The Changeling Queen
Deluxe Limited Edition
In Kimberly Bea’s enchanting fantasy novel The Changeling Queen, the fairy queen who kidnapped Tam Lin tells her own story.
Bess is the daughter of her village’s healer, who is rumored to have gone to Faery to deliver the Faery Queen’s only baby. Bess is of Faery herself, a changeling child exchanged for her mother’s human child. As Bess grows up, she learns her mother’s trade and heals a shepherd, Thomas, who becomes her lover. Cast out by her father, Bess spends more time with Thomas and in the forest, where she meets Amadan the Dark Fool, a powerful Faery trickster.
Once Bess realizes that she is the dead Faery queen’s lost daughter, she claims her throne, abandoning her human lover even as he betrays their bond to marry and provide an heir. But Faery demands sacrifices of blood and a human soul every seven years to sustain its magic. As queen, Bess has to slay the sacrifice, no matter who it is. Her emotions remain quite human, even as she works to shed her human urges toward grief and guilt.
The Scottish dialect spoken by human characters, along with the lyrical speech of the Faery characters, combine to flesh out the evocative, long-ago-and-far-away setting. The magic of Faery is vibrant and dazzling. Bess interacts with tiny pixies and threatening goblins alike. As Bess sheds her human identity and emotions, stepping into a complex relationship with the land of Faery, she navigates court intrigues for which she was never trained and finds the balance between the light and dark aspects of the magical realm.
In the spellbinding fantasy novel The Changeling Queen, a woman comes into her magical heritage at the potential cost of her humanity.
Reviewed by
Jeana Jorgensen
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. No fee was paid by the publisher for this review. Foreword Reviews only recommends books that we love. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
