Cruel Crown (Red Queen Novella)

It's the print version of Queen Song and Steel Scars. I realized this several pages in.
Queen Song:
"There is nothing so terrible as a story untold." Not just writing motivation, but a quote that explains the reason for this story. The lack of world building could make comprehending this difficult for anyone who hasn't read Red Queen. It's a good story, an interesting one. Nice romance. In fact, if the rest of the series weren't aimed at the futuristic-urban-fantasy genre, this could probably be a much longer book, a romance that's a stone's throw from Cinderella.
Steel Scars:
The REDACTED messages are a pain to read. I have trouble with the following line: They're aren't here, in the thick of things, I tell myself. I'm assuming it's a typo or a double negative. The theme can be wrapped up in this quote: She spoke of slavery, because that's what this world is. No one dares say it, but that's what Reds are. Slaves and graves. This story gives a glimpse of another character from Red Queen. Unless you've read that book already, you shouldn't read this one. It picks up about halfway in.

This review is a big deal!
I never reread a book! I've only reread children's books and The Bible. That's it! Never done it before, but this book has managed to squeeze a second chance out of me and for a couple of reasons. One: Because a second book was released- with higher accolades that the first. Secondly: There was a book issuing a backstory on a few of the characters. I expect a richer, more developed story and I expect a better carry-through. Will I get it?
We shall see...

Cruel Crown by Victoria Aveyard is a two story book. Listed as 0.1 and 0.2, these books are introductions to particular situations and characters. The first novella is Queen Song and the other is Steel Scars.

​ Queen Song is the story of Queen Coriane, the first wife of King Tiberius Now since I've read Red Queen already, about a year ago, I already sorta remembered who to like and dislike- which is why I don't reread books! Anyway, because Queen Corianne wasn't in Red Queen, I didn't know her, but I guess this book gives explanation to Cal, or Crowned Prince Tiberius the 7th. His gentle nature, kindness and desire to be free of war unless necessary.

This story was the best of the two and a half shared in this book. I wish it gave more into Cal's up-bringing and the integration of Queen Elara into the royal fold. That would have given this intro so much more meat to chew! And I probably would have hungered for the Red Queen read all over again. Sadly, it gave none of that. This book was partially successful in its release to me- only making me slightly regret purchasing it...

*For the full Red Queen series review: [...]
***Audiobook of Cruel Crown was from my Audible.com collection while Red Queen and Glass Sword were from my personal library.

‘Cruel Crown’ by Victoria Aveyard features two fairly short stories, spin-offs from ‘Red Queen,’ her first in the Red Queen series.

What can I say? To be completely honest I was disappointed. ‘Red Queen’ was a five star read for me, and I had high expectations of ‘Cruel Crown’ as a result.

The first story features Coriane of House Jacos, a poor noble family of little standing in the royal court. She catches the eye of Tiberias, heir to the Silver throne, and consequently marries and produces an heir; but she is plagued with bad dreams of such magnitude that she fears for her state of mind! This first story did catch my interest, but it felt too hurried. The courtship rushed quickly to marriage and pregnancy, and Coriane’s character struggled to develop amidst the speeed of the story telling. For me, the story ended too quickly and too suddenly, yet my sympathies had been stirred for the issues Coriane faced.

I didn’t even finish the second story, although I made a valiant attempt at it! The paragraphs regarding the ‘missions’ really put me off as they didn’t seem to mean much. I ended up skipping them before giving up half way through.

I don’t like writing such a mediocre review when I so thoroughly enjoyed one of the author’s previous books – but it just wasn’t up to the same standard! Sorry!

Cruel Crown consists of two prequel novellas (Queen Song and Steel Scars) and a sneak peak at the first four chapters of Glass Sword, the sequel to Red Queen.

Queen Song tells the story of Coriane, an unhappy young woman from a poor noble Silver family. When her family moves to the capital, she falls in love with the future king. However, Coriane must be careful with her thoughts as certain nobles opposed to her rise in status can read her mind and use it against her.

I liked Queen Song as it gave a more well-rounded image of the woman only mentioned in Red Queen. Her story is simply heartbreaking, constantly feeling alone and isolated. At about 50ish pages most of the story focused on her life before meeting Prince Tibe and I wish Aveyard would have focused more on her life as the Queen. There is still so much I want to know!

Farley, a freedom fighter in the Scarlet Guard, has her story told in Steel Scars. The story introduces Farley as an established member of the Scarlet Guard who are trying to move their operations into Norta. I didn’t really connect with Farley or any of the characters. In Red Queen she’s a really fascinating and mysterious character. Here, I felt weighed down by the constant reports and code names. I did enjoy that was Mare’s brother was significantly featured.

