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Book Description

Graceling meets The Selection in debut novelist Victoria Aveyard's sweeping tale of seventeen-year-old Mare, a common girl whose once-latent magical power draws her into the dangerous intrigue of the king's palace. Will her power save her or condemn her?

Mare Barrow's world is divided by blood—those with common, Red blood serve the Silver- blooded elite, who are gifted with superhuman abilities. Mare is a Red, scraping by as a thief in a poor, rural village, until a twist of fate throws her in front of the Silver court. Before the king, princes, and all the nobles, she discovers she has an ability of her own.

To cover up this impossibility, the king forces her to play the role of a lost Silver princess and betroths her to one of his own sons. As Mare is drawn further into the Silver world, she risks everything and uses her new position to help the Scarlet Guard—a growing Red rebellion—even as her heart tugs her in an impossible direction. One wrong move can lead to her death, but in the dangerous game she plays, the only certainty is betrayal.

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Editorial Reviews

Review

'Aveyard weaves a compelling new world, and Mare and the two men in her life evolve intriguingly as class tension rises. Revolution supersedes romance, setting the stage for action-packed surprises. An inventive, character-driven twist breathes new life into tired fantasy trends' Kirkus Reviews 'A wonderful mash up of Ancient Rome and Marie Antoinette with a dash of Catherine Fisher's Incarceron and Ridley Scott's Gladiator, not to mention some of Marvel Comic's box of tricks ... Exciting and original' Sam Hawksmoor, author of the Repossession Trilogy

From the Back Cover

Mare Barrow's world is divided by blood—those with red and those with silver. Mare and her family are lowly Reds, destined to serve the Silver elite whose supernatural abilities make them nearly gods. Mare steals what she can to help her family survive, but when her best friend is conscripted into the army she gambles everything to win his freedom. A twist of fate leads her to the royal palace itself, where, in front of the king and all his nobles, she discovers a power of her own—an ability she didn't know she had. Except . . . her blood is Red.

To hide this impossibility, the king forces her into the role of a lost Silver princess and betroths her to one of his own sons. As Mare is drawn further into the Silver world, she risks her new position to aid the Scarlet Guard—the leaders of a Red rebellion. Her actions put into motion a deadly and violent dance, pitting prince against prince—and Mare against her own heart.

From debut author Victoria Aveyard comes a lush, vivid fantasy series where loyalty and desire can tear you apart and the only certainty is betrayal.

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Product Details

Print Length: 400 pages
Publisher: HarperTeen (February 10, 2015)
Sold by: HarperCollins Publishers
Language: English
ASIN: B00KFG156C
Text-to-Speech: Enabled

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Lending: Not Enabled
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #14,983 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
- #63 in Books > Teens > Romance > Fantasy

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Okay if you don't question it too much (like I did) January 3, 2015

By J-J-J-Jinx VINE VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Vine Customer Review of Free Product (What's this?)

This book starts out rather derivative, with shades of Hunger Games, Red Rising and a bunch of other stuff while at first seeming like a pure fantasy genre book, based on the special powers of the Silvers, but deeper in it hints at dystopian future or parallel universe kind of stuff.

There are two classes in this world. Our main character, Mare, is a red, the lower class. They have red blood and no special powers. The other, higher class, which takes great pains to suppress the reds, are the silvers. They have silver blood and they have a variety of different powers (but one each) and at one point it's mentioned that they can only draw from what is around them (like if they can channel the power of water, there actually has to be water around) although, then again, one girl with water power (or hydra power, something like that) draws water just out of the air around her. Enough water to defeat a guy with the power of fire. So, I dunno. But anyway, by accident Mare (and all the royal type silvers) finds out she has a great power herself, even though she's not supposed to since she bleeds red and all, and it gets very complicated where the king and queen (although the king is hardly a character at all in the book, very 2 dimensional) deciding it would be best if they tell everyone Mare is a long lost silver and they betroth her to their younger son. It really doesn't make sense if you think too hard about it.

Reading this book I was going a bit nuts because there are a lot of inconsistencies, things that don't make sense with the world in general and characters that seem to be one way and then flip flop to become another way. I was making a mental note of them all and trying to decide which ones to present here in my review, HOWEVER, at the end of the book some of the inconsistencies are explained in a way that I shall not reveal here but let me just say it makes a bunch of people in the story look very DUMB that they have no clue about any of it. Still, it redeemed the book enough for me to elevate it to a lofty three-star rating. Oh, also I thought Mavin (who doesn't seem like much of a mavin) was a missed opportunity for a homosexual character, or maybe he secretly was, but I changed my mind about THAT at the end, too.

