The Dragon Knight: The Celebrate Lit Blog Tour and Giveaway of The Queen of Steel and Fire

October 30, 2021

About the Book

Book: The Queen of Steel and Fire

Author: Steven South

Genre: Young Adult, Epic Fantasy

Release date: April 21, 2021

When her father is murdered, Princess Claire Erinn is thrust onto the throne of Keldaren. Unprepared to rule, Claire has to act like a strong queen until she learns how to be one. But an enemy queen and Claire’s half-mad brother don’t intend to let her live that long. They’re coming for her crown—and her head. With Death herself hunting her, Claire struggles to become the warrior her kingdom needs. As war engulfs an entire world, only one queen can rule—through steel and fire.

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Book review

I'll be honest, it took me a minute to get into this book. I had a hard time warming up to the characters--especially Claire--and getting into the plot. It took until I was about halfway into the novel until I finally started to really enjoy it. And let me tell you, I absolutely love this book!

As I said, it took me a while to like Claire. I felt she was arrogant in the beginning, which made me dislike her immediately. But as the book went on, and I got to know her more, and her character grew, she became one of my favorites. She's wise, strong, and is willing to do anything for her people.

What I really appreciated was the way that Christianity and faith was presented in the novel. It was creative and was what ultimately drew me in.

Overall, I would recommend this book, especially to any fellow fantasy lovers out there. The novel also somewhat reminded me of the BBC show, Merlin, which is also what eventually made me love it. So if you are a fan of fantasy and love the show Merlin, then this book is definitely for you.

I had received a copy of the book as part of the Celebrate Lit Blogging Team and was required to give an honest review.

About the Author

Steve lives in Minnesota with his wife. When he’s not reading, working, or writing, he loves to travel…his goal is to make it to at least six continents in his lifetime. Just three more to go! Beside traveling, he also loves karaoke, although he’ll be the first to admit that he’s terrible at it. You can contact him through his Facebook page:
www.facebook.com/queenofsteelandfireseries

More from Steven

This project began as a bit of a lark to see if I actually had it in me to write a book. I first “finished” the book in 2006. Then I discovered the meaning of the phrase “writing is re-writing”. It took me over thirty attempts to get the beginning right. Six complete re-writes of the book and 13 years later, it won the 2019 Minnesota Author Project award for young adult fiction. Many query letters later, I found a publisher. After several more revisions with Mel Hughes—the excellent editor that I was very fortunate to work with—Elk Lake Publishing released the book this year.

When I first started writing this book, there weren’t a lot of Fantasy novels with female main characters. I felt it was a really under-represented area within the genre, and I wanted to write a book that imagined what a world with more strong female characters—and especially a strong female protagonist—might look like. I also wanted to write a book that explored the struggle with reconciling faith and reason, and how to be good in a world of moral relativism.

I was raised in a strong Catholic household, but I drifted away from faith in my late teens. In my mid-twenties, I decided that I was being intellectually dishonest with myself, having one foot in religion, and one foot in a kind of lukewarm agnosticism. I took some time to “wander in the desert” and really wrestle with religion and my beliefs, did a lot of studying of different religions and Christian denominations, and as a result of that, found myself really strongly drawn back to the Church.

There’s a saying that all first novels are autobiographies. I guess that’s somewhat true for this novel too. Claire has to struggle to answer the fundamental question about faith that all honest skeptics have to confront at some point in their lives—what if could be true? The Queen of Steel and Fire was born of my journey through that question, and the answer I found.