Review of The Queen of Xana

[Gabriella Smith]

[Following is a volunteer review of "The Queen of Xana" by Fred Pilcher.]

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2 out of 4 stars

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The Queen of Xana by Fred Pilcher tells the story of a young princess becoming a wise and effective Queen. Beginning with her mother as Queen, princess Agatha connects with the common people like no other ruler of the land had done before. At the arrival of an evil sorcerer, Agatha is forced to act and fulfill the destiny her fairy god mother had set out for her at birth. Princess-turned-queen Agatha needs to find her prince among all her people to defeat the sorcerer. The prince is from a distant land and as a condition, may not reveal himself to Agatha or the evil sorcerer will not be destroyed. At first try she must identify and couple with the prince to save her people. The story includes counts of some of the citizens of Xana, their stories and experiences under the rule of Agatha, their new queen. Xana faces many threats throughout the novel including war, famine and bandits. This queen however is no longer following royal tradition and plans to make Xana prosperous land for all.
The positive aspects about this novel is the story at its bones has the potential to be riveting and the creativity behind the plot is evident and strong. The characters are well formed and create a sense familiarity as the reader progresses. The style of writing and the vocabulary itself progressively gets better as the chapters continue and, in some points, imagery is mostly achieved. The author seems to get more confident in his work as the book goes on.
The negative aspects however, outweigh the positives. The main elements of story that have such great potential are suffocated by poor, repetitive writing. Much of the dialogue throughout the novel is overly formal in matters that not only do not require it but make it seem unrealistic and silly. An example of this is actually seen on the first page where the original Queen, Julia, makes an incredibly formal declaration to her newborn infant describing her backstory which at that point in the story was unnecessary and proves to be redundant. Redundancy continues to be a theme throughout the story as characters use quotations that are directly lifted shortly after the reader first encounters them. The style of writing, while it could be worse, does become its own enemy as whatever imagery was created is destroyed by the author’s choice to be indecisive over whether or not the queen presents herself naked or in plain clothing. Another obstacle in the novel is that the author forces conclusions about the characters onto the reader instead of letting the reader draw these conclusions themselves. What I would say is the worst aspect of the story is the narrative is not only indecisive but often completely unnecessary. Irrelevant information takes up paragraphs of the story which tends to discourage the reader from continuing. The narrator is never distinguished either. Inserts of narration appear often and as mentioned above contain not only irrelevant or redundant information but are written in the first person without ever telling the reader whose thoughts and opinions these are.
Other than the style, narrative and overall writing of The Queen of Xana, the story tends to be interesting and apart from a messy timeline nearing the end of the novel, the only other misgivings about the book concern the reality of the sexual scenes and choice of characters that are followed. The sexual scenes are terribly unrealistic as well as contradictory at times. The narrator claims the culture of the people of Xana are not concerned about public displays of affection but towards the end of the book a worried “courier” proves this claim to be inaccurate. This is not the only instance of contradiction as much of the description tend to differ from earlier ones. A few of the last chapters closely follow certain characters whose experience while enjoyable to the reader do not relate directly enough to the main plot which makes these chapters needless.
Due to the nature of the narrative, indecisive author and often pointless inserts, the rating I’ve chosen is a 2 out of 4 stars (fair). Even though the novel has its flaws, almost no grammatical or spelling errors could be detected and again, the original idea of the story has large potential to enthrall readers if it were rewritten in a more “bare-bones” way.
The target audience I would say is of a young adult, fantasy fan. I would suggest younger but as the author has included many sexual over tones and advanced vocabulary, young adult seems to be the most fitting.

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The Queen of Xana
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[PeterRabitt20]

It's too bad that the writing isn't up to par, but the lack of direction looks like it could use more prep and planning. Otherwise, it looks like it might be a fun plot. Thanks for the review, you made good calls.

[Gabriella Smith]

It's too bad that the writing isn't up to par, but the lack of direction looks like it could use more prep and planning. Otherwise, it looks like it might be a fun plot. Thanks for the review, you made good calls.

Thank you for such a nice comment

[Kira Bonita Reece]

I actually enjoyed reading this book....although I totally agree with your point that the sexual scenes were unrealistic

[Gabriella Smith]

I actually enjoyed reading this book....although I totally agree with your point that the sexual scenes were unrealistic

Thank you for understanding the different view point. I'd love to hear what you enjoyed about the story? I do agree it has potential I just feel the execution wasn't great. What is your opinion?