Hooked on Books

Kelsea the Kick-Ass Tearling Queen She's strong, she's fierce, she's brave. She has a backbone & brass balls to go with it! She's Kelsea Raleigh Glynn- the Queen of Tearling. She is one kick-ass heroine! I think I like her so much because she was ballsy and courageous from page one. She's never had a fragile, weak, prissy, dependent bone in her body. If I had to pick my favorite fictional heroine, it would have to be her.
 
Kelsea was raised by foster parents until the age of 19 at which time the Queen's guards set out to bring her back to the palace to claim her rightful place on the throne. The story takes you from her life in the country with her foster parents through her struggles in reaching the palace, claiming the throne & gaining the popularity of her new kingdom. The story literally enveloped me from the very beginning. It was really fantastic and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
 
The setting and world building however had some issues. As you're reading it, you get the feeling that it's set in the past, in medieval times by the way they live, dress, ride horses, use canons and bows & arrows etc. Then at one point Kelsea hands out books to her servants children and she gives them The Hobbit, Lord of the Rings etc. which thoroughly threw me for a loop. I'm like wait a second so what year is this again?? The city they are in is called New London which also makes you think it's a future dystopian world. Plus they give hints to something that happened called "The Crossing" which I believe is when they came to this new world but this Crossing is never explained in detail. So yeah there are definitely some world building issues that need to be clarified. Hopefully, in the next book they will be, but it really should have been done in this one. If it weren't for the setting contradictions, I would have given the book 5 stars.