We don't usually participate in blog tours, but I very much enjoyed Queen of Someday and was really excited at the opportunity of reading more about Sophie's journey. You can find the full schedule of this tour on YA Bound Book Tours.

Sophie—now Catherine, Grand Duchess of Russia—had a tough first year at Imperial Court. Married at sixteen to Grand Duke Peter, heir to the throne, and settled in their own palace, things are finally looking up. As a new day dawns, she thinks only of securing her future, and the future of their country, during one of the greatest political upheavals of her time. Fighting desperately against forces trying to depose the Empress Elizabeth and put the young Prince Ivan on her throne, Sophie soon finds herself in the middle of a war brewing between her beloved Prussia, and her new empire. But even as she navigates the fragile political landscape, she quickly realizes that she has only begun to discover the tangled web of deceit and infidelity woven over the lavish court of Oranienbaum Palace.

When a strange and delicate alliance forms between the young couple, she glimpses a future of happiness, only to see it lost in a moment at the hands of those who still seek to end her life—and prevent her reign. Out of favor with the empress and running out of options, Sophie will have to sacrifice her own innocence on the altar of Russia if she is to save the nation, and herself. To survive, she will have to do the unthinkable, betray those closest to her and become something greater and more dangerous than she ever imagined she could be… a queen.

My Review 

Author: Sherry D. Ficklin

Sequel to: Queen of Someday

Pages: 280

Publisher: Clean Teen Publishing

Publication Date: July 14th 2015

Source: eARC for blog tour

Oh Sophie, how you have grown. In Queen of Someday, Sophie was small and scared. She was innocent, and fell in love easily. She has grown tremendously from those days. 

I'll admit that I was shocked at how dark Queen of Tomorrow was. The violence Sophie encountered, as a women, was staggering, and frankly, hard to digest. I was so disgusted on Sophie's behalf. She is married to the heir of the Empress of Russia, and she is expected to produce an heir, at all costs. Peter, her husband, is abusive. He is violent, rash, and lacks empathy or foresight. Sophie had to manage him all throughout the story, but I was once again disgusted by her lot in life. 

I think I'd be remiss if I didn't issue a major trigging warning. There is intense misogyny and attacks on Sophie in Queen of Tomorrow. However, I didn't think it was gratuitous because it did support the storyline. It seems like the plot of Queen of Tomorrow was Sophie rising above all the challenges and limitations things like her gender, her title, her husband, or even her family put on her. 

Sophie is so incredibly resilient, and there is certainly something compelling about Sophie's ability to get back up and keep swinging. She is smart and resourceful, and she wants to rule. I love this. How often, in YA, do we read about women totally ready to take power and rule? Women with extreme ambition? Sophie knows she is capable, and she is ready to go for it. I like that she challenges her role and pushes back on barriers. However, she did concern me with some of her behaviours, but that's a part of Sophie's upbringing; she believes she has to please her husband. Sophie's growth fascinates me .

The plot is extremely quick. I was never bored for a single second and the pages flew by. It begins with Sophie in her palace with Peter, trying to rule, missing her real love Sergei, and just struggling to survive, and it continues with Sophie constantly having to regain her footing. Now, since I just mentioned Sergei, I love that he's in the story. Besides the benefits to the plot for having a high ranking member of Empress Elizabeth's court Sophie's lover, it's great to see that as much as the world is trying to mold Sophie into whatever they need, she pushes back. Sergei is her choice, and the presence of their relationship feels like Sophie reclaiming some control. 

Ultimately, I was very entertained by Queen of Tomorrow. Sophie's journey to the top fascinated me, and I hope to read more about Sophie defying the odds and kicking some ass in the sequel, Queen of Always. I'm also a little scared because the world is not kind to Sophie, and I don't like seeing her suffer again. This has probably been very clear throughout my review, but my fascination of Sophie is what spurs my interest in this series. Queen of Tomorrow is very different from Queen of Someday. Queen of Tomorrow is darker, and more dangerous. I very much recommend it for people comfortable with very dark, entertaining reads. 

-P.E.

Buy Links:

Amazon│Barnes & Noble│Kobo Books

About the Author

Sherry D. Ficklin is a full time writer from Colorado where she lives with her husband, four kids, two dogs, and a fluctuating number of chickens and house guests. A former military brat, she loves to travel and meet new people. She can often be found browsing her local bookstore with a large white hot chocolate in one hand and a towering stack of books in the other. That is, unless she’s on deadline at which time she, like the Loch Ness monster, is only seen in blurry photographs.

