The Queen's Rising — The Queen's Rising, Book One

Where Rebecca Ross Began

The Queen’s Rising is Rebecca Ross’s debut novel, and it is a rewarding read for fans wanting to trace the origins of the voice that would later make her a romantasy phenomenon with Divine Rivals. A young adult fantasy of political intrigue and hidden heritage, it follows Brienna, a young woman trained at a house dedicated to the passions — the arts of knowledge, music, art, dramatics, and wit — who fails to be chosen by a patron and instead discovers a secret lineage that draws her into a dangerous plot to restore a fallen queen to her throne. It is an assured debut that established Ross’s gift for immersive worldbuilding and emotionally driven storytelling.

The novel showcases, in early form, the qualities that define her work: a richly imagined world, a sympathetic and capable heroine, and a slow-building romance woven through a larger political story.

A World of Passions and Intrigue

The worldbuilding is one of the debut’s strengths. Ross constructs a society organised around the five passions, with houses devoted to cultivating them, and sets her story against a backdrop of political intrigue, exiled royalty, and the simmering possibility of revolution. Brienna’s training and her discovered heritage place her at the centre of a dangerous plot, and the world’s history, politics, and secrets are revealed with the immersive care that marks Ross’s later fantasy. For readers who love intrigue-driven fantasy with a developed setting, the debut delivers.

An Emotionally Driven Heroine

Brienna is a classic Ross protagonist: intelligent, passionate, and shaped by a sense of not quite belonging. Her journey from a failed student to a key figure in a revolution gives the book its emotional arc, and Ross writes her inner life — her doubts, her loyalties, her growing courage — with the empathy that distinguishes her storytelling. The heroine’s development from uncertainty to decisive action is the heart of the novel, and it grounds the political plot in a personal story readers can invest in.

A Budding Romance

True to Ross’s style, The Queen’s Rising weaves a slow-building romance through its larger story. The relationship develops with restraint and emotional depth rather than instant heat, in keeping with the patient approach to romance that would become Ross’s signature. The romantic thread complements the political intrigue rather than overwhelming it, giving the book the blend of heart and stakes that characterises her work. For readers who enjoy a tender, slow-burn romance set within a larger adventure, it satisfies.

A Debut’s Qualities

As a debut, The Queen’s Rising is naturally a little less polished than Ross’s later, more celebrated work — the pacing is more deliberate, and some elements are less refined than in Divine Rivals or the Elements of Cadence books. But the core gifts are all present, and reading the debut offers the pleasure of seeing a distinctive voice in its early form. For fans who have followed Ross’s rise, it is a rewarding look at where she began, and for new readers, it is an immersive, intrigue-rich fantasy in its own right.

A Duology Opener

The Queen’s Rising is the first book of a duology, continued and concluded in The Queen’s Resistance. It establishes Brienna, the world of the passions, and the revolution at the story’s centre, setting up the resolution the second book delivers. As an opener, it does its work of building the world and the stakes, and it leaves readers with a story to see through to its conclusion.

The Verdict

The Queen’s Rising is an assured debut that marks the arrival of Rebecca Ross as a distinctive voice in fantasy. It blends political intrigue, a secret heritage, and a budding slow-burn romance in a richly imagined world, carried by a sympathetic, emotionally driven heroine. A little less polished than her later work but full of the gifts that would define it, the debut is a rewarding read for fans tracing Ross’s origins and for anyone who loves immersive young adult fantasy with heart and intrigue.

The Origins of a Voice

Reading The Queen’s Rising is, for fans of Rebecca Ross, a chance to witness the origins of a distinctive voice. Debuts are revealing: they show a writer’s core instincts before craft fully catches up to ambition, and Ross’s first novel makes clear that her defining qualities — immersive worldbuilding, an emotionally driven heroine, a patient slow-burn romance, and a taste for political intrigue — were present from the start. The society of passions she invents is a memorable conceit, and the revolution at the story’s centre gives the book real stakes. While the debut is naturally less refined than the celebrated work that followed, the throughline of her sensibility is unmistakable, and there is genuine pleasure in seeing where it all began. For the many readers who arrived at Ross through Divine Rivals and want more of her work, the debut and its conclusion offer an early, rewarding chapter, and they confirm that the gifts that made her a phenomenon were not a sudden arrival but the flowering of a talent evident from her very first book.

Our rating: 4.0/5 — An assured debut blending political intrigue, a secret heritage, and a slow-burn romance in a richly imagined world — the early arrival of a distinctive voice.

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