Four Dead Queens by Astrid Scholte

Ioanna Lee

November 1, 2019

Rating: ★★★★☆

I was going to write about The Tiger at Midnight, but Four Dead Queens by Astrid Scholte had left me with my jaw dropped and lots to rant about. And with its many sudden twists and turns, I finished it in nearly one sitting and liked it enough to recommend. This book is about one thief, one honest citizen, and a murder mystery involving them and four dead queens. 

Keralie is one of the best thieves in all of Quadara and steals a case of comm chips- technology that holds embedded memories and implants them in another person’s mind, from a messenger. The messenger, Varin, tries to get it back and ends up running away with Keralie from her creepy evil employer and childhood friend- Mackiel. Keralie accidentally acquires dangerous regicidal evidence through eating the comm chips as a power play over Mackiel during their escape. These comm chips show someone’s memories of assassinating Quadara’s four queens one by one. With no other choices and on the run from super creepy Mackiel, the two decide to join forces, endeavoring to discover who has killed the queens and save their own lives in the process. However, things get pretty complicated and messy in this murder mystery that takes place in a part fantasy, part sci-fi world.

At first, I was concerned about the murder in the book because I am a complete wimp at scary stuff, but this book did a good job of describing just enough to keep the investigation suspenseful and mysterious without turning it into gore. So that was nice. Also, the ending was totally unexpected. There were two endings, the first of them being an almost-ending but gave way to yet another twist which was the real ending. 

One complaint I have, though, is that the chapters kept switching points of view between Keralie and the four queens while hopping around different places in time as well. The book contains six different perspectives in total; all third person except for Keralie's perspective. I often felt overwhelmed and the changes in the story along with the changes in characters and time were just too much for me to handle. For example, in one chapter, Keralie would find out that the queens died but the next chapter was in one of the queen’s points of view before any murders happened at all. 

Overall, I think this book - a standalone, it seems - tries to do too many things and stretches itself way too thin in the process. For example, I think that the worldbuilding could have been expanded on because the 4 different “quadrants” of Quadara- Archia, Eonia, Toria, and Ludia were only vaguely described throughout the book. The history of Quadara was also pretty confusing and only mentioned once or twice, and the descriptions of the world, in general, were very repetitive. It was pretty lacking and would have made the story more interesting to draw the reader in. Honestly, it would have been such a good book if the author calmed down just a bit to let the reader process things a little and become fully immersed in the world.

Also, the romance was a bit uncalled for and random. There's no build-up or chemistry. You can spot the love interest in chapter one by the way Keralie starts describing Varin’s beautiful skin, which is apparently “delicate, but hardy”... Whatever that means. This is then followed by Keralie saying or thinking dirty jokes at the most inappropriate of times. Like her comment about him wanting to undress her while she is literally drowning. And they were complete strangers at the time. Not exactly the best time to fool around. 

As a character, Keralie is not too clever. (As you can tell from the example I gave above). I like it when my characters are smart. Keralie, however, freaks out a lot and doesn’t think logically. Also, she’s supposed to be a bit of an antiheroine, but she comes across as petty and childishly mean sometimes. We sympathize with antiheroines because they are complicated and, deep down, we can see the messed up reasons behind their actions. However, that wasn’t the case with Keralie. When we first meet her, she bumps into and slaps away an old man’s cane so he falls over. Then, she steals from him. That's not flawed and interesting; that's Peeves the poltergeist. Her “dark secret” doesn’t give her an excuse to do that. 

Otherwise, her development from a selfish and dishonest thief with dark secrets to a girl who “cared for her family. Her friends… A girl who saw more than the Jetee, more than Toria. [who] wasn’t alone” is clear (for once) and nice. The ending nearly made me cry. Especially the growth in her relationship with her family. A lot of YA novels are about teenagers who run away from home or have their entire family murdered. This one made Keralie’s family a big part of her motives throughout the story.

I think I liked this book because of the big twists, which is similar to one of my all-time favorites- The False Prince by Jennifer A. Nielson. However, it just didn’t capture me as much. The story was good, though, and so were the characters and the different settings that were described. So, I gave it a 4 out of 5. Feeling pretty generous today. Also, I can’t figure out how to give it a half star rating to make it a 3.5 or something. And these are the reasons why you should read The False Prince! Just kidding, but also not. Read Four Dead Queens too. It was a unique and exciting story that I don't regret reading.