She is the author of several YA novels and in her spare time she co-hosts Curvy Writer Radio.

Author Links:

Website│Goodreads│Twitter│Facebook

QUEEN OF TOMORROW by Sherry D. Ficklin

A Stolen Empire Novel, Book 2

The Queen Arrives on July 14, 2015

Sophie—now Catherine, Grand Duchess of Russia—had a tough first year at Imperial Court. Married at sixteen to Grand Duke Peter, heir to the throne, and settled in their own palace, things start to look up. As a new day dawns, Catherine thinks only of securing her future, and the future of their country, during one of the greatest political upheavals of her time. Fighting desperately against forces that try to depose the Empress Elizabeth and put the young Prince Ivan on her throne, Catherine soon finds herself in the middle of a war brewing between her beloved Prussia and her new empire. While navigating the fragile political landscape, she quickly realizes that she has only begun to discover the tangled web of deceit and infidelity woven over the lavish court of Oranienbaum Palace.

When a strange and delicate alliance forms between the young couple, Catherine glimpses a future of happiness, only to see it vanish at the hands of those who still seek to end her life—and prevent her reign. Out of favor with the empress and running out of options, Catherine must sacrifice her own innocence on the altar of Russia if she is to save the nation and herself. To survive, she will have to do the unthinkable, betray those closest to her and become something greater and more dangerous than she ever imagined she could be… a queen.

ADD QUEEN OF TOMORROW TO YOUR TBR LIST!

This cover is by far one of my favourites. I am super excited to be using it for Cover Wars because it is so luxurious and sultry. It also is a bit of an escalation from the "purity" of the Queen of Someday cover, which makes a lot of sense when you consider the story. There is also some nice continuity with the same wavy curls and the gradient and shadow on the font. In any case, I love it!

READ THE FIRST BOOK TODAY:

Before she can become the greatest empress in history, fifteen-year-old Sophia will have to survive her social-climbing mother’s quest to put her on the throne of Russia—at any cost.

Imperial Court holds dangers like nothing Sophie has ever faced before. In the heart of St. Petersburg, surviving means navigating the political, romantic, and religious demands of the bitter Empress Elizabeth and her handsome, but sadistic nephew, Peter. Determined to save her impoverished family—and herself—Sophie vows to do whatever is necessary to thrive in her new surroundings. But an attempt on her life and an unexpected attraction threatens to derail her plans.

Alone in a new and dangerous world, learning who to trust and who to charm may mean the difference between becoming queen and being sent home in shame to marry her lecherous uncle. With traitors and murderers lurking around every corner, her very life hangs in the balance. Betrothed to one man but falling in love with another, Sophie will need to decide how much she’s willing to sacrifice in order to become the empress she is destined to be.

In a battle for the soul of a nation, will love or destiny reign supreme?


PURCHASE QUEEN OF SOMEDAY TODAY!

Mari and I both read Queen of Someday. I enjoyed the story much more than Mari, and you can read my review, and Mari's. 

ABOUT SHERRY D. FICKLIN

Sherry D. Ficklin is a full time writer from Colorado where she lives with her husband, four kids, two dogs, and a fluctuating number of chickens and house guests. A former military brat, she loves to travel and meet new people. She can often be found browsing her local bookstore with a large white hot chocolate in one hand and a towering stack of books in the other. That is, unless she’s on deadline at which time she, like the Loch Ness monster, is only seen in blurry photographs.

She is the author of The Gods of Fate Trilogy now available from Dragonfly Publishing. Her previously self-published novel After Burn: Military Brats has been acquired by Harlequin and will be released in 2015 with a second book in that series to follow. Her newest YA steampunk novel, EXTRACTED: The Lost Imperials book 1, co-written with Tyler H. Jolley is now available everywhere books are sold and her newest YA novel, Losing Logan, is due for release in 2014 from Clean Teen Publishing.

Author: Sherry D. Ficklin
Date of Publication: October 7 2014
Pages: 262
Source: NetGalley- thanks!

ONE GIRL WILL BRING AN EMPIRE TO ITS KNEES...

Before she can become the greatest empress in history, fifteen-year-old Sophie will have to survive her social-climbing mother’s quest to put her on the throne of Russia—at any cost.

Imperial Court holds dangers like nothing Sophie has ever faced before. In the heart of St. Petersburg, surviving means navigating the political, romantic, and religious demands of the bitter Empress Elizabeth and her handsome, but sadistic nephew, Peter. Determined to save her impoverished family—and herself—Sophie vows to do whatever is necessary to thrive in her new surroundings. But an attempt on her life and an unexpected attraction threatens to derail her plans.

