The Queen's Blade

Queen's Blade is one of her better series. It has it's flaws. You might find her examples of Blade's skills tedious after awhile. But it's better than Demon Lord, where the battle scenes and encounters with the rivals are even more droll, often times with the same outcome. TC Southwell excels with her original themes. In this case it's a near mid-evil like time where humans form bonds with animals. It gives the story an original twist that is enchanting, compels the reader to keep reading. Blade a strong character, as well as his wife. Both character's likeable even with character flaws written in. Southwell struggles with the female characters in her books. Most are annoying, whinny, dim witted, superficial, petty, selfish and all around hard to relate to. They're often times hypocritical, inconsistent, and rarely have a sound mind, insane. Still, here in Queen's Blade it's not as bad as Demon Lord, Slave Empire, Broken World, Superstar or The Cyber Chronicles.Southwell often times writes about personally disorders, putting them into her character's personalities. If you own a DSM 5 you'll recognize them quickly. If your family doesn't own a DSM 5, you should, expensive or not, it can save you or someone you love a lot of mental distress by learning to recognize personality traits in others. The subjects she writes about include insecurity disorders, antisocial, borderline, psychopathic disorders, narcissism, bi-polar and schizophrenia.This is a nickle and dime author, I'll warn you. She'll charge you $2.00 to $5.00 for her novels when she's writing a series, and each book ends on a cliff hanger to hook you in and keep you reading, so you'll purchase the next book until the ending of the series. Fair warning, Demon Lord series has no ending yet, she's not finished it. Save your money. If you hate cliff hangers, the last book of Demon Lord is going to tick you off. There's no ending to the story of Demon Lord yet, and she's not written in that series for years.I have liked most of her reads. I would suggest them, but with a warning: Her female characters are week, she's still learning to develop a female character with any grit, backbone, loyalty or likeability, as I've said. In Broken World the ending will absolutely tick you off in the last book. Can't say I didn't warn you. But it's probably Southwell's intention to make you angry in that series. It allows the reader some introspection. In Broken World the last book in the series ends so abominably, it's possible you'll stop reading anything by Southwell ever again. The ending totally ticked me off.If you're a devout religious person you'll find her books sacrilegious and might be offended. Me, I don't care, it's just a story. She often writes gore, rape, human cruelty stories to the point they can get predictable if you're attentive. Another flaw, but one she can break out of if she ever realizes it.I'm hoping Southwell continues her writing and in doing so, sees where she is repetitive, sees where her characters can use improvements, and then continues to enhance her reader's enjoyments. If not, I'll probably be looking for a new author to hop to.If you're like me, you've read most of Southwell. Try CM Owens for romance, 'Becoming a Vincent' if you're in need of a great laugh (especially if you're from the south and understand southern culture). Gail Carriger for steam punk fantasy romance that include werewolves and vampires in 'Parasol Protectorate' series. Jill Eileen Smith for historical religious romance, such as 'Rebecca'. Peter V. Brett's 'The Warded Man' is a very original fantasy story about demons that I really loved, but hated his repetition. M R Feruson's 'Rise of the Phenix' is good. Chanda Hann's 'The Iron Butterfly' is interesting fantasy read. I own and have read everything by Johanna Lindsey, Danielle Steel an Nora Roberts in romance. Including Nora's other name she goes by, J D Robb. 'Big Girls Do It Better' by Jesinda Wilder or 'Collard For A Night' for some harder romance. 'The 13th' by M R Ferguson must read romance succubus tale. Anything by Steven King I've owned. Younger lady readers need to brush up on your Jane Austen if you haven't, classic. 'We' by Yevgeny Zamyatin is also a classic read I enjoyed, a bit slow at times, about WW1 and Germany's invasion. And if you've not read Ann Rand's 'Atlas Shrugged' you should, political or not, very good read. Can't put it down. Most of us had to read Ann Rand in school. Doesn't make it a bad read.

This review has no spoilers, character names, or specifics. It provides a very general description of the start of the story.I was trolling the available free kindle e books and came across "The Queens Blade". After reading the sample I was convinced this would be a fun read. J.C Southwell is an excellent addition to my list of authors. I really did enjoy his writing style. The editing was impeccable the work professional. Let's talk about the book. This was a short read. I completed the full length in one sitting. J.C Southwell's ending was a bit harsh in my opinion.Early in the book we meet a young queen. She's just taken over the crown of a country in war. She tires of all the death. The young queen's pledged to end the war and is determined to see peace in her country. She's faced with resistance for ending the war is unheard off. Ending the war will cause the economy to crumble. Ending the war is not a popular idea. Her Mother's advisors tell her peace is impossible. The young Queen is determined and presses her Mother's advisors for suggestions on how to end it. None have any till a young woman suggest she meet with a fortune teller. She agrees this is a good suggestion and makes the young woman her chief advisor. The Queen sends for the fortune teller and is given the answer to peace. After the meeting she decides the rival countries King must be murdered. She sends several of her best soldiers and promises land, riches, and title to those that meet with success. None do. The Queen is frustrated. A young man over heard the soldiers the night before they left in a tavern speaking of the mission and decides to ask for an audience with the Queen. The young man travels to the palace and meets with the Queen at which time he offers his skills. The Queen houses the young man at the palace and takes her time pondering the offer. After finding out her soldiers have failed and died yet again, she takes the young man up on his offer to kill the king. This is where the adventure begins. I cannot say more without spoiling the tale. I personally liked "The Queen's Blade" and recommend the book. ***Be warned this is a seven part story. "The Queen's Blade" is only part 1. *** It is a series one MUST read in order although short recaps are given at the start of every book.