I’ll be honest, I didn’t read the Glass Sword preview. I never read the sneak peak in any book. Either give me the whole book or nothing at all, but I guess it will get many people excited about the release on February 9th. Overall, I enjoyed learning more about these two women and I can’t wait to read what’s going to happen next in Glass Sword!

Cruel Crown is an anthology containing 2 prequel novellas in Victoria Aveyard's Red Queen series: Queen Song and Steel Scars. Technically these stories are both set before Red Queen (Steel Scars actually has a little bit of crossover time wise but Queen Song is set well before the start of the series) I would actually recommend waiting until after you've read the first book before picking this up.

I'm going to talk about each story separately but I wanted to warn you that just over 50 pages of this 200 page book are an extract for the second book Glass Sword so this book is even shorter than it looks. Luckily this does seem to be reflected in the price but I was shocked when the stories came to an end only three-quarters of the way into the book so it's worth mentioning! Although I thought this anthology was okay I don't think it added a huge amount to the series and I don't think you'd be missing out on much if you decided to skip it.

Please note that when I'm writing the rest of this review I'll be doing it assuming that you've already read Red Queen so if you haven't look away now or you'll end up seeing spoilers.

Queen Song - 3 stars:
This story is set years before the main series starts and gives us the chance to see how Cal's parents first met and fell in love. There were a lot of rumours flying around in the first book that Coriane had used her abilities as a kind of mind control to make Prince Tiberias fall in love with her but this gives us the chance to see what really happened. It also gives us a glimpse of a younger Julian and shows quite how far Elara was prepared to go to get what she wanted. I don't think this actually gave us any information that we didn't find out in Red Queen anyway but it was nice to see things through Coriane's eyes and we get to meet baby Cal which was cute.

Steel Scars - 2 stars:
The second story is told from the point of view of Captain Farley and starts just before Red Queen with some overlap in the timeline which the main reason I think you should read the full length book first. I was really excited about this story and getting more of an inside track on the Scarlet Guard but I have to admit I was a little disappointed. We get to see a few familiar faces but nothing much actually happens so I found myself getting bored during this one.

I also wasn't a fan on the format of the coded messages sent between Farley and her point of contact, not only were they hard to understand at times but the text used for these messages was VERY repetitive which got irritating really quickly. At one point you had the phrase "The following message has been decoded. Confidential, senior clearance required" repeated EIGHT times in the space of three pages! It's a shame because this story could have been great but there actually seemed to be very little point to it in the end.

Source: Received from publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

Cruel Crown features two digital novellas, Queen Song and Steel Scars, bundled together in print. Queen Song is the story of Coriane, first wife of King Tiberias, before the marriage and birth of her son, Prince Cal. This glimpse into the past pulls everything into focus, as it explains the backgrounds of many familiar characters.

Steel Scars is the story of Captain Diana Farley and how her secret mission puts her squarely in the part of Mare Barrow. This novella focuses its attention on the Scarlet Guard and its motivations. Although Steel Scars was interesting, the information gleaned from its pages was not crucial to the overall flow of the series. The furtive movements of Captain Farley and her team were a tad redundant and I was underwhelmed with this novella as a whole. The exception is the background of Shade Barrow, Mare's brother, and the revelations are enough to elevate this story for me.

The final section of the book is a lengthy excerpt of Glass Crown, the second full length novel in the Red Queen series. The first four chapters of the book provide quite a teaser and I am highly anticipating reading the entire sequel. I strongly recommend reading this series in order because the books are definitely sequential in order.

This is my first time reading a RED QUEEN book and I have to say, I'm starting to see what all the fuss is about! These two short novellas give a unique insight into both sides of this world and mentions characters who I'm guessing are going to be suuuuuper important in the coming books. QUEEN SONG is likely my favourite of the two, telling the heartbreaking story of a gentle Queen who was manipulated until she was broken. The second story, STEEL SCARS, follows a Scarlet Guard captain who defies orders and works to do what she believes is right for her cause. Given the way the second song ended, I'm eager to start the first book and get immersed into this soul-crushing series!

I wanted to check out CRUEL CROWN before I started GLASS SWORD as a sort of memory refreshed and to throw me back in that world. Even though I had only liked RED QUEEN and not loved, I still found myself sucked in that world so I figured it was a great opportunity to read the novellas! The two novellas in this bind-up (in my case, audio bind-up — thanks, HarperTeen, for the review copy!) were QUEEN’S SONG about Coriane, the first wife of King Tiberias and STEEL SCARS which was about Farley.

