Spoilers ahead…
I’ve been meaning to reread Trial of the Sun Queen so I can review it properly for awhile, as this series is a favorite of mine! Trial of the Sun Queen starts off with a bang. Our protagonist, Lor, is a prisoner who gets in a fight over a bar of soap. Right away, I loved this girl’s attitude! When we get a look at the horrible situation she’s in, especially when she didn’t actually commit a crime, you can’t help but feel for her as well. She’s sentenced to two weeks in the hollow, a big hole in the ground with no food or water and monsters lurking around, when she’s kidnapped by a fae and taken from The Aurora to Aphelion, to compete in the Sun Queen trials. The King, Atlas, is looking for his Queen. And Lor is to be the Final Tribute. A poor citizen of the slums, The Umbra, chosen to compete to show anyone can improve their lot in life….except she’s not from The Umbra. She doesn’t know why she’s there. Why she was taken to compete in this. Or what the hell is going on at all, frankly.
Lor is a charismatic character right away, and you really can’t help but like her. Even when she’s being frustratingly oblivious to the giant holes in the story she’s been told. She’s very good at keeping her secrets, even from us! Only letting little hints sneak through until the end. Especially when those secrets explain so much. But Nisha does such a fabulous job of weaving this story so Lor can basically lie to us and it all makes sense! We follow Lor as she goes through quite a lot. Her time in the prison and her punishment are brutal, and you can truly feel it wearing her down. When she wakes up to a completely different world, the whip lash of it hit me just as hard for her. She comes to not knowing what is going on, and everyone is being so vague. I’m honestly surprised she didn’t lose it completely!
Lor is hard edged from her 12 years at Nostraza. Over her time in Aphelion, competing to become Queen and Atlas’s bonded, she slowly begins to soften. Becoming used to luxuries like food and water, comfortable bedding, and clothing that isn’t falling apart and gross. She also begins to fall for the ever charming King Atlas. The man is a golden beacon. Gold everything, and seemingly sweet and wonderful. Even if he is…um…tasting the wears? Exploring his options? Among the tributes competing. But I didn’t like him immediately. Those too good to be true men are usually too good to be true! And Atlas has the practiced fake persona down pat. Little hints of the true him peek through now and again, mostly in hints from another character talking about him, but they’re there. Plus, I never trust a man who tries to hook up with a stables worth of woman at once.
Even on a reread though, the climax still hit just as impactfully! Mostly because of Lor and her journey to this point. The revelations we get, in conjunction with this, are amazing! Lor has a spark of hope and destiny now, and you can tell she is not going to let anyone keep her caged ever again. Not for long. Even behind bars, she is unbroken. She spent 12 of her most formative years in the worst prison there is. She’s not cracking now. I love her strength and willfulness. It’s what got through Nostraza, what got her through the trials, and it’s what will get her through the rest of her journey.
And oh! The trials! They are fabulous! Each one was so interesting to read, and I loved watching Lor find a way to overcome her disadvantages. Each trial showed us a new facet of her, and brought out a hidden strength for us to discover. Plus, completion stories are some of my favorites! They are always so much fun! We got to see illusions, historical testing paired with vicious mermaids, a gauntlet where Lor had to compete physically, and a ball where the tributes had to seduce an item from a target on the crowd. I loved seeing how each different test was made to test how they would do as Queen in different categories. The gauntlet had to be my favorite just with how exciting it was, but its neck and neck with the illusion that was so harrowing for Lor.
Then there’s Nadir. The Prince of the Aurora. We don’t see as much of him in book 1, but his chapters set the stage for what’s coming. His father, the same King who locked up Lor and her siblings, is a horrible king and father. Nadir has been trying to find a way to get rid of him for years, and when the warden lets slip in front of him about prisoner 3452’s potential death, he’s immediately intrigued by what his father is hiding. He sets about finding Lor, doing so in the last place he expected. But he has his suspicions about what she’s so important. Anything he can use to take down his father, he’s going to jump on it. Of course, when he meets her…well, the two of them fall into one another’s eyes in a way that instantly tells you there’s more under the surface here. A bond of some sort that is deeper than anything either has ever felt.
This book hooked me on the series the first time, and managed to do it all over again! I’m so excited to jump into my reread of Rule of the Aurora King, as I remember it being even better! Mostly because of Lor and Nadir and Lor’s quest! I can’t wait honestly. But I truly loved going back and reading Trial of the Sun Queen. We get so many great side characters in this one with Gabriel, Lor’s warder for the trials, and the other tributes, and I hope they all come back around again! I was reminded how much I loved Lor and Nadir once again, and how I can’t wait to see where their story leads. We get so many fun scenes with the competition itself, plus the ending with the Mirror! I’m going to go run and jump into the next one, but I’ll definitely be rereading this again before Fate of the Sun King comes out!
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From the Publisher
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| Trial of the Sun Queen | Rule of the Aurora King | Fate of the Sun King | |
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| Price | $13.48 | $12.59 | $14.24 |
| Artefacts of Ouranos Series | Ten women. A deadly contest. Only one can win the Sun King's heart. The Bachelor meets The Fourth Wing in a pulse-pounding fantasy. | The stakes are getting higher, and nowhere is safe in this propulsive epic full of glittering fae magic. | The third book in the Artefacts of Ouranos series journeys deeper into the fae world with an enemies-to-lovers fantasy romance. |
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Banter? Trials?? Enemies-to-Lovers romance fantasy!
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Reviews with images
So good!
This has been on my TBR for a hot minute, and I’m so happy I finally got into this series! I am LOVING it. Lor is the definition of a survivor, & my heart broke for her as she was put in so many positions to feel “less than” the others she was around. I loved the trials and also loved how the author kept us guessing about the real reason Lor was added as the final tribute. This book was amazing, & definitely gave me some ACOTAR vibes. It made me laugh (seriously, the very first line of this book 😆), cry, and jump straight into book two.
Top reviews from other countries
Kindle Customer
If you like acotar and hunger games, you'll like this
Reviewed in Canada on March 24, 2023
