Overall I really did enjoy this book. It has lovable characters, an intriguing story line and a few plot twists along the way.
I read this right after finishing the Six of Crows duology and following another thief’s story was kind of comforting and really soothing after having my soul torn out by chapter 40 in crooked kingdom. And in many aspects our main character Keralie kept reminding me of the crows, which was a huge plus point in my case. 

However, I often felt like it was too much at the same time: we have a murder mystery, a thief’s story, romance, science fiction, a dystopian-ish society, multiple narratives, queens breaking their own law and so on, it really just kept coming.
It sometimes just was too much, so that each element was only touched upon and left as a weak example of what could have been achieved within this world, if only each topic had been granted more time and attention.

"Loving someone means risking your heart being broken. But those moments you are together triumph over any hardship."

I saw this book for the first time on Goodreads. I felt in love with its cover right away. And I knew I wouldn't rest until I read it. It wasn't just because I was in love with the cover, though, you know? It was also that unshakable feeling that this book was going to be great.

And it was. Really, really great. I am sure that by now you already know how much I love having the chance to guess who the murderer is when there's one, but end up really upset if I ever do guess who s/he was too early. Because if I do, then I am just there, reading and yelling at the characters because they are too stupid to see what's right in front of them.

That's why I know this book is really great. Because even after I was so sure I had guessed everything there was to guess, I still wanted to keep reading. That urge to read this book till its last page hadn't vanished. And I am so glad I kept reading, because, yes, I had guessed everything right, but I hadn't guessed everything there was to guess. I had not guessed a tiny detail and we all know that in books sometimes it's the tiny details that make the difference between a good book and a great book. That wasn't exactly the case - the detail wasn't that 💫WOW💫 -, but it made everything even better.

Of course, the book isn't a bed of roses (I have never understood this expression - how can a bed of roses be a good thing?!). For starters, the world doesn't get enough development. I liked the concept and I think it could have been really great - it may not have been the most original idea for a world that I have ever seen, but it had its own interesting twist -, but it is just not developed enough. And honestly, if it was to develop the whole world and the background that led to its current political situation so little, we would have been far better with no development at all. It just raises way more questions than it answers - I mean, how was spliting the kindgom in quarters the solution to their problems?!.

Then there's Keralie. I do like her character. Just as I like all the other characters. They were well-written and had a really great development. And they have amazing personalities that make the book even more interesting. But there's this one thing about Keralie that bothered me through the whole book - HOW CAN SOMEONE WHO KEEPS TELLING ME THAT SHE FEELS BEYOND GUILTY ABOUT HER CHOICES SEEM SO GUILT-FREE ALL THE TIME?! Yes, what happened was a tragic accident and definitely not her fault. But she blames herself, or at least she keeps telling the reader that she does, and yet we never see that in her actions (or her thoughts) except when it is convenient to the plot.

And do you know what else I don't like, even if I like the characters? The romantic relationship. It is pointless. You have no doubts you'll have a love interest since the moment you read Keralie's description of Varin. But throughout the book, you can't help but wonder why is this love interest here. Not the character in himself, Varin is great, but the character as a love interest. Is it because this is a Fantasy and <i>all</i> Fantasy books need a love interest? Is it too add 💫drama💫? Because if it is, it failed miserably. WHY IS IT IN THE BOOK? All the other relationships I can understand and their amazing dynamics add something to the book. But Keralie and Varin's? I really can't understand that one.

However, these problems weren't enough to make me not enjoy the book as much as I did. And do you know why? Because Scholte is a hell of a writer. You could have guessed that already in the beginning of my review - she had to be really good to make me want to keep reading a book when I was sure there was nothing else to know that I hadn't already guessed. But right now, you can't have any doubts that she is indeed good - otherwise these three issues together would have made the book a little less enjoyable.

Scholte wrote a book with a plot that I saw for the first time - a murder mystery set in a fantasy world. It wasn't the hardest mystery to solve and it wasn't the most well-developed fantasy world I ever saw, but the two things together made it unique. Not only that but she managed to have six different perspectives in her book, all but one in the third person, and have it make sense. Which would have been hard on its own, but she also set for a complex timeline that would jump from the present to the past without warning (which I still don't understand why as the book would have been just as good with a straight timeline). And she made it work. Wonderfully, may I add, because the book really profited from it - thanks to that, to an amazign set of characters and to an amazing writing style, Scholte managed to write a really interesting, addicting book, I had no trouble reading till the end.

Overall, this book has problems, which may make the book less enjoyable for many readers. And that's obviously understandable. But it also has great things - like the attempt to join two genres you rarely see together and the whole mystery, which may be easy to solve but is definitely interesting. And the great writing style also helps. It may not be a complex book I am sure many may come looking for, but it is a funny, light read that may definitely help you get out of a reading slump.

