Review: King's Property (Queen of Orcs)

King's Property by Morgan Howell

Book description from goodreads:

'Born into hardship, Dar learns to rely on herself alone. When her family betrays her, Dar is conscripted into King Kregant’s army and its brutal campaign to conquer a neighboring country. Now she is bound as a slave to a dreaded regiment of orcs, creatures legendary for their savagery and battle prowess. Rather than cower, Dar rises to the challenge. She learns the unique culture and language of the orcs, survives treachery from both allies and enemies, and struggles to understand a mystical gift that brings her dark, prophetic visions. As the war escalates–amid nightmarish combat and shattering loss–Dar must seize a single chance at freedom.'
The Queen of Orcs series has been floating around the fantasy scene for a while. I had plans to read the series for quite a while, then I read Howell's Servant Worth Ten Coppers. The book was wonderful, so I went out and bought all of her books that I could.

After reading King's Property I can finally justify my purchases and breath easy. The plot is a standard fantasy plot, but the writing is refreshing. Speaking of refreshing, the take on Orcs in this book is too cool. These are not the Orcs we're familiar with from Tolkien's work. They have a society and the females have the position of lords of the land, they make all of the decisions.

The lead female is a very strong character. The way Howell wrote her was wonderful. I felt complete frustration and anger with the character as she had to choose the lesser of two evils each time constantly to survive.

Conclusion:

This is a must have for any fantasy collection and I look forward to reading the other two books. Howell is obviously a fantasy queen.

Sexual Content:

This is a dark book and goes over the rough treatment of women and there lowly state in the scheme of things. No graphic sex scenes

3/5- Good, I liked it.