Book Review :: The Priory of the Orange Tree, by Samantha Shannon

The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon
ISBN: 1408883449
Published by Bloomsbury Publishing
on 2019-02-26
Genres: Fantasy, LGBTQ+
Pages: 830
Find at Booktopia
Goodreads

A world divided. A queendom without an heir. An ancient enemy awakens.

The House of Berethnet has ruled Inys for a thousand years. Still unwed, Queen Sabran the Ninth must conceive a daughter to protect her realm from destruction - but assassins are getting closer to her door. Ead Duryan is an outsider at court. Though she has risen to the position of lady-in-waiting, she is loyal to a hidden society of mages. Ead keeps a watchful eye on Sabran, secretly protecting her with forbidden magic.

Across the dark sea, Tane has trained to be a dragonrider since she was a child but is forced to make a choice that could see her life unravel. Meanwhile, the divided East and West refuse to parley, and forces of chaos are rising from their sleep.

Last updated on 22 April 2024

This post may contain affiliate links. If you make a purchase with one of these links, I recieve a small commission at no additional cost to you. Read the full Affiliate Policy.

What is The Priory of the Orange Tree about?

It’s hard to encapsulate all that is The Priory of the Orange Tree in one review, but I shall endeavour to my best. The Priory of the Orange Tree (a colossal tale coming in at 804 pages in the paperback version) is a work of genius, and while I haven’t read a high fantasy book like it in so many years, it was an absolute joy to be able to dive into a world that is so complex and full of superb elements and backstories.

There are so many aspects of this book that we could look at but the last thing I want to do is give you any spoilers. So I’m going to look at a few different aspects of the books and give a few opinions, in the hopes that you get a good overview of the story and can gather some insight to decide if you’ll read it for yourself.

Buckle up!

Book warnings, as listed on Shannon’s website: Alcoholism, death, depression, incest, infertility, mind control, miscarriage, pregnancy, suicidal ideation, violence.

Where is The Priory of the Orange Tree set?

There are three main parts of the world in this story: the West, East and South.

In the West, also called Virtudom, you have four different countries: Queendom of Inys, Free State of Mentendon, Kingdom of Hróth, and the Draconic Kingdom of Yscalin. It sort of resembles Europe. The Queendom of Inys is where we spend a lot of time in.

In the East, almost resembling places in East Asia, we have the lands of Seiiki, Empire of the Twelve Lakes and Sepul. There are some outer lying islands too.

The South, where the Priory is situated, there is Domain of Lasia and The Ersyr. These places are reminiscent of African and Middle Eastern countries.

You can read more about the lands in the tale by checking out The Priory of the Orange Tree wiki page. How accurate these are I’m unsure, but it’s interesting to check out all the same.

The characters spend a lot of time roaming every single land there is on the map basically, and it’s a wonderful way to get a feel for the land that Shannon has created. And yes, there’s a map in the book!

What’s the plot of The Priory of the Orange Tree?

The story of The Priory of the Orange Tree is told from the perspectives of four main characters – Ead, Niclays, Loth and Tané – and they are, for the most part of the story, in different parts of the world that Samantha Shannon has created. Sabran is also a main character, although we don’t get a lot from her perspective. We’ll get more into that soon, but for now …

After nearly 100 years of peace in the world of peace, the Nameless One – a wyrm who caused destruction a millennium ago – is rumoured to be returning. The history of the Nameless One is told in the West as a legend, with the great Galian Berethnet sending the Nameless One into the abyss with a mythical sword called Ascalon. Whatever it was that Berethnet did is undoing itself, and the empires of the West are rising up against each other, and the fire-breathing dragon could return to bring chaos back to the land.

“Just because something has always been done does not mean that it ought to be done.”

In the East, dragons are revered and worshipped. They’re the complete opposite to the wyrms in the West, and acclaimed Dragonriders are chosen to partner with these majestic creatures. While the East has its own problems, the real threat is coming from the Nameless One, whose presence will once again affect the entire world, not just the West. The East is involved in this fight, whether they like it or not.

As well follow the characters around the world in The Priory of the Orange Tree, their storylines interweaving, their purposes in the greater tale becoming clearer by the chapter, the events from 100 years ago are brought to light. They work on figuring out how to kill the Nameless One when he finally rises again, but all is not what it seems.

The characters in The Priory of the Orange Tree

The characters in The Priory of the Orange Tree are many. But the main characters are Ead Duryan, Arteloth ‘Loth’ Beck, Tané, Niclays Roos, and Sabran.

They are no less than spectacular. They make mistakes and they make amends. They’re jealous and they’re admiring. They’re scared and they’re brave. They’re weak and they’re strong. They are broken, they are healed, they are hurting, they are joyous, they love deeply and live wildly, and they are, despite their fantastical setting, human. And they are so well written.