So, some things that still don't make sense:

Apparently, they have "airships", boats (although never described in any detail), a bicycle type vehicle that the reds often use, something referred vaguely to as "transport" (it's weird, whenever they are moving around toward the end of the book they are using "transport" or occasionally a "vehicle" as in "the vehicle arrived" or "we took the transport back to the _____" and never is this mysterious transport described in any way. C'mon, that's weird when you think about it! Meanwhile, apparently they have all of these vehicles and various means of transport but Cal invents...the motorcycle! People think he's crazy and it seems dangerous, but he's determined it will be a good idea.

Also, the war, which I think has gone on for 500 years or something like that, like since around the time of King Ceasar (really? King Ceasar? There is also a guy named Samson who fights a huge, strong guy towards the beginning...I thought maybe it was the beginning of a bunch of tongue in cheek humor but...no.) So the war is fought all on the ground with reds being the ones doing most of the fighting, despite the fact that they have silvers with superpowers basically and plus they have airships and really quite a lot of technology including surveillance cameras, tv/video screens, force fields, all kinds of stuff. They have doors and jail cells that seem to be openable only by someone with the right ability to bend the metal or manipulate it in the correct way. That must suck if you want to put someone with that power into that jail or maybe you want to get someone out and can't find the correct metal-bending jailer. But um, back to the war...the whole thing sounds crazy but maybe if you end up reading the next book in this trilogy you can let me know if the whole war thing is just a big fake to keep everyone busy or something, okay?

Another thing, Mare (neigh! neigh! whinny!) is having trouble controlling her new-found powers with her regular history teacher, so they put her in with the rest of the teens who have already been training their powers for years, to help her learn control. Their training seems to consist of running around obstacles a lot and then fighting each other. I'm not sure how she learns control from that, but I guess it works. For some reason, two people with the same power never fight each other. Also, Mare seems amazed to watch some of these powers like she hasn't seen them at the mandatory show battles they are forced to attend on First Fridays. I don't even really know why this group is assembled to train together. I guess it's all the teens that ended up forced to hang out at the seasonal palace? Also, except for twin four year old boys and I think perhaps one mention of a baby (or was it a toddler?) there isn't anyone below teenage in the whole book. There is also no-one in their 20s, it seems like. It kind of skips right to parent-of-teenager age and then much older right away.

Also, why are people relieved to find out a woman had her tongue cut out so she can't spill their secrets? She seems to be well educated and this world does have pen and paper so....

Why wouldn't Mare ask to have her father healed as part of her "deal" with the king and queen?

How could anyone believe Mare was a silver raised by reds? Apparently, when Mare is dressed in the mornings, she has to have thick makeup put on her to hide the fact that she has pink undertones and blushes red...silvers blush silver and bleed silver as well. Surely she couldn't reach age 17 without herself or anyone else realizing "hey, this one is actually a silver!" But if they did believe that could happen, I guess they could also believe that the moment she is "discovered" to be the daughter of a war hero silver she instantly took on every attitude of a silver and completely turned her back on the reds and started sneering at them.

Really, I have a lot of other questions, about population and interbreeding (or not) and Mare's father and the location of the grey town, the feasibility of stealing and also selling of stolen goods in a small village and stealing electricity ration slips and how did a small village, in the mud, on stilts, get this fancy paper slip method of getting electricity and do people have phones? I mean, it seems like they must only no-one uses them in the story. Maybe they are waiting for Cal to invent them.

I've probably gone on too long here, but I wanted to mention something about the silvers: they are the ruling class and they have these crazy powers like controlling fire or water or being able to read your mind or make a whole forest grow in the blink of an eye or they have superhuman strength, and yet they seem extremely undisciplined and often act like children. At the slightest provocation they will start stompling reds and they love to fight each other as well. It seems to me like they should have a culture of control and moderation, otherwise they would have descended into complete anarchy and reduced their cities to rubble a long time ago. This may be yet another thing that will be explained in another book, but it certainly makes no sense in this one.

I dunno, if I keep thinking about all the questions I have, I'm going to have to take away that third star I gave it. There is also an assassination attempt that has to be the dumbest attempts ever. Some mention is made of cutting off the head to kill the whole snake but ummm...they could have killed ANYONE they wanted from the royal families basically, or all of them, or kidnapped someone. With all their resources and what seems like quite a bit of knowledge the rebel reds seemed spectacularly stupid with this. If you read this book, I suggest you don't question anything or maybe read it with an eye to figuring out which questions will be explained later and which are just not a well pre-planned book. I don't think I'll be reading the next book in the series when it comes out, although I might be interested enough to read the back cover blurb or a few reviews. Read more ›

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars X-Men meet the Hunger Games January 12, 2015

By Cheryl Stout TOP 1000 REVIEWERVINE VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Vine Customer Review of Free Product (What's this?)

