Artefacts of Ouranos(Trial of the Sun Queen) Review
Star Rating (Trial of the Sun Queen): ⭐⭐⭐
Spice Rating (Trial of the Sun Queen): 🌶️
Overall Series Star Rating: ⭐⭐
Overall Series Spice Rating: 🌶️🌶️
Available on Kindle Unlimited
What is Trial of the Sun Queen?
Trial of the Sun Queen is book 1 of 4 in The Artefacts of Ouranos series by romantasy author Nisha J Tuli. The books have no confusing reading order and are simply read in the order they were published. The books are Trial of the Sun Queen, Rule of the Aurora King, Fate of the Sun King, and Tale of the Heart Queen.
It is a completed series with all books currently available on Kindle Unlimited.
If you enjoy bonus chapters and character art definitely follow the author on Instagram, join her Facebook reader group, or sign up for her newsletter. These are all places she loves to share art from your favorite scenes.
Trial of the Sun Queen (Book 1) Official Blurb
Ten women. A deadly contest. Only one can win the Sun King’s heart.
Lor has endured twelve long years of torment under the Aurora King’s rule. Her only desire is to escape and pay him back for every moment of misery she’s endured.
When a surprise release finds her in the hands of the rival Sun King, Lor is thrust into the spotlight as she competes against nine other Tributes for the role of queen. If she wins his heart, she’ll earn her freedom and finally get her revenge.
But Lor doesn’t belong in the Sun Queen Trials. Not only does she not understand why she was freed, she isn’t a citizen of the Sun King’s court. The other Tributes resent her presence and will stop at nothing to ensure Lor is removed from the competition, permanently.
Now Lor must win, because if she loses, she dies. Or worse, she’ll be returned to the evil—and now vengeful—Aurora King.
What did/ didn’t I like about the book?
***May contain book 1 spoilers.
I really love books with games and trials. It’s one of my favorite tropes and is always a good time for me. The first book has a lot of mystery surrounding the main character Lor. Why was she stolen from the prison? Why was she thrust into The Trials? Why does the Aurora King want her back? Why was she imprisoned in the first place? There’s enough intrigue mixed in with the games and trials that kept me interested.
Plus, it’s made very clear that Atlas is not the main love interest for the story and is more of a Tamlin figure (the author does not even remotely try to hide this fact on her socials as well). So it was fun to me to try to figure out how the FMC Lor and the MMC Nadir would eventually reach each other.
Despite the fact that I had a good time reading book 1, it read like a fanfic mash-up of Throne of Glass and A Court of Thorns and Roses to me. There were just too many similarities for me to brush this off, but I was interested to see how the series would come into it’s own (plus I was really sick when I started reading book 3 and was not in the mood to find a new story to read).
Unfortunately, where I was hoping to enjoy the series more as it progressed, I actually ended up liking it less. The last book, Tale of the Heart Queen, was very repetitive and spent hundreds of pages focused on Lor’s inner monologue. Almost nothing happens for the first 80% of the book and when things finally started happening, they felt out of place and almost too convenient. The ending just didn’t mash up with the rest of the series, but not in that exciting plot twist “I-didn’t-see-that-coming-way”.
By the end of the last book I really didn’t care what happened to the characters anymore. It felt like more of a chore to read than anything, but I was already almost done, so I finished it.
However, just because I didn’t necessarily enjoy this series, doesn’t mean you won’t. It has a fairly large following on social media with A LOT of people saying that it’s one of their favorites. So, while The Artefacts of Ouranos wasn’t for me, you may still enjoy it.
Tropes You Love
Enemies-to-lovers
Fated mates
Games and trials
Shadow Daddy (but it’s light)