QUEEN’S SONG ended up being incredibly interesting but it did have quite the slow start for me. I felt like it took a little bit to really establish what the overall plot of the novella was and me and my bad memory didn’t quite remember what had happened to Coriane as we had learned it in RED QUEEN. I remembered the gist but I had a hard time remembering details so this was actually a great chance to see things from Cori’s POV. I really liked her a lot and although I didn’t connect with her personality as much as I had hoped, her story did keep me hooked the whole time. The ending was really interesting and I loved how there was a little twist there.

STEEL SCARS did not go as well. I had an incredibly hard time getting into this story at all. I wasn’t sure where it was going and I just really didn’t care about Farley’s story at all. I felt like not a whole lot was happening and to be totally honest… I didn’t even bother to finish it. I didn’t feel like it was important to the overall plot of the RED QUEEN series and I was just so bored.

I’m glad I ventured into the novellas but I also don’t feel drawn to pick up more should more come out. I guess that could change if I end up loving GLASS SWORD but now I’m sort of meh about starting GLASS SWORD too. Kind of a bummer that the novellas ended up having the opposite effect on me than I had hoped.

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Let me preface this by saying that Red Queen is one of my all-time favorite books, so I went into this with pretty high expectations. Queen Song (the first novella) did not disappoint, but Steel Scars (the second novella) was not as great.

I really liked Queen Song. I loved learning about what Coriane was like and really fell in love with her character. She was sarcastic and funny and I found her easy to relate to. I liked seeing young Julian and Sara too - they were really cute together and it made me so sad to know that it doesn't last. I found it especially interesting to see the Coriane's family really struggled financially and had pretty low status despite being Silver and members of a High House. You don't see that at all in Red Queen.

Steel Scars, like I mentioned, was not as interesting to me. I think the major reason for that is that Red Queen didn't have me super interested in Farley and this whole novella is centered around her. I got more interested towards the end when Shade Barrow has a bigger role and we see tie-ins with the beginning of Red Queen. I will say I sensed some chemistry between Farley and Shade that I really liked and I hope there's more of that in Glass Sword (which I really need to read...).

I definitely would not recommend reading this if you haven't already read Red Queen. You may be tempted to read it in a chronological order, but there's a lot that I think would be confusing or not fully understood if you start with this.

Since each of these novellas are very different, I discuss each novella separately.

Queen Song

Queen Song follows Queen Coriane, Cal's mother, from before she was at the palace right until her death. It has diary entries scattered throughout which does give some insight into her mind, but it felt that Queen Song was more meant to describe count life, and why King Tiberias acts the way he does act during Red Queen.

I wish that it had been longer, but that would have taken away the mysterious element that still sounds Queen Coriane, and her death.

4/5

Steel Scars

Steel Scars follows Captain Farley as she expands The Scarlet Guard's operations into Notra. It was interesting to see how Captain Farley operates, and how she find Shade Barrow. I did not enjoy Steel Scars as much as Queen Song, mainly because I never found The Scarlet Guard very interesting compared to the Silver Bloods.

3/5

Overall

I don't feel like these novellas have added much to this world as they should have. As much as I love Victoria Aveyard and her writing, I believe that she is better at writing full length novels where she is able to flesh out the plot and get into the nitty-gritty of it compared to these very short works where nothing major is added.

This book contained two well done novellas set in the Red Queen world. The first novella takes place before Red Queen and the second takes place at the same time as Red Queen. Both were well written and engaging.

The first novella is set in the past and is the diary of Queen Coriane, the first wife of King Tiberius. As events progress Queen Coriane becomes paranoid that her thoughts are being used against her by a rival at court. This novella very melancholy and depressing, but still very engaging and sweet. It gives some good background about Cal’s parents, but was a pretty short read.

The second novella is much longer and explains in more detail the actions of the Scarlet Guard. This one follows Diana Farley as she strives to plant seeds of dissension in Norta and spark a rebellion there. We watch as she discovers Mare Barrow and starts to formulate ideas about how to overthrow the Silvers. I enjoyed this one a lot more than the first one, the characters were interesting and there was a lot of action.

Overall both novellas were well written and easy to read. I would recommend if you are a fan of the series. I also thought it was a good way to ease back into this world in preparation for reading Glass Sword.

I gave both novellas a 3/5 stars.

