Wednesday, 29 May 2019
Kingsbane by Claire Legrand
Series: Empirium Trilogy #2
Release Date: 1st June 2019
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Genres: Feminist Fantasy
The anticipated sequel to the New York Times bestseller Furyborn!
Two queens, separated by thousands of years, connected by secrets and lies, must continue their fight amid deadly plots and unthinkable betrayals that will test their strength―and their hearts.
Rielle Dardenne has been anointed Sun Queen, but her trials are far from over. The Gate keeping the angels at bay is falling. To repair it, Rielle must collect the seven hidden castings of the saints. Meanwhile, to help her prince and love Audric protect Celdaria, Rielle must spy on the angel Corien―but his promises of freedom and power may prove too tempting to resist.
Centuries later, Eliana Ferracora grapples with her new reality: She is the Sun Queen, humanity's long-awaited savior. But fear of corruption―fear of becoming another Rielle―keeps Eliana's power dangerous and unpredictable. Hunted by all, racing against time to save her dying friend Navi, Eliana must decide how to wear a crown she never wanted―by embracing her mother's power, or rejecting it forever.
Praise for Furyborn:
A BuzzFeed Most Anticipated Title of Spring 2018
A Goodreads Most Anticipated Title of Spring 2018
A Bustle Most Anticipated Title of Spring 2018
"A must-read." ―Refinery29
"A series to watch." ―Paste magazine
"Visionary." ―Bustle magazine
"One of the biggest new YA fantasies." ―Entertainment Weekly
"Empowering." ―BuzzFeed
Two queens, separated by thousands of years, connected by secrets and lies, must continue their fight amid deadly plots and unthinkable betrayals that will test their strength―and their hearts.
Rielle Dardenne has been anointed Sun Queen, but her trials are far from over. The Gate keeping the angels at bay is falling. To repair it, Rielle must collect the seven hidden castings of the saints. Meanwhile, to help her prince and love Audric protect Celdaria, Rielle must spy on the angel Corien―but his promises of freedom and power may prove too tempting to resist.
Centuries later, Eliana Ferracora grapples with her new reality: She is the Sun Queen, humanity's long-awaited savior. But fear of corruption―fear of becoming another Rielle―keeps Eliana's power dangerous and unpredictable. Hunted by all, racing against time to save her dying friend Navi, Eliana must decide how to wear a crown she never wanted―by embracing her mother's power, or rejecting it forever.
Praise for Furyborn:
A BuzzFeed Most Anticipated Title of Spring 2018
A Goodreads Most Anticipated Title of Spring 2018
A Bustle Most Anticipated Title of Spring 2018
"A must-read." ―Refinery29
"A series to watch." ―Paste magazine
"Visionary." ―Bustle magazine
"One of the biggest new YA fantasies." ―Entertainment Weekly
"Empowering." ―BuzzFeed
GUEST POST
Anger and Feminism in the
Empirium Trilogy
by Claire Legrand
When I was a girl, I felt
angry all the time, but I never felt comfortable showing it. Instead, I would swallow my
discontent and paste on a smile. Good girls weren’t supposed to get angry. Good
girls were not supposed to ruffle feathers. And I was desperate to be not just
a good girl, but the best girl. I
wanted people to like me, and in my mind, the two desires were incompatible—the
desire to be liked and the desire to express the sometimes-ugly feelings
brewing inside me.
From an early age, women are
conditioned to think this way. We must tolerate harassment from boys on the
playground because “boys will be boys”—and anyway, that kind of teasing is
simply a sign of affection, for which we should be grateful. We can’t be too
ambitious, or we’ll be derided as arrogant.
We can’t choose to focus on our
career rather than starting a family, or focus on starting a family rather than
pursuing professional ambitions, because either choice means we’re lacking in
some way when compared to our male counterparts.
If a woman is too mean, she’s
a bitch. If she’s too nice, she’s a pushover. Too modest? She’s a prude. Too
sexually expressive? She’s a whore.
And if a woman gets angry?
She’s just being overly emotional. She’s PMS-ing. She’s hysterical.
Even though I was raised in a wonderful
household, where thankfully I didn’t have to confront these kinds of attitudes,
they were nevertheless omnipresent in the world around me. Commercials,
television shows, movies, the products sold in stores, and the insidious,
centuries-old effects of patriarchal power showed me that I must walk this
impossibly fine line in order to be considered a good girl—and that being a “good
girl” should be my ultimate goal. If that meant swallowing my anger time after
time, then so be it.
Enter Rielle Dardenne and
Eliana Ferracora.
I came up with the idea for
the Empirium Trilogy when I was eighteen years old, when I was very much still
of the mindset that I should “play nice” whenever possible. But as I started
developing this story and getting to know its protagonists—Rielle and Eliana—I
began to understand how powerful anger could be.
Both of these young women learn
they are the subject of a prophecy: A queen of light and a queen of blood will
arrive, one with the power to save the world, one with the power to destroy it.
The question Rielle and Eliana face is, “Which queen am I? The good queen or
the bad queen?” (Because, of course, a woman can only be one of these two
extremes. A bitch or a pushover. A prude or a whore.)
As Rielle and Eliana grapple
with this utterly unfair destiny, they grow increasingly angry with the people
in their lives—even well-intentioned people—who think they know what’s best.
Who tell them they’d better figure out how to be the “good queen,” or else. They
must use their power when the people they serve tell them to, but must
otherwise not be defiant with it. They must not use their power to rebel, to
question, to fight back.
And they must use this power
even if they don’t particularly want to.
Now, as a 33-year-old woman, I
am much more comfortable with the “uglier” parts of my personality—my anger, my
selfishness, my cowardice. Do I always like these parts of myself? No. Do I
always express them in the correct way? No. (After all, anger can be
productive, but it can also be destructive.)
But over the course of writing
first Furyborn, then Kingsbane, and now Empirium Book 3, I’ve
learned that the anger I experience isn’t unnatural, or unfeminine, or
villainous, or unattractive. I am allowed my anger. My anger does not diminish
me. My anger does not strip me of my womanhood.
In fact, my anger gives me
power. It motivates me to make positive changes for myself and for others. And
I don’t think I would have found the courage to embrace this part of myself had
I not spent years developing the characters of Rielle and Eliana. Their journey
toward accepting, expressing, and learning to live with their anger and power
has taught me so much about myself, and I hope that the girls who read this
series feel similarly emboldened.
Anger can be destructive and
cruel. It can also be a tremendous force for change, and, as a woman, understanding
and expressing your anger is an act of liberation, of empowerment, of great
bravery. I’m so grateful to the characters of Rielle and Eliana for helping me
understand this, and I’m delighted to see them join the ranks of the many other
dynamic, complex, angry girls that populate the world of fantasy literature.
About Claire Legrand
Claire Legrand is a librarian and
the author of several novels for children and teens, including the Edgar Award–nominated
Some Kind of Happiness and The Cavendish Home for Boys and Girls. Claire lives in New Jersey with her partner, her dog, and two cats. Visit
claire-legrand.com.
To find out more about
The Empirium series head over to
http://empiriumtrilogy.com/ .
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