"The Queen of the Tearling" Trilogy by Erika Johansen
Book series
With J.R.R. Tolkien and Ursula K. LeGuin having written the ultimate books on fantasy, it is quite difficult to find new examples of this genre which bring a fresh breath and cover uncharted areas.
George R.R. Martin (in his ""A Song of Ice and Fire"" series) and the late Robert Jordan (in his ""Wheel of Time"" series) have produced superb fantasy series which use familiar fantasy elements but are still able to make it exciting and readable. Young Adult series could produce some interesting examples (Harry Potter, of course but also Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Artemis Fowl and countless others). There are also many mediocre examples and one always hopes to discover the good ones.
I've stumbled into Erika Johansen's "The Queen of the Tearling" series in the local library and got the first two books out. The first book, The Queen of the Tearling starts with a usual theme: Girl lives with foster parents in a remote location, has to take the throne while trying to stay alive until the coronation, first act is to violate the treaty with a hostile neighbour etc. However the storytelling is good, it is slightly above Young Adult level (some profanity) and you keep wondering how the story of Princess (then Queen) Kelsea Raleigh Glynn will unfold. The Tearling is an almost medieval realm, but the story keeps referring to the British and Americans who have crossed over to the New World, the science and technology that got lost over time, reference to gunpowder being discovered and of course the compulsory magic element. So, this history makes the story a post-scientific fantasy, but some of the past will be covered in the next books in the series.
In the second book of the Trilogy, The Invasion of the Tearling, Erika Johansen goes more into the history of the Tear and the family history of Queen Kelsea. With the Red Queen getting ready to invade the Tear for Kelsea's refusal to honor an agreement to ship people to Mort, she is trying to understand the history of Tear during visions in which she is living the life of Lily, a woman before the passing into the Tear. She tries to understand the link between herself and the woman of her visions and whether this would help in any way to find a weakness of the Red Queen. The situation looks hopeless with the Mort army getting closer every day, but she has no choice but to try.
The second book gets more interesting, since it starts filling the background with the pre-Tear era history. We find out that William Tear was a Brit who was not happy with the autocratic U.S. government at the time and organised a People's movement into an insurgency. However, finding out they would have no chance to counter the forces of this high-tech dictatorship, they decide to go elsewhere, but where would this be in the overcrowded world of their time?
The series conclusion, The Fate of the Tearling, has been published in 2016 but I did not yet have a chance to read this conclusion to this interesting fantasy series.
I would suggest that fantasy lovers to give this series a chance, since there seems to be some value in the narrative.