Broken Throne by Victoria Aveyard is a compilation of novellas and related ephemera relating to the Red Queen YA fantasy series. This book contains some journal entries, “reports”, and timeslines, plus five novellas. Queen Song explores the story of Cal’s mom Coriane. Steel Scars follows Diana Farley as she meets Shade Barrow. World Behind is about Lyrisa, a princess of Piedmont. Iron Heart follows Evangeline as she abdicates her Rift crown and establishes her new life. Fire Light is the story of what happens when Cal heads to Montefort and spends some time with Mare.

The Lovely: I liked the back story on Cal’s mom and seeing a bit more of Cal and Mare’s relationship.

The Mundane: None of the novellas or the additional information really develops the current cast of characters (with the exception of maybe Evangeline).

The Dreadful: This book didn’t really do anything to help me feel like the characters stories were wrapped up. There is a whole novella about Cal and Mare, yet, there’s still no good conclusion of their relationship.

Rating: 2/5 Stars

Recommendation: This would be an easy book to skip without missing much of the additional story. Pretty meh honestly. There is a bit of pre-calamities history (what we would call modern times) if that’s of interest, and how the world progressed from modern times to that of Norta and the other regions. ( )

It was so fun to delve back into the world of Mare Barrow. In my opinion, this was the perfect conclusion to wrap up a phenomenal series. I really enjoyed Coriane’s story in the QUEEN’S SONG. My heart aches for her. She was dealt a terrible hand, and I can’t help but want more justice for her and a different outcome. Honestly, I enjoyed all of the Novellas. IRON HEART was probably my least favorite if I had to pick one. It wasn’t bad it was just slow for me.
FIRE LIGHT and FARE WELL were so great. Cal’s unconditional love for Maven is so touching and terribly heartbreaking. I also loved getting a glimpse of how things played out for Cal, Mare, and all the other beloved characters.
5 BIG STARS! ( )

I have never been a huge fan of this series. I only continued reading it because I’m not fond of leaving them midway and I especially like getting some closure about characters. That’s also probably the only reason I read this short story collection, because War Storm didn’t give us a satisfactory ending nor did it complete the arcs of the characters.

This book starts off with the previously published stories from Cruel Crown, which I was obviously not interested in. The next story called World Behind was probably set during the events of King’s Cage and had new characters whose predicament I couldn’t care less about. Evangeline’s story was interesting, getting to know about her life in Montfort and what her and Elane’s future looks like. But my love hate with her character still continues, and she manages to piss me off while also feeling good that she is getting the life she wanted. The next story was what I really wanted to read - what happens when Mare and Cal meet again. There is still a lot of reconstruction to be done and they are not obligated to the same sides, but it was nice to see them finally come to some form of resolution about their future. Both of them still grapple with the choices they made regarding Maven and while I know that he is a villain, I was glad that they remembered him. The last little story called Farewell definitely made me a little emotional.

However, it’s the historical accounts that are written throughout the book are what impressed me. We get to know more about how this world of Silvers and Reds came to be, and it was actually very fascinating to see that it’s a post-apocalyptic version of our own. I think I never saw that coming. We also get little tidbits about all the Calore monarchs before Cal and that was interesting. But the best part was at the end, where we see how this world ended up and what happened to all these characters in the future. I don’t wanna spoil it but it’s that final historical account that gave me the closure I needed.

Obviously if you are a diehard fan of the Red Queen series, you should definitely read this book. Otherwise, I don’t know if it’s worth the price. Despite my curiosity, I would not have read it if not for my library copy. ( )

These are short stories that accompany the Red Queen series.

Quite honestly, I had a hard time paying attention. I was listening to these and my mind would wander. I couldn't recall some of the characters and really didn't care about these random people that showed what was going on in the kingdom. I was interested to see what happened to our main characters--Mare and Cal. Overall, it was fine. You see where the kingdom is headed and the future is unknown as it is for all of us. Democracy is a tender government, with power always wanting to assert its own desires and then people who want the best for everyone trying to keep power in check and people respected no matter their "station" or "caste." Everyone has a job and has to make a life for themselves, just as we all do. What are each of our roles in roles? How do we contribute? How do we fight power by those who deem themselves better than others? It's messy but it's possibly the best course.

If you want to see how the story ends, you'll need the final story. There appears a history of the people as well, so the world building is chronicaled. Obviously, if you haven't read the series, you would find this completely uninteresting. ( )