Alone in a new and dangerous world, learning who to trust and who to charm may mean the difference between becoming queen and being sent home in shame to marry her lecherous uncle. With traitors and murderers lurking around every corner, her very life hangs in the balance. Betrothed to one man but falling in love with another, Sophie will need to decide how much she’s willing to sacrifice in order to become the empress she is destined to be.

In a battle for the soul of a nation, will love or destiny reign supreme?

Review

Queen of Someday has one of the most enticing covers of the year, and I was eager to read the story of a girl who could become queen.

From the very first turn of phrase, Queen of Someday's writing stands out as elegant and regal. The characters and descriptions are written in beautiful, proper English, in an almost poetic style. The tone of the writing matches the story perfectly, and it sets the lush atmosphere of Russian court.

I must confess that before starting Queen of Someday, I didn't know it was historical fiction. It explores a time I am familiar with, but a region and royalty I am not. I can't comment to how true to history the story is, and the author's note made it seem like there were some intentional differences. Either way, I enjoyed reading about the luxuries of court life.

Without a doubt, the strongest part of Queen of Someday is Sophie. Sophie is young and quite practical. She is fully capable of defending herself, and she is able to rule over others quite easily, even if she doesn't notice her talents. There is still some vulnerability when it comes to Sophie. She lacks experience and makes some poor decisions. She is rash and it ends up costing her. What I adored was the evolution of Sophie's character. She begins well intentioned, yet naive, and she is forced to make hard decisions and deal with the consequences of them. She ends up maturing and changes noticeably, yet somehow remaining true to the Sophie that recently left Prussia. Her characterization is subtle and phenomenal, as she becomes a heroine I can truly root for. I'm extremely interested in reading more about Sophie as she realizes the power she has and learns how to wield it.

There were some weaknesses to Queen of Someday as well. Sophie's relationships get serious very quickly, and it's hard to be as invested in the relationship as Sophie. It's also hard to understand why Sophie does what she does because I didn't understand why she liked or trusted a particular character that much. There was a major plotline that I wasn't on board with because I wasn't won over. If it had developed at a slower pace, I would have been more sympathetic. In some sense, I do see Sophie's relationship as a little realistic only because Sophie is so young and doesn't have experience. I'm not sure if the detachment with characters other than Sophie is what the author intended, because the storylines does end up defining Sophie. So, although the relationships may not make sense to the reader, that might the point. I just wish I had more of an emotional connection.

However, I have to keep in mind that this is a historical, which means that the author is in a way limited by what they can write because it must make sense historically. In a historical, this type of plotline is quite common. The only reason it's a concern of mine is that Queen of Someday doesn't read like a historical. It doesn't have the listing of facts and the journal entries that typically accompany historical fiction. Queen of Someday is a character driven novel, and it's fascinating to see how the author managed to humanize a historical figure so convincingly.

Queen of Someday is a book that will appeal to many because it is an accessible story with many relatable aspects. I didn't have an emotional connection to anyone other than Sophie, but I did enjoy the story all the same, especially the ending. It's a cliché but the ending did leave me hungry for more, and I want to know more about Sophie, a girl who is set to become queen.

-P.E.

Author: Sherry D. Ficklin
Date of Publication: October 7, 2014
Pages: 262
Source: Net Galley - Thank you!

ONE GIRL WILL BRING AN EMPIRE TO ITS KNEES...

Before she can become the greatest empress in history, fifteen-year-old Sophie will have to survive her social-climbing mother’s quest to put her on the throne of Russia—at any cost.

Imperial Court holds dangers like nothing Sophie has ever faced before. In the heart of St. Petersburg, surviving means navigating the political, romantic, and religious demands of the bitter Empress Elizabeth and her handsome, but sadistic nephew, Peter. Determined to save her impoverished family—and herself—Sophie vows to do whatever is necessary to thrive in her new surroundings. But an attempt on her life and an unexpected attraction threatens to derail her plans.

Alone in a new and dangerous world, learning who to trust and who to charm may mean the difference between becoming queen and being sent home in shame to marry her lecherous uncle. With traitors and murderers lurking around every corner, her very life hangs in the balance. Betrothed to one man but falling in love with another, Sophie will need to decide how much she’s willing to sacrifice in order to become the empress she is destined to be.

In a battle for the soul of a nation, will love or destiny reign supreme?