Queen's Song - I really liked learning more about Cal's mom and thought that her voice was really cool. I did think that the story jumped around in time too much, though. All of the elements were important, but if there had been page breaks to indicate a time change instead of it happening in the sentence, I think I could have handled it a little better.

Steel Scars - I liked how we got to see the beginning of Red Queen from a different perspective at the start of Farley and Shade's romance. But I did feel like there was too much interiority (which seems to be a theme with Victoria Aveyard's books), and it seemed to go by slowly.

This book contains two novellas in the Red Queen series. I'll discuss them separately.

Queen Song

This novella tells the love story of Coriane, Cal's mother, and King Tiberias, Cal's father. They were both lonely in their youth, and that connection brought them together. It was a sad story. Elara, the future queen, tormented Coriane with her mind reading, and Coriane didn't have the strength to overcome her fears. It was pretty sad.

3 stars

Steel Scars

This story was a little bit longer, but it was hard to follow. It chronicles Farley's involvement in the Scarlet Guard leading up to her interactions with Mare Barrow. Some of the story is told through SC communications, and the rest is told from Farley's point of view. The greater Scarlet Guard organization was fairly interesting, and I enjoyed reading about her and Shade. But ultimately, this story didn't really hold mine interest or strike me with anything that really added to the overall story of the world Aveyard has created.

2 stars

(...)

I got these on audio from the library and they were worth the listen, but nothing too essential to the story, and I enjoyed Queen's Song a lot more than Steel Scars.

QUEEN SONG: This one gives us some background on Cal's mother. It tells us how she fell in love with the king and her slow descent into fear and doubt. It was interesting to see how Elara slowly picked away at Coriane's sanity and made her doubt herself.

STEEL SCARS: I wasn't nearly as interested in this one. In fact, I think I might have dozed off a little toward the end, but I'm not motivated enough to go back and see if I missed anything. I DID like the parts that involved Shade Barrow, but everything else was a bit boring, honestly. I wouldn't bother with this one unless you're really intrigued by Farley.

I've to admit I wish the whole series were about Queen Coriane. Me goofball bought all the books (those covers were too pretty!!) beforehand and now I saw the actual series is about Mare Barrow.

Anyhow, I enjoyed those prequels. As said, I enjoyed the tone, setting, and characters of the book. I thought Coriane is a pretty interesting character and her marriage to King Tiberias was short lived (in the book) but what I could read, how they met etc., I really enjoyed.

I'm sort of dreading to find out who Cal's step-mother is *sighs* because as Tiberias promised her, he'll only love her now and forever. Bittersweet how their story ended :(
Overall, I'm glad I picked this book up and will continue the series to see if Mare is my type of gal or not.

I bought this book and the first two in the series by Aveyard at one of her book signings, having not read anything by her before. Although I found this world interesting, and her writing very good, I could not really get into the story. The characters felt two dimensional. Perhaps I should've read the first two books in the series before this one to be able to understand more of the things going on in the background, but as a prequel this should not have been an issue for someone who has not read the other books yet. I'm willing to give Red Queen a shot, but not for a while. The first short story was interesting, but it felt very abrupt and unfinished. The second story didn't have as much intrigue as I had hoped in the beginning of reading it. As a person who loves to keep books for my library, I may part with this one, even though it's signed.

Actual rating - 2.5

Overall - It doesn't seem like there is really a point to reading this. If you are super invested in the Red Queen series then I guess you can get more background information on the characters. I guess it just seems like the characters Aveyard chose to write about weren't that important to me.

Queen Song - This story started off very slow and uninteresting. Towards the end, it picked up. It was neat to get a peek into Coriane's life. Overall, the story was only decent.

Steel Scars - Honestly, this story just bored the life out of me. I guess I'm just not interested in Farley like I'm supposed to be? It felt pointless and unnecessary.

3.5 stars overall.

Queen Song: The stronger of the two novellas, for me. While Coriane isn't an instantly likable character, her story is interesting. Only down side is that a novella is really to short for her story. Aveyard could write a whole book on Coriane and Tiberius' courtship and marriage and I would read it in a heartbeat.

Steel Scars: Eh...this one really did nothing for me other than give me a greater appreciation for Mare's brother, Shade, not quite the purpose Aveyard intended since the premise of these novellas was to focus on the women before Red Queen. I found the coded messages confusing to the point that at the end I just skipped them.

