I read this one in day. It pretty much sucked me right in and I didn't want to put it down once I got going. I wish they'd be more careful with tag lines for books sometimes, 'Gladiator meets Game of Thrones' was very ambitious and while I can see some elements here, basically court politics and gladiator fighting, it puts a lot of pressure on a story to be a lot more intricate than it is, or has to be, I think.

I liked pretty much all of the characters, Evie's journey was interesting and entertaining and I love that this was only the beginning of it really. I was quite surprised to find out Evie was 28 years old. This felt much more like a YA coming of age journey to me than an adult story. Which was totally fine by me, I love that type of thing. I'm thinking the next book might kick it up a few notches from occasional swearing and one frank sex thought lol. The scenery changes were perfect, I loved discovering each new place, even if it was just different sects within the kingdom and out of the palace. I extra loved the idea of the ultimate people pleaser finally getting to find a kind of freedom and ultimately a better version of herself in doing things for her own pleasure for a change.

Honestly this felt like a lighter fun fantasy that had some heavier more complex stuff going on for sure but it never felt heavy to me. I'm really looking forward to seeing how the story progresses in the next book!

Most of my books of course come from sellers in Europe (chiefly Germany and the UK), but a fair few this year did also end up traveling here from North America, when all told the American offer was better than those by European sellers.

Bought in 2019 and already read:

From Seattle, WA:

James Hilton: Was It Murder?

Candace Robb: The Apothecary Rose (Derek Perkins audio CD)

From Houston, TX:

Ellen Datlow & Terry Windling (eds.): A Wolf at the Door and Other Retold Fairy Tales

Sandra Uwiringiyimana: How Dare the Sun Rise

From Mishawaka, IN:

Daniel Stashower: Teller of Tales

Frederic Raphael & Kenneth McLeish: The Book of Lists

Matin Durrani & Liz Kalaugher: Furry Logic

From McKeesport, PA:

Zen Cho: Sorcerer to the Crown

From Coral Springs, FL:

J.V. Turner: Below the Clock

From St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada:

Jennifer Estep: Kill the Queen

Clayton Rawson: Death from a Top Hat

Bought in 2019 and still on my TBR (don't even comment, please):

From Seattle, WA:

James Thurber: Writings and Drawings (LoA)

Agatha Christie: Rule of Three

From Tucson, AZ:

Stephen King: 11/22/63

From Richmond, TX:

Charles Dickens: Bleak House (Paul Scofield audio CD)

From Houston, TX:

Dorothy Dunnett: The Game of Kings

From Mishawaka, IN:

Penny Le Couteur & Jay Burreson: Napoleon's Buttons

Mercedes Lackey: Arrows of the Queen

Lois McMasterBujold: The Curse of Chalion

Christopher Hibbert: The Borgias and Their Enemies, 1431-1519

Ted Widmer (ed.): American Speeches: Political Oratory from Patrick Henry to Barack Obama (LoA)

Robert Barr: The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont

C. Daly King: The Curious Mr. Tarrant

Eden Philpotts: The Red Redmaynes

Matthew Pritchard (ed.), Agatha Christie: The Grand Tour: Letters and Photographs from the British Empire Expedition 1922

From Windsor, CT:
Elie Wiesel: Night  / Dawn / The Accident (aka Day)

From Frederick, MD:

Samuel Johnson; E.L. McAdam, Jr. & George Milne (eds.): A Johnson Reader

From Kennesaw, GA:

Christopher Isherwood. A Single Man (Simon Prebble audio CD)

Sebastian Junger: The Perfect Storm (Stanley Tucci audio CD)

From St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada:

Otto Penzler (ed.): Bibliomysteries

(Task: The historic (3d century AD) St. Lucia was Italian; yet, like those of many other saints (including, e.g., St. Andrew and St. Nicholas), the most important celebrations of her holiday don’t occur in her place of origin but somewhere else in the world.

List or create a stack of favorite books (minimum: three) featuring a character’s move or transition from one part of the world to another one (or from one end of a large country, e.g., U.S. Canada, Russia, China or Australia, to the other end.)

Alternatively, tell us: Which book that you acquired this year had to travel the farthest to get to you (regardless whether by plane, sea, or whichever other way, and regardless whether it was a purchase of your own or a gift from someone else)?)

I frankly think most of the better-known real life stories about such "moonlightings" are unproven myths, so I'm going to keep it straight to fiction:

1. Arthur Conan Doyle: A Scandal in Bohemia and The Illustrious Client

Representatives of the British government and nobility ordinarily don't have a problem showing up in Holmes's rooms in their own person, but when it comes to royalty, things are different: The King of Bohemia initially shows up pretending to be a certain Count Von Kramm (OK, still nobility, but from a hereditary king's perspective, almost as lowly as a commoner); and while we never actually learn the identity of the "illustrious client" sending an emissary to Holmes in the other story, Watson implies at the end that the client in question was none other than King Edward VII.