I really wanted to like this book. It has a classy cover and came in a stunning presentation box - and that's for an Advanced Reading Copy, which are usually fairly drab looking. And the blurb from the back of the book sounded like something I would enjoy. I like finding books with a strong female protagonist.

Instead the book draws heavily from other works of fiction (at least in my opinion) such as X-MEN and THE HUNGER GAMES.

There are the Silvers, all of whom have some sort of paranormal skill, and then there are the Reds, who are mostly just hardworking people serving the Silvers - the haves and the have-nots. That is, except for Mare (stupid name BTW). She is a Red but does have a paranormal power.

And, when things heat up, they have arena sports, pitting Silvers vs Silvers, and Silvers vs Reds.

Does any of this sound a tad familiar yet?

Plus the storyline has a hard time flowing seamlessly along. I feel like the author had a hard time deciding whether this was going to be a dark dystopian tale, a steampunk fantasy story, or a paranormal romance.

Parts of the story flowed nicely and it would seem like everything was getting on track but then, no - the author would go off on another tangent and I'd be shaking my head again.

I do think the book has potential. That's why I rated it with three stars instead of one. But it needs to be edited with a heavy hand and the author needs to decide what aspect of the story she wants to focus on.

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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Red vs. Silver January 1, 2015

By Suzanne R. Arnholt VINE VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Vine Customer Review of Free Product (What's this?)

This was an impressive first book of a proposed trilogy with a Cinderella meets Rambo kind of story. Mare is almost old enough to be drafted into the army, where she will probably be put on the front lines as a "Red" fighting for the "Silver" rulers. The reds are normal; the silvers have many and varied telekinetic and telepathic abilities, which have made them the rulers of various nations in this imagined world that follows a limited nuclear-type war (radiation is mentioned). Soon before her impending draft, Mare is taken to the palace to be a servant, where her life changes forever as her own abilities manifest in front of a crowd. The intrigue, betrayals, and action as the reds seek equality in a silver-dominated world is well worth reading. I'm looking forward to book 2!

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4.0 out of 5 stars A great start to a new YA trilogy January 12, 2015

By schmettajames VINE VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Vine Customer Review of Free Product (What's this?)

Red Queen is a fun compelling read. It mixes fantasy, dystopia, and special powers into a very entertaining story. It's being billed as The Selection meets Graceling, but I think it has more in common with The Hunger Games and Throne of Glass. Mare Barrow lives in a world where the color of your blood determines your social standing. Red bloods are normal humans, forced to live dreary lives serving the Silver blood ruling class, who have unusual powers (very reminiscent of the X-Men's special mutant abilities). The Silvers rule with an iron fist, and the Reds lead rough lives and are drafted into a never-ending war as cannon fodder as soon as they turn 18.

Mare is 17 and doesn't have much time left before she's conscripted into the Silver's pointless war. She helps support her family by thieving, and one night, she's caught by a young man who ends up arranging a job for her at the royal court. Shortly after she arrives there, it becomes obvious that she has a special power, the ability to create and manipulate lightning. Reds aren't supposed to have any powers, and the King doesn't want news of her abilities to spread, so he forces her to pretend to be a long-lost Silver aristocrat and betroths her to his younger son. This is all is a touch improbable, but it happens very quickly and I was able to suspend my disbelief once Mare takes on her new life at court, because the plot became so interesting. Mare takes on her new identity, tries to find her way in a treacherous atmosphere, and gets caught up in a rebel movement.

Mare is a great heroine. She's tough, she loves her family, and she's loyal (she ends up in the palace because she's trying to save her best friend from conscription). She's in way over her head at the royal court, but she holds her own. Read more ›

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Fabulous read!

Oh, my goodness! Oh, my goodness! I just finished this book and I’m still squeeing!
The setting is filled with slums, small villages and palaces with diamond-hardened walls —... Read more

Published 5 days ago by Mary@BookSwarm

More About the Author

Victoria Aveyard recently graduated from USC, where she majored in screenwriting. She has sold several television pilots and feature-length screenplays, and is currently represented by the Hollywood management company Benderspink. THE RED QUEEN is her first novel. She lives in Los Angeles, and you can visit her online at www.victoriaaveyard.com.

Print List Price:	$17.99
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Sold by:	HarperCollins Publishers

Red Queen [Kindle Edition]

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