Title: The Queen of Ieflaria Series: Tales of Inthya #1
Author: Effie Calvin
Published: February 19, 2018
Genre(s): Romance: Science Fiction & Fantasy
Page Count: 182
Rating:
Summary from Goodreads:Princess Esofi of Rhodia and Crown Prince Albion of Ieflaria have been betrothed since they were children but have never met. At age seventeen, Esofi's journey to Ieflaria is not for the wedding she always expected but instead to offer condolences on the death of her would-be husband.
But Ieflaria is desperately in need of help from Rhodia for their dragon problem, so Esofi is offered a new betrothal to Prince Albion's younger sister, the new Crown Princess Adale. But Adale has no plans of taking the throne, leaving Esofi with more to battle than fire-breathing beasts.
The Queen of Ieflaria is a book that has excellent ideas, but suffers from very flawed and inconsistent execution. The idea of an F/F arranged-marriage fantasy romance with dragons sounds great—but in reality, Effie Calvin struggled a lot with pacing, structure, and follow-through. The end result is a book that’s over-informative on issues that are irrelevant to the resolution of the conflict, but underdeveloped respecting elements that should have been central. I think this book also suffers from the author’s messy attempts to create both a developed romantic arc and a larger-scale “traditional fantasy” plot with the dragons; in her attempts to juggle both, Calvin was successful at neither.
It is apparent that Calvin spent a great deal of time thinking through her fantasy universe. The world that The Queen of Ieflaria is set in apparently has well-developed geography, culture, mythology, and political context. However, it is equally apparent that the author couldn’t quite grasp how to let her readers know that she had invested so deeply in world-building, so her attempts at conveying the information are clumsy and inappropriately-timed. I understand this is probably the single-most difficult aspect of writing fantasy fiction, but whew. If your preferred vehicle for delivering information on the universe’s mythology/religion is to have a character lie back and catalogue each deity and its attributes by name for the reader’s benefit, then…well. That’s not how it should be done.
I also think that in general, Calvin’s excitement and enthusiasm for her fantasy universe overtook her ability to streamline a plot. For instance, several interesting or seemingly important story points were introduced, only the be summarily abandoned in favor of the “central” conflict. We find out that there’s an intriguing “science vs. religion” debate that might put the two protagonists in direct conflict with each other…but this is never mentioned, even though it appears to be Very Important when first brought up. Likewise, there’s a scene where it appears that one protagonist’s membership in an ultra-elite religious sect might cause a national crisis…but again, Calvin does nothing with it.
Great portions of the text read as if the author is stumbling her way, trying to find the crux of her story, but without any success. Eventually, we do land on the primary obstacle in play: dragons are pillaging the kingdom, coming closer and closer to the capital. Unfortunately, by this point, Calvin has already seeded her novel with so many other potential conflicts that it’s confusing. Not to mention that by the time it is made clear to the readers that the dragon plot is going to prove important to the book’s overall resolution, we’re about halfway through, and everything is rushed.
And then there’s the romantic arc, which is not rushed so much as tepid. Perhaps because of Calvin’s inability to pinpoint her conflict, the romance between protagonists Esofi and Adale was shunted to the side and not given much depth. At first, the reason they cannot be married is because Adale doesn’t want to become queen, and obviously, Esofi cannot marry a princess who abdicates. Then the conflict is that Adale wants to be queen and wants Esofi, but now Adale’s cousins are also competing for Esofi’s hand. Underneath all of this “will they, won’t they” is an unexplored current of internal tension. Calvin hints that both characters have deep feelings of insecurity and unworthiness, but amid all of the info-dumping (see above), there isn’t space to let those traumas breathe. There was a distinct lack of emotional intensity displayed both by Esofi and Adale as individuals and by their relationship as a couple. (Please note: I say “emotional intensity” not as a euphemism for “explicitly physical love scenes.”)
With characterization lacking depth and nuance and misapplied worldbuiling, I’m afraid that my final impression of The Queen of Ieflaria was unenthusiastic at best. A collection of great ideas does not a good novel make. I’m disappointed by this read, not least because I suspect that rigorous editing and restructuring of the plot could have resulted in a phenomenal book.
