In the aftermath, she gets herself and the messenger away, but he makes her an offer, where she will come with him so he can re-record the memories as they are in her mind and she agrees. Kera is cornered by the messenger wanting the comm case back and she appears to help him waiting for Mackiel to return only when he does he turns on her and threatens to kill her, so to take the option away from him, Kera puts the chips into her mouth, witnessing the memories for herself which will anger Mackiel but possibly ensure her survival but there she witnesses the memory of Iris’ murder as well as the murders of the other Queens. We see the other Queens in the aftermath of Iris’ death as they need to find her successor since she didn’t have a female heir which means it would go to closest female relative, but Corra is also concerned in catching the killer that might or might not be still in the palace and they call an inspector from outside the palace to investigate. In between these events we get a chapter from Iris, the Queen of Archia as she refuses her people’s plea for electricity but wants to change the Queenly Law she must follow to have more for herself as Queen’s aren’t permitted to love, marry, or return to their homelands but she doesn’t get the chance as she is murdered in her private garden.Īs we approach the ¼ mark in the novel, we get Corra’s perspective as she is the Queen of Eonia where all the technology comes from although extraordinarily little moves between quadrants. At the auction however, things get a little dicey as the messenger has turned up presumably to buy back the comm case and deliver his message. We know he was involved in an accident before Kera joined Mackiel and that Kera is to blame for it in some way, but we don’t get much more than that. Keralie “Kera” is the best dipper employed by Mackiel, her childhood friend and when she steals a comm case from a messenger she knows she is going to get a good payday offsetting the guilt she feels after hearing her father is dying. As we are introduced to our protagonist, Keralie, a talented thief I became aware this book was told from multiple perspective which is a love/hate thing for me. There is Archia which value agriculture and is ruled by Iris, Eonia which values technology and is ruled by Corra, Toria values intelligence and is ruled by Marguerite and finally, Ludia value pleasure and is ruled by Stessa. We learn that the world, Quadara, is split into four segments, each rule by a different Queen and values different things.

Review: I have read The Vanishing Deep by Astrid Scholte and it was one of my favourite books the year I read it, so I finally decided it was time to pick up her first book, Four Dead Queens but I didn’t know anything about it going into it.

Four dead queens by astrid scholte