“The Widow Queen” by Elzbieta Cherezinska

This is another book that I got for free from Tor.com, and it’s a much longer book than the ones that they usually send out! This is essentially a fictionalized history of Northern Europe, focusing on Norway, Sweden, Poland, and a little of England.

The book follows the two children of a Duke of Poland, the son goes on to be Poland’s first king, and the daughter is married off to the king of Sweden. They also have some half-siblings that the book follows for part of it as well. Importantly, the daughter, Sigrid as she’s called in Sweden, falls in love with Olav who is trying to reclaim the throne of Finland. But they aren’t married and are separated. Sigrid’s husband though then sacrifices himself to Odin, and she ends up having to then marry the king of Norway to keep the peace. It ends after she gives birth to her third son.

This book wants to be Game of Thrones sooooooo badly. It has multiple protagonists in different countries, follows a bunch of characters vying for power, and has so much unnecessary sex. From the first chapter, there’s a scene where the two Polish kids are watching their parents have sex, and I could not tell you what the purpose of that scene was in the greater sense of the story. This continues as the kids grow up and become parents, there’s a lot of information about their sex lives that I could have done without.

There also is a total lack of regard for the servants. The two Polish children have a matching set of servants that follow them around. The daughter’s is mute as well. There’s no interest whatsoever in the servant’s life or opinions. I think there’s a description of her communicating wordlessly maybe once. It is assumed that she cares for the princess who becomes the queen, but since this book is claiming to be a feminist retelling of history focusing on the often overlooked queen, it seems incomplete to me without going into detail on the servants who are the backbone of the household.

I respect the author for trying to fill in the gaps and return some history to the queen that has been overlooked by the history books. But it is hard for me to have any interest when I do not care about the characters, either because I do not know them well enough or they just keep having sex. So as a whole, this book fails to follow through on its goal.

There is a sequel, and potentially a whole series. I however, will not be reading it as I do not wish to spend any more time on this story.