2. Terry Pratchett: Wyrd Sisters

A switcheroo turning a prince into an actor and, eventually, the Duke's fool into the new ruler.  Also one of the funniest books in the entire Discworld series (and a brilliant spoof on Shakespeare's Macbeth and Hamlet).

3. J.R.R. Tolkien: The Lord of the Rings

Aragorn, rightful heir to the throne of Gondor, bides his time as a ranger for the better part of the trilogy.

4. Mark Twain: The Prince and the Pauper

Henry VIII's son, Prince Edward VI, and a young boy named Tom Canty switch places for a while, and the experience of being exposed to Tom's miserable life and the brutality of his alcoholic father has (as Twain would have it) a salutary effect on Edward's understanding of class issues and sense of justice, once he is crowned king.

5. C.S. Lewis: The Horse and His Boy

The titular "Boy" is Shasta, who has grown up as a fisherman's son, but after escaping from his ruffian adoptive father and numerous subsequent adventures is eventually revealed as the son and heir to the king of one of Narnia's neighboring countries.

6. Jennifer Estep: Kill the Queen

Evil princess massacres her mother (the queen) and her entire court; thus her "poor cousin" (who is actually next in line for the throne) hides with a band of gladiators, learns to fight, and eventually faces down the evil princess to take her throne for herself.

7. William Shakespeare: As You Like It, Pericles, The Winter's Tale, and Cymbeline

In As You Like It, Rosalind, the exiled daughter of the regining duke (Duke Senior) masquerades as a page for the better part of the play.

In Pericles, the titular Prince of Tyre's daughter Marina is kidnapped and sold to the owners of a brothel (where she manages to keep her virginity by lecturing the customers on their sinful ways ... sigh.  Really, Will?)

In The Winter's Tale, the Sicilian royal couple's daughter Perdita is raised by a shepherd who has found her bundled up as a baby after she had been abducted from the palace.

In Cymbeline, the eponymous king's daughter Imogen also disguises as a page at one point.

Honorary mentions:

1. Dorothy L. Sayers: Have His Carcase

A commoner is bamboozled into falsely believing himself a member of the House of Romanov.

2. Alexandre Dumas: The Man in the Iron Mask; and Anthony Hope: The Prisoner of Zenda

The rightful heir to the throne is kidnapped and replaced by a doppelgänger (but the kidnapped royal is not passed off as a commoner).

3. Roman Holiday (movie)

I'm not much into romance, but Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck are such a treat they just have to make an appearance on this list.

(Task: Towards the end of the 17^th century, there was a Russian apprentice carpenter and shipwright going by the name Peter Mikhailov in the Dutch town of Zaandam (and later in Amsterdam), who eventually turned out to be none other than Tsar Peter the Great, whose great interest in the craft would become pivotal to his programs for the build-up of the Russian navy and naval commerce.

So: Tell us about a favorite book, either nonfiction history (demonstrably true facts, please, no conspiracy theories or unproven conjecture) or fiction – all genres, not limited to historical fiction –, dealing with a member of royalty “moonlighting” as a commoner.)

"Kill The Queen" is an intrigue-filled, action-packed romp, set in a classic fairy-tale setting, with castles and princesses, except that some of these princesses hold lightning in one hand and sword in the other.

In this world, ruthless, magic-wielding royals rule, gladiators fight to the death to entertain the crowds and creatures that morph into beasts, dragons and ogres attend royal courts. This is not a happy ever after kind of place. Here the poisonous politics have deadly consequences and the blood and guts spilt by blade weapons are vividly described.

At the centre of the book is a pay-no-attention-to-me minor princess who has spent her orphaned life hiding her power and doing her best to seem harmless but who now finds herself running for her life and seeking revenge for her murdered family. She is a princess we can all cheer for: brave but broken, modest but charismatic, rage-filled and lethal.

Although the book starts a little slowly, in order to establish the fairly large cast of characters, it is most fast-paced, lunging from one nail-bitingly tense crisis to the next. I love the way the plot let me guess the next crisis while keeping the Princess blind, which made me feel insightful, yet was complex enough that I couldn't guess how the crisis would be averted, which made me keen to read more.

This is the best Jennifer Estep book I've read, I have great hopes for this series.

I recommend the audiobook version of "Kill The Queen". Click on the SoundCloud link below to hear an extract.