LITERATURE
April Book Club Escape reality and dive into magical fantasy lands with this month’s book list compiled by Charlotte Griffiths
The Assassin’s Apprentice ROBIN HOBB When the world leaves you feeling blue, you can count on fantasy fiction to lift you from one reality and drop you straight into another – sometimes, delightfully, for many, many thousands of pages. Disillusioned by current global politics? Slip away into Robin Hobb’s epic Farseer saga, which starts with The Assassin’s Apprentice and continues into multiple mini series for a further 15 books. I accidentally read the entirety of the first trio because I just could not put them down. It follows young FitzChivalry Farseer, the illegitimate son of a recently abdicated but beloved prince, as he navigates courtly life under the care of his grandfather, the King, and his characterful retinue. It’s told as a first- person retrospective, which gives you a more intimate, human take on the otherworldly events that unfurl around Fitz as he tries to do his best by his family and those who’ve cared for him, while also being used as a political bargaining chip. There are two flavours of magic in this world: the Skill and the Wit. The former is the telepathic power employed by the ruling classes to observe and control their people, whereas the latter gives the bearer the ability to commune and bond with animals, and is considered taboo by polite society. Read these books in order of publication, and you’ll soon wonder why they’ve not become a Game of Thrones -style TV epic – yet. You’ll soon wonder why these books haven’t become a Game of Thrones-style TV epic
The Priory of the Orange Tree SAMANTHA SHANNON Buckle up for this riotous queer, feminist,
Those raised by the Priory know Galian is not the real hero: in their version it was a woman, Cleolind Onjenyu, who stopped the Nameless One long ago. The shifting nature of truth is a theme for the novel: there are multiple, competing perspectives about the same set of events. What is revered by one culture is reviled by the next, yet they are united in their mistrust of dragons. However, across the oceans lies the East, where dragons are venerated and the young Tané dreams of becoming a dragonrider – knowing the key to stopping the Nameless One is working with dragons, not against them. Shannon’s world may have a steep runway, but once you’ve got the basics down you will be completely absorbed. And a fantastic slow-burn, cross-culture romance doesn’t hurt at all…
swashbuckling series of warrior nuns, multi-generational queens, alchemists, pirates, a magic-bestowing orange tree and – of course – dragons galore. The Priory of the Orange Tree is the first in Samantha Shannon’s The Roots of Chaos series. In the island nation of Inys, Queen Sabran the Ninth has not yet borne a daughter to continue her line. This sparks rumours that the Nameless One – an apocalyptic dragon, sealed in the Abyss a thousand years ago by Galian Berethnet, Sabran’s royal ancestor – is on the verge of returning in order to wreak devastation across the land. By Sabran’s side is Ead Duryan, whose real name is Eadaz du Zāla uq-Nāra. She serves as a gentlewoman but is actually a deadly warrior from the South, sent by the Priory of the Orange Tree to protect the queen.
32 APRIL 2026 CAMBSEDITION.CO.UK
Powered by FlippingBook