While I liked the idea of getting to know the lesser known characters from the Red Queen I found this book to be for the most part boring. I give it 3 stars because Queen Song was interesting enough even though we learned much of this story in the Red Queen. Coriane is an compelling character that I kind of wish was a bigger part of the story line in the Red Queen. Steel Scars on the other hand was a total miss for me. The story didn't captivate me nor did the main character, Farley. She remains my least favorite character! Maybe the Glass Sword will change my mind. The telegraphs inserted were strange and I just started skipping right over them. I'm interested to see how important these short stories are to the next book.

I purchased this book for an airplane read and was totally disappointed. This book started out OK, albeit, rushed and too descriptive on things that didn't matter (Perhaps another round of editing would have helped). I believe it was trying too hard to be a "Game of Throne" clone. It took me a bit to figure out what was going on and who the main characters were and to get into the story. I hadn't read the book in the series before it, but normally, I can pick up a series book anywhere and figure out what is going on. I was absolutely disappointed with this book. Just when I became familiar with two main characters and started to feel for them... well, you might blink and miss it, like I did.... and have to re-read that very important, albeit, rushed-part). The important things were so rushed in the book ("telling vs. showing the reader"). Then, the second half of the book... well... it was a totally different book and should have been released as such. I felt like I paid too much for such 1) a rushed short story or novelette/novella 2) half a book. I'm giving this book 2 stars for effort because I do know how difficult it is to write a book.

There could have been no better story to elaborate on than Coriane’s... Wonderfully crafted and swift, but then again her life is painfully short. Farley’s story was also intriguing, though difficult for me to follow with all the redactions. Still, an invaluable addition to all fans of the series. Keep going strong Victoria Aveyard!

Overall, I felt that both of the novellas had their high points and their low points. Both slogged at times, and both had really great action, much like in RED QUEEN. I liked Queen Coriane’s story more, especially the ending. Victoria Aveyard has such a knack for creating great, interesting characters, and she really brought two of them to life with these novellas. If you’re a fan of the series, I would definitely recommend reading the novellas, as they give more context to the novels themselves.

Well first off I do like the red queen series. I was excited about these novellas but after reading Queen Song and Part of Steel Scar. I really don't feel like these stories are neccessary. I feel like this is information that the Author should know but not neccessarily the readers. I think it was a way to make more money. Queen Song stared off slow. I was getting impatient but it slightly picked up, then ended. It was ok. didn't do much for me. Steel Scar, I just stopped. I couldn't do it. I just didn't care. I felt like the story was unnecessary. I really believe that these books were just excess information that we did not need to know as readers. I think the Author is an amazing writer and i can not wait for the third and fourth books. But don't worry about getting the Novellas you aren't missing much

4.5 stars!
A compilation of two short novellas. One about a royal silver an the other about the Scarlet Guard's captain. In Queen Song we get to find out more about Prince Cal's mother; Queen Coriane and her life as a Queen and mother in the palace. In Steel Scars, Captain Farley's life is explored. Filled with tragedy and heart break, this is another well written great read from Victoria Aveyard!

W.O.W.
I don't even know what this was..... All of a sudden life has jumped years ahead and then BAM new story! Since it's a prequel, I read this before the others of the series and now I don't even want to.

This is a magnificent book filled with two short stories to catch us up to the present time. I enjoyed reading about how captain Farley about and found out about Shade and Mare. I also loved reading about the Queen and what actually happened to her. Everything is more clear now that I have read these two stories.

I borrowed this book from my local library and I highly recommend this read.

i am amazed at this series very well written and i can not wait to see the movie this book is about people whose blood is different and how they have literally destroyed each other how the people each for their their own personal gains this one is sad about corriene wish she had lived

I wanted to give this series a second chance because it is so popular. But this might not have been the best choice to change my mind. The pacing was slow, the characters weren't particularly interesting, and I just wasn't excited to read it.

i am very happy with this series i cant wait for February for the last book, its very diff, to me i picture it a mid evil setting where kings and queens ruled but with future things in it but, its really set in our time i think but its up to u on how ud picture it, i love this series and id buy it again if i wanted to :)

Tried to read this after reading Red Queen (which I had to force myself to finish). First story was so boring couldn't continue. Didn't care what happened to anyone. So glad got my copy from the library

~~~Review posted on The Heart of a Book Blogger~~~

Cruel Crown is a bind-up of the Red Queen novellas, Queen Song and Steel Scars. Queen Song was so, so heart-breaking and I LOVED learning more about Coriane. Steel Scars, on the other hand, was good, but long. I didn’t really start liking it until Shade made an appearance. Overall, 5/5 for Queen Song and 3/5 for Steel Scars.