'Queen Of The Conquered' Serves Revenge With Delicacy And Savagery
In their new novel, Kacen Callender builds a vast, immersive landscape based on the colonial history of the Caribbean, but it's their morally conflicted heroine who will really hook readers.
Revenge is the most primal of motivations, and as such, it's the basis of much fantasy literature. In , Kacen Callender's debut novel for adults, the author wields revenge with supernatural skill. But that's not all they do: Callender also weaves a vast, fictional backdrop that's based on the colonial history of the Caribbean, a refreshing break from the stereotypical, pseudo-European setting ofeffectively concentrates its entire focus on one character, Sigourney Rose — a black woman and deposed noble with strange abilities who has the most profound of axes to grind against her island's Norse-like conquerors.