There are a lot of things to like about Four Dead Queens. Unfortunately, there are also things to dislike and sadly, I’m here to tell you that the popular observations about this book are true, and it’s a huge detriment to its overall enjoyability. I don’t regret reading Four Dead Queens – it surprised me sometimes, disappointed me other times, but was an interesting adventure overall.

I’ll start with the biggest thing, the thing all the reviews are talking about. Four Dead Queens is lacking in execution. It’s all over the place with six different POVs, messy pacing, and too many things it’s trying to accomplish. Either side of the story would have been sufficient in itself. I get how there are so many different perspectives to any event, but the reader doesn’t need to know so many of them. It muddles the plot. The story is not quite about Keralie, not quite about the Keralie/Varin love story, not quite about a coup, and not quite about Queen Marguerite’s big secret. Scholte seems to have struggled for balance between all these things – while it’s important to have subplots, all of these things are given similar weights in the story and fade in and out in importance at different times. It makes the book feel like it has four halfhearted plots instead of one strong central plot and three interesting subplots. In that way, it was difficult to be attentive for the first three-quarters of the story. Nothing was really moving.

On the other hand, Scholte had some interesting world building in Four Dead Queens. The idea of the quadrants mixes fantasy with science fiction and plays with a few favorite tropes to build something different than a lot of fantasy books coming out right now. The world building is stronger in the beginning, when the queens are not dead (I’m sorry, it’s not a spoiler if it’s in the title) – as the story progresses, it fades to focus on a single quadrant with a few nods to another. As such, Four Dead Queens left a lot of areas unexplored. Given the already scattered nature of the book, I understand that choice, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say I would have liked to see more.

Eonia, on the other hand, is a bit overall sketchy. There are a lot of ableist views in the quadrant, the most blatant one being assigned “death dates”. This is the quadrants way of preserving resources – they kill citizens when they reach an age where they become a “burden to society”. This includes older citizens, but also people with disabilities. I don’t think I need to explain why that is extremely problematic. The view is challenged within the book, but not removed. Adding to this, there is rhetoric around life being fuller without a disability. There arena’s to this throughout the book as a cure is sought, but it plays in heaviest at the end when one character assures another they are looking for a way to remove the disability. This creates an extremely problematic precedent that those with disabilities not only have less value, but are somehow less than whole and cannot be happy. This is very much untrue – there are many paths to a happy ending.

I will give Scholte some points for tricking me and not following the path I expected for the first two thirds of the book. I was dead certain that events were going to go a certain way and characters’ secrets would be revealed and I was completely wrong. I’m still (as always) unimpressed with the love story, but character progression took a different path and I can respect that twist.

The end of the book tied up very nicely with a ribbon. It rushed through events at a pace I would have appreciated earlier in the novel. The lack of questioning about certain outlandish comments and overly convenient events annoyed me as a reader, but for someone swept up in the story, I don’t think they would have thought twice about it. The ending was too clean and easy and folks are way too accepting of certain things and it didn’t play believably to me at all.

Ultimately, Four Dead Queens was an interesting read, but I don’t think I would have picked it up if it hadn’t come in a book box such a long time ago.

I have mixed feelings about this book, but overall it was an enjoyable read with fascinating worldbuilding. I loved the shifting perspectives of the four queens, but had trouble caring about the main character, Keralie. She was pretty bland and most of her character development was flat-out stated in her internal monologue which came off really corny. And there wasn’t a physical description of her until 350 pages in…even though all the other characters had detailed descriptions. The love interest was dreamy but I wish the romance was developed more, it felt pretty rushed. Some of the plot twists were great and others I saw coming from a mile away. I loved how the author used the shifting perspectives to warp time and create more questions surrounding the mystery. An awesome debut novel, I would definitely be interested in Scholte’s future works!

I'm going to be honest: i was not having high hopes for this book. I underestimated it. 

My gods, that was a good read. I only bought it because it was on sale, the title peaked my attention, the cover is pretty... Thought it was going to be just a "passing the time" read. I was wrong, because THIS IS GOOD. 

It is a standalone fantasy book, wich i loved (i have too much series to finish righ now), with a murder-mystery type of story. Shut up and take my money. 

Though i imagined some plot points the rest surprised me. Not a 5 star favorite but def a good book and a good recommendation for standalones, if you are into them. 

This was a really fun time. It kind of gave me divergent vibes just with the four groups of people. I honestly didn’t see any of this coming which made it really fun. Also their was some lesbian (probably wasn’t specifically stated) and POC characters.