Review: The Briar Crown by Helen Rygh-Pedersen

Blurb:

They say love conquers all… but can the conquered ever love the conqueror?

Twenty-five years ago, there was life. Twenty-five years ago, there was peace when the descendants of the dryads and naiads kept all life in balance. Until one fateful night when the Oderbergs invaded, executed the royal house of Domonov and took Domovnia for their own, ruling with an iron fist and an edict of fear.

Roslyn Pleveli, like most of the orphans of that night, wants revenge and an end to the persecution of her kind. Yet, even if the Domovnian’s use of magic was permitted, she wouldn’t be much help, able to command only a few lowly weeds. But everything changes when she saves the life of an injured young man in the forest not knowing it was the prince of the Oderbergs himself. Ordered to see to the rest of his treatment, Roslyn is snatched from her home and all that she loves by his soldiers.

Now, in the Oderberg stronghold, she has the chance to change things. With the royal family within her grasp all she has to do to free her people is kill them… but can she do it, or will something more powerful than revenge heal the wounds of the past?

Review:

The Briar Crown is the first book in The Zemkoska Chronicles by Helen Rygh-Pedersen, a series of standalone fantasy stories that retell various fairytales. It is also a tremendously entertaining, fast-paced fantasy story that was heartfelt and thoughtful in all the right places. For me, this book did a lot of things well, and ultimately served as the icebreaker I needed to get out of a serious reading slump in the genre.

The story begins with our main character, Roslyn, trapped within the confines of mundane, lowly life. She belongs to a race of people known as Domovnians, those who can bend nature to their will. The people themselves are treated similarly to the skaa in Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn books, for example, and this interested me as Roslyn served as the basis for discussing various aspects of colonialism throughout the book. Though the story presents as a simple enough romantasy, there is much more at play in the worldbuilding and characters, The Briar Crown therefore is no one-trick pony. 

From the get-go, Helen Rygh-Pedersen’s prose captured me and carried me through the story effortlessly. The world has a charm to it that can only be described as fairytale-like, but it also doesn’t take itself too seriously, and there were many laugh out loud moments for me as I read through it, including a particular royal aunty that I believe most readers will agree with me, was hilarious in more ways than one.

Roslyn’s story, linked to her mysterious origins, is well-developed and actually quite intricate, and it meant that I felt thoroughly invested in her successes and failures, and found myself rooting for her all the way to the end. Her love interest, which I won’t explain here for spoiler-reasons, was also an interesting character with an eccentric family that all toed the line when it came to politicking and maintaining power. 

However, one small criticism I must make of the story is to do with Roslyn’s motivations, and the believability of some things in the story in general. Far too often I found myself unable to suspend disbelief, usually in instances related to Roslyn’s decision-making or private revelations. There were several moments in the story where I was unsure of how much Roslyn truly embodied the range of emotions she said she embodied, and this made her come across, in my opinion, as inauthentic and underdeveloped. 

For most readers, I think this will be a non-issue, and they will be able to look past these moments in the story because as a whole, the plot is so captivating. But for me, they stood up as minor distractions. However, this was not something that seemed to break the story for me, because the worldbuilding and external conflicts she had to manage were so interesting, and the character interrelationships were fascinating to observe, especially from a political point of view. 

The Briar Crown, in summary, is a riveting single-pov fantasy story with a well-crafted world, interesting nature-based magic system, and a romance plotline that, though marketed as the main one, acts more as a compliment to the larger machinations at work in Domovnia. I thoroughly enjoyed my time with it and recommend it as a top indie read of 2024. This year, I’ve found myself to be a slower reader than usual, but this book broke me out of that cycle, and I consumed it in three days. Go check it out, as well as the sequels, one of which is launching right around the corner.