Review: Queen and Commander by Janine A. Southard

Queen and Commander by Janine A. Southard(Hive Queen Saga #1)


Genre: Science Fiction, Young AdultReviewer: KF Breene




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**WINNER 2013 IPPY AWARD -- Silver Medal for Best Sci-Fi/Fantasy/Horror E-Book**

On a world where high school test scores determine your future, six students rebel. They’ll outrun society as fast as their questionably obtained spaceship will take them.

Rhiannon doesn’t technically cheat the Test. She’s smarter than the computers that administer it, and she uses that to her advantage. She emerges from Test Day with the most prestigious future career possible: Hive Queen.

Gwyn & Victor are madly in love, but their Test results will tear them apart. Good thing Rhiannon is Gwyn’s best friend. Rhiannon can fix this. Queens can do anything.

Gavin is the wild card. Raised off-planet, he can’t wait to leave again... and he’s heard of an empty ship in orbit. The Ceridwen’s Cauldron.

Both Luciano and Alan fit in the system. They don’t need to leave. Only their devotion to Rhiannon spurs them to join the Cauldron’s crew.

Spaceships. Blackmail. Anywhere but here.




With this book, we enter into a society where the future is determined by tests after schooling is finished. Rhiannon, the heroine of the story, manages to beat the test, something that is supposed to be impossible, and lands herself in her dream job: Queen and Commander. Unfortunately, the glory of this, and the chosen path, is short lived.

Rhiannon's best, and mostly only, friend tested into a different fate, which would've been fine for her, and brought honor to her family, if not for her boyfriend and love, Victor. With the goal of staying together, an impossibility in a normal situation, they plead for Rhiannon to develop a hive, command a ship, and create their own world where star-crossed lovers can remain together.

Of course, it isn't as easy as that. We follow Rhiannon's journey as she collects people together, binds them through struggle, and manages to secure her own fate, and the fates of her friends.

The world was interesting in this book, and the take on a new society fun to explore. I also enjoyed the relationships and how the different personalities worked together--or didn't work, at times. Altogether an interesting read!


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