Check out this mini The Priory of the Orange Tree character guide.

In the West

The story is told by Ead, Niclays, Loth and Tané, but Sabran is still very much a main character. Sabran the Ninth is the current ruler of the Queendom of Inys, and her family have their own legends and are descendants from Galian Berethnet. Dragons here in the West are terrifying, evil wyrms, causing pandemonium wherever they go, and the people’s only hope is Sabran. Or so they think.

“No woman should be made to fear that she was not enough.”

Ead Duryan was sent by the Priory of the Orange tree, an order of female mages located in the South, to go undercover as a lady-in-waiting to Sabran. Her objective: keep Sabran alive at all costs. But as the wyrms start returning to the West, her responsibilities change in the Queendom, the Priory calls her back, and her affection for Sabran grows, Ead finds herself in multiple tough situations that she wasn’t prepared for.

“We may be small, and we may be young, but we will shake the world for our beliefs.”

Arteloth ‘Loth’ Beck has been a friend and confidant of Sabran their whole lives and is also good friends with Ead. When he’s shipped off to the Draconic Kingdom of Yscalin with his friend Kitston Glade, both Sabran and Ead are at a loss at his disappearance. While he’s in Yscalin, new information about the Draconic state some to light, and he’s bundled off on a seemingly impossible quest that will lead him all over the South and open his eyes to whole new places, people and legends.

“You know I take the Knight of Courage as my patron. There is courage, I think, in open-mindedness, and thinking for oneself. If you are a witch, then perhaps witches are not so wicked after all.”

In the East

Over in the East where water-dragons are worshipped as gods, Tané is a dragon rider in training. When a man from the West is washed up on the shores, she’s trapped between her commitment to becoming a dragon rider, and hiding the fact that she helped a man go into hiding. She doesn’t report him to the authorities, for fear of she herself being accused of having the plague (a disease from the West). But in hiding the man, and still undergoing to training, Tané sets herself for much more than she bargained for.

“To be kin to a dragon, you must not only have a soul of water. You must have the blood of the sea, and the sea is not always pure. It is not any one thing. There is darkness in it, and danger, and cruelty. It can raze great cities with its rage. Its depths are unknowable; they do not see the touch of the sun. To be a Miduchi is not to be pure, Tané. It is to be the living sea. That is why I chose you. You have a dragon’s heart.”

Niclays Roos is from the Free State of Mentendon, but was banished from the West by Sabran years ago. He now resides in Orisima, where people cannot come and go. But when Niclays is the one who ends up with the Westerner that Tané sends into hiding, his whole life is derailed. His quiet and unfortunate life in Orisima is disrupted to no end, and his work on finding a way to make someone immortal is thrown out of whack.

Additional book features

There’s a map at the beginning, which is always a win in my books (pun intended?), Shannon has also created a listening playlist on Spotify, which is a fun addition. There is also a Glossary of characters in the back of the book, as well as a handy timeline that you can follow if you need to. Fantasy books like this really need additional features like these, and I’m so glad that Shannon included them.

Overall thoughts

While this was a monster of a book to read, I was impressed that I managed to finish it in just 11 days. It took a while to get into, like many books of this length, but when I started to get into it more it was a lot easier to ‘read just one more chapter’.

There were aspects of the story I wanted to learn more about – draconic creatures in Ysclaon, for example, and more in the Empire of the Twelve Lakes in the East – and some aspects I didn’t love. I could definitely see there being spin-off stories set in some of the empires, as the book really only scrapes the surface of what they’re like. According to Samantha Shannon’s website, she’s working on a story set in this land, so it’ll be interesting to see where she goes with it!

If you’ve been put off by the size of this book (understandable! It’s been on my bookshelf for so long, unread), then I do encourage you to give it a go. Just remember it takes a little bit to get into, and if you’re not feeling it, put it down and try again at a later time.

If you have read The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon, what did you think?

---

Update: April 2022 & August 2022

A Day of Fallen Night by Samantha Shannon – from Bloomsbury Reel. Click to view!

The Priory of the Orange Tree Prequel

It was announced in April 2022 that Samantha Shannon was releasing a prequel to The Priory of the Orange Tree. It is called A Day of Fallen Night and will take place about 500 years before the events in Priory.

Samantha Shannon has said a few things about the book that is due to be released in February 2023.

What is The Priory of the Orange Tree book 2 called?

The second book (although actually the prequel) of The Priory of the Orange Tree is called A Day of Fallen Night.

When will it be released?

A Day of Fallen Night (Roots of Chaos #0) has a publication date of February 2023.

Do I need to read The Priory of the Orange Tree before A Day of Fallen Night ?

No, but as Shannon says, it might be helpful to have a better feel for the world you’re stepping into. Night is a bit longer and more political, according to the author, so having a slightly more simple first read of Priory might be beneficial.