Once a Queen by Sarah Arthur Review

 Happy Monday Friends :)

I pray today finds you all doing well, and I'm so thankful you've taken the time to drop on by The Preppy Book Princess today for another book review.

I'm Kirby, and I'm thankful you've chosen to stop on by my little corner of the internet.

Today is January 15th, and that means it's my birthday! Birthdays have been hard for me the past few years to put it mildly, and to start with I was really dreading today.

However, I was determined to try and actually celebrate my birthday this year instead of being depressed about it, and my hubby made plans to take me to the city for a couple of days for book shopping, relaxing, and yummy food. Unfortunately, we got hit with another family emergency this week and our area is currently experiencing an extreme cold warning where yesterday we actually hit temperatures with wind chill of -57 degrees Celsius.

So once again my birthday has not ended up being what I hoped for, but instead we're going to have a quiet day at home where I'm planning a cottage core inspired picnic.

But before I dive into celebrating with my hubby, I wanted to share a book review with you all.

Today's review is for an upcoming title from a new to me author.

I hope you'll all keep reading down below for today's full review.

Once a Queen by Sarah Arthur:

Source: Publisher via NetGalley

Publisher: Waterbrook

Publication Date: January 30th, 2024

Genre: Young Adult Fiction/Fantasy/Clean Fantasy

Series: Once a Queen? (It appears that the series hasn't been officially named yet)

Synopsis:

An American teenager discovers that her estranged English grandmother was once a queen in another world in the debut novel from bestselling author and speaker Sarah Arthur.

When fourteen-year-old Eva Joyce unexpectedly finds herself spending the summer at the mysterious manor house of the English grandmother she's never met, troubling questions arise. Why the estrangement? What's with the house's employees and their guarded secrets? Why must Eva never mention trains, her father, or her favorite childhood fairy tales?

After strange things start happening in the gardens at night, Eva turns to the elderly housekeeper, gardener, and the gardener's great-grandson, Frankie, for answers. Astonishingly, they all seem to believe the fairy tales are true--that portals to other worlds still exist, though hidden and steadily disappearing. They suspect that Eva's grandmother was once a queen in one of those worlds.

But Eva's grandmother denies it all. After a horrific family tragedy when she was young, her heart is closed to the beauty and pain of her past. It's up to Eva, with Frankie's help, to discover what really happened, whether family relationships can be restored, and if the portals are closed forever. As she unravels generational secrets, Eva wrestles with the grief of a vanishing childhood--and the fear that growing up means giving up fairy tales forever.

(synopsis from goodreads)

My Review:

Once a Queen is an enchanting young adult fantasy novel that pulls readers in right from the opening lines. Told in two different POV's, one from our young protagonist in the 1990s's, and one in the chapters of a fantasy novel that interweaves with the actual story, it was definitely something unique, and combined many of my favorite fantasy elements into one story.

If you grew up loving The Chronicles of Narnia, this might just be the book you've been waiting for. While it definitely brings its own unique story to the table, it felt in many ways like an ode to this other beloved children's classic, and I enjoyed that. 

The writing style is engaging and captivating, and I had a hard time wanting to put this one down once I picked it up. The setting is absolute perfection for a novel like this, and I think it will leave every reader wishing their own relatives own an imposing English estate with topiaries and art work galore. 

Likewise, I ended up enjoying our main protagonist Eva, and the big heart she has for the world around her. On top of this being an interesting fantasy read, it's also somewhat of a coming of age story, as Eva grapples to come to terms with the family history that's been hidden from her until now.

While I wouldn't categorize this entirely as a Christian allegorical novel, it definitely has some profound Christian themes running throughout the story, and that made a great story even better in my opinion. Some of these themes might not be obvious at first glance, but reading the afterword from the author put a lot of things into a different perspective for me, and I highly recommend reading those pages if you choose to pick this one up.

All in all, I adored this beautiful fantasy and I look forward to continuing on with the series. However, a couple of small components kept it from being a five star read for me, and I want to quickly touch base on each of them.

First, while I loved how this entire story seemed to be inspired by Narnia, sometimes it felt like it went a bit too far that way, and that kind of took something away from this story itself.

Second, The majority of the story focuses around this magical other realm that Eva's grown up believing is a fairy tale. With how much it was hyped up, I expected it to play more of a role in the actual story, and was left disappointed when it failed to do so.

And lastly, the ending is incredibly rushed, and leaves quite a few questions unanswered. I hope that the next book will answer these, cause otherwise it feels a bit incomplete.

Final Rating: 4/5.

I'd definitely recommend this one to anyone who enjoys clean young adult fantasy novels. It was a truly breathtakingly beautiful story, and I'm glad I had the opportunity to read and review it!

Thanks so much to Waterbrook for allowing me to read and review this title!

I voluntarily read and reviewed a complimentary advance reader copy of this novel from the publisher (Waterbrook) via NetGalley. I was not required to give a positive review. All thoughts and opinions are my own, and this is my honest review.

Thanks so much for reading guys! Have a great rest of your day :)