Atto­lia metes out jus­tice the tra­di­tional way by cut­ting off his right hand.  Thus, Eugenides is sent back to Eddis to heal from his wounds and sinks into a deep depres­sion. The Queen of Eddis learns of her Thief’s fate and declares war against Atto­lia. It is this action that sets the story off.

Queen of AttoliaThe Queen of Atto­lia was very good. This entry is much darker.  You have polit­i­cal intrigue, plenty of sus­pense, great char­ac­ter­i­za­tion. In the midst of all of this, you have a unex­pected love story. It could prob­a­bly be clas­si­fied as unre­quited in its sub­tely.  Do you enjoy mythol­ogy? The Eddisian gods con­tinue to play an impor­tant role in the story. Do you mind a com­plex plot?  The story is richly com­plex and the author is quite heavy handed on the pol­i­tics and the geog­ra­phy of the land. The story is sup­pos­edly set around an imag­i­nary land­scape that is sim­i­lar to that of ancient Greece and other ter­ri­to­ries set around the Mediter­ranean. The pac­ing was good but it did tend to drag just a bit in the middle. However, this is a smartly writ­ten novel; there’s solid char­ac­ter­i­za­tion as well as excel­lent dia­logue as men­tioned pre­vi­ously. This is young adult fan­tasy at it’s best. 

In con­clu­sion, I don’t know what Ms. Turner is doing right now but I sin­cerely hope that she is writ­ing another book. This author deserves a huge read­ing audi­ence.  All the crit­i­cal praise of her work is clearly jus­ti­fied. This book was excellent.  Now, if you will excuse me, I have The King of Atto­lia to read next. My grade, A-. Read this book. Of course, start with The Thief first. Note: The books are geared toward the YA audi­ence but this book is com­plex enough for adults to enjoy, too.