GOODREADS

Review:

I'm in the minority with this one, and at this point I've accepted that. So I'm here to share why no matter how hard I tried I just couldn't appreciate this book. The problem, I feel is rooted quite deeply into this novel, to the point that almost every aspect had a flaw for me.

P.E. isn't a historical person and so her loving this was what introduced me to this novel. I mean great historical plus Russian royalty? Yes please. I envisioned great world building, character development, proper court etiquette, and a fantastically gripping plot... What I got was none of those. This book is a light romance (if you want to call 1 girl x 3 guys insta-love a romance). Little to no time is spent one bringing the surroundings to life and the plot consists of holes and conveniences.

Sophie was very inconsistent for me. She would boast about being so strong as her father taught her how to wield the sword and hunt but she talks a lot. The rest of the time she tells us how she is ready to sacrifice herself for her family (marrying a king is very undesirable apparently) and how she has no desire for love, then she has insta-love relationships with two other men and reciting Shakespearean and Hellenic love poetry. But once she sees the trouble in the path of her "one love" she quickly hides in her shell but is never decisive on what she wants to do. She wants to be queen but they she wants to be in love and now she doesn't want to be queen.. Boo hoo.

Going into this one, I knew that it wasn't correct in its history so I completely excused that and looked past it. A thing that I will never pass by is historical etiquette. 17th century Russia has a culture of its own very different from today or even 17th century England. I don't mind if Sophie's story is fictionalized but at least try to make sure the world is correct. They kept talking of Shakespeare and Helen and Paris of Troy. The latter I guess would have been translated to Russian or Germain by then but Shakespeare was way to new to have been accepted into different languages. Even if it had been, I found the constant bombardment of fake, one dimensional love proclamations through quotes from Shakespeare and the story of Troy very annoying.

I'm not a big fan of Shakespeare but I've read my fair share and this novel to me is a little bit of a Romeo and Juliet remake. We have a naive girl and a lusting fickle guy and they fall in love after two sightings but of course their relationship is impossible and so they lust away.

As for the other characters, I didn't like any. It was honestly hard to do so as we don't learn anything about them. The book is set around Sophie and her romantic interests. The interests have a shallow backstory and we know their titles but Alexander has no personality besides being devoutly in love while Sergei is dark, loyal and nobel. I guess I kind of like Sergei but I always like the dark, loyal and nobel, he just had no character development for me to appreciate him enough. Something that really bothered me about characters is that I notices some of them were there for one purpose. Example, Sophie's mother. She was plain mean. Hence Sophie hated her. End of story.

I've been going through a lot of Goodreads reviews on this one and many compared it to the CW show The Reign. I haven't watched that show but what I have gathered from it and the reviews is that the show has many differences from actual history and is more about love and teenage relationships than real history. Similarly, Queen of Someday takes a very key historical figure Catherine the Great of Russia and ignores everything else while making a light romance. I can imagine that it is enjoyable for those who appreciate such stories. I always love some romance but I need substance and this one didn't have that for me.

Love Poetry Galore

"Where both deliberate, the love is slight. Who ever loved, that loves not at first sight?" -Alexander

"The last think i remember is wishing that if I were about to die, that I could do it back in Alexander's arms." - Sophie

"I bite my lips against the suffering, for fear I will call out, and for fear of who I will out for." - Sophie

"If I ever find out who did this, I sweat to you, I will kill them with my own hands." -Alexander 

...

"Please don't do anything rash. My time at court would be too dark to bear without your presence."-Sophie

"Her lips suck forth my soul, see where it flies. Come, Helen, come, give me my soul again. Here I will dwell, for heaven is in these lips."-Alexander

-MARI

Cover Wars is a weekly showdown of two beautiful covers. The winner, as voted by you, goes on to face a new cover, and wins bragging rights. This is basically a fun way to discuss what we like in covers.

Last week's battle is what one would call, epic. With 80 votes, it was a close win for Gates of Thread and Stone. Will Gates of Thread and Stone defend its title against this week's competitor, Queen of Someday?

It's pretty obvious that both covers are not just pretty, but drop dead gorgeous. Queen of Someday is sultry and elegant with gorgeous curly font and pretty, wavy floral designs. Gates of Thread and Stone also has standout font, and it is dark and inviting. I would pick up both of these books based on the covers alone. 

What do you think? As always, you have a week to vote. 

LET THE COVER WARS... BEGIN!

Which cover should win Cover Wars?
	Queen of Someday
	Gates of Thread and Stone
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