First published 2016
Prince Jalan Kendeth is stuck in the frozen North, far from the warm palaces and easy comforts he calls home. The brutal winter has locked him in place, and his traveling companion Snorri ver Snagason is just as impatient to move. Snorri carries Loki's key, a device said to open any door in the world, and he has one destination in mind: the land of the dead, where his wife and children are waiting. Jalan would rather be anywhere else. He is a coward by habit and a liar by instinct, and nothing about this plan appeals to him. But the Dead King is also moving. He wants the key, and he has armies of the risen dead to send after it. Above all of this, the Red Queen watches. She has been arranging people like pieces on a board for a long time, and the endgame she has planned is finally coming into focus. Jalan and Snorri are caught between a grieving warrior who will not stop and a queen who never shows her hand. The second book in the Red Queen's War trilogy keeps the pace up and the stakes higher.
Genres: adventure, fantasy, dark-fantasy, epic-fantasy
Vibes: dark, epic, fast-paced, gritty, suspenseful
Tropes: found-family, quest-narrative, reluctant-hero, unreliable-narrator
Setting: The Frozen North, The Land of the Dead
653 pages · Paperback · HarperVoyager
Content warnings: death, gore, violence