In the end I enjoyed reading through the first installment of the series. So I can't give it a lower score than 3 stars. But I never could get deeply involved with the story. I could put the story down and not worry about it for many days, only picking it up when I had nothing better to do. I finally completed the book because I was stuck on a plane and had listened to all my pod-casts. So you get the point. It is not a riveting story. It is somewhat very linear and predictable. I do appreciate that the story is honest and plausible but for lack of a better term, the story does not have wit which I really prefer when there are political intrigues. The political intrigues here are just outlines. It feels like the plot was drawn as a plan for the novel (or I should say novelette, since it's a rather short novel) and the author just went through the process of filling the pages to follow the plot. The characters are too straightforward and lack any real depth. The main characters have background and motive but I could not find any real life into them. They really just feel like ideas of characters not well fleshed out. So overall it was o.k. and free, but I will probably not purchase the next 7 titles. Part of that is because it is quite obvious what is going to happen and the author so far as not been able to surprise me.

for those who like quests, intrigues, to a far far land where assassins could hold the fate of the land.

I started reading this series on my iPad and decided to get them all in paper copy, love the story and I read it consistently!

"The Queens Blade" möchte klassische Epic Fantasy sein, scheitert aber an den nicht ganz ausreichenden Fähigkeiten des Autors.Im Mittelpunkt der Geschichte stehen zwei Länder, die sich seit Generationen im Krieg miteinander befinden. Niemand weiss mehr so recht warum der Krieg begonnen hat und nun hat die Kriegsführung eine Art Selbstzweck erreicht. Die Kriegsindustrie beider Königreiche profitiert von den anhaltenden Kämpfen, das Volk bekommt immer neue Gründe Rache für die geopferten Soldaten zu fordern.Königin Minna hat den Thron erst vor kurzer Zeit bestiegen, als sie beschliesst den Krieg endgültig zu beenden. Sie weiss, dass sie diese politisch brisante Idee nur schwer verkaufen kann und mit dem gegnerischen König keine Chance auf Frieden besteht. Als alle herkömmlichen Attentatsversuche auf den König gescheitert sind bietet der Profi-Attentäter Blade seine Dienste an. Als Queen's Blade wird es seine Aufgabe, die Königin in ihrem ambitionierten Plan für den Frieden auf seine Weise zu unterstützen.Die Grundidee ist im Fantasy-Bereich nichts neues, aber altbewährtes muss ja nicht gleich schlecht sein. Das übliche mittelalterlich Setting ist in diesem Fall mit einigen interessanten Elementen gewürzt. Die Menschen können sprituelle Verbindungen zu Tieren aufbauen und übernehmen einige der Charakterzüge die mit den jeweiligen Arten assoziiert werden. Schlangen sind also listig, Katzen arrogant aber auch elegant, Hunde sind loyal, etc.Das ist aber auch schon das spannendste was dieses Buch bietet. Der Rest der Geschichte ist sehr vorhersehbar und leider sind die Charaktere nur sehr flache Pappfiguren, die ihren vorgezeichneten Rollen folgen und keinerlei Überraschungen bieten. Die politischen Intrigen sind in keinster Weise kompliziert oder spannend. Minna's Gegner an ihrem eigenen Hof geben sich kaum Mühe, ihre Pläne geheimzuhalten.Die Einzige Überraschung war das Ende. Blade, der im gesamten Buch sein ausgezeichnetes Können als Kämpfer und Attentäter zur Schau gestellt hat, stellt plötzlich sein Gehirn ab. Aus Plotgründen wird hier die gesamte Logik der Geschichte riskiert, damit ein schöner Cliffhanger Lust auf die Fortsetzung macht. Hat bei mir leider genau das Gegenteil bewirkt. Bis zu diesem Kapitel hätte ich wirklich weitergelesen, nach dieser Veräppelung garantiert nicht.

Bought as a free book on Kindle, this raced along and the central character was intriguing enough that I bought the whole series. I then went on to buy all the available T C Southwell books on kindle. They all share the main theme of the tormented hero damaged in his youth and the attempts of the heroine to redeem him through love. This makes the books more likely to appeal to female readers though there is plenty of battle action too. T C Southwell creates interesting fantasy worlds in which to explore this theme in each series but I found this Queen's Blade series has the best developed of her cast of characters.