The Marble Queen by Anna Kopp, illustrated by Gabrielle Kari. Dark Horse, 2024. 9781506728124
Rating: 1-5 (5 is an excellent or a Starred review) 2.5
Format: Paperback graphic novel
Genre: Historical fiction/fantasy/romance
What did you like about the book? A LGBTQ+ romance between two queens, set in a magical Elizabethan-inspired kingdom, plus pirates! Princess Amelia (light skin with bounteous red hair) lives in the kingdom of Marion, which thanks to marauding brigands, faces financial ruin. To save her country, Ameila agrees to marry the ruler of Illiad, whom she incorrectly assumes is the handsome young man who comes to court. Instead, she learns she is betrothed to his sister, Queen Salira (shouldn’t the envoy have gone over this?). The queen is elegant and lithe, often shown wearing men’s clothing, with dark skin and an unbelievable waterfall of sleek, black hair. Amelia suffers from anxiety, which Kari represents visually as copious droplets of sweat or as thorny vines that squeeze and pierce her character’s torso. Not much happens in the first two-thirds of the story to set her off, but her disorder gets the better of Amelia in the final third, as assassination attempts, betrayals, imprisonments, and sword fights begin to pile up. The artwork depicts manga-inspired figures, all very slim, with big eyes and stylized features. Kari has a good eye for fashion and features the principal characters’ beautiful clothing prominently. Although Amelia seems a bit bird-brained, Kopp does give her some expertise in governance and financial matters that ostensibly help her to unravel the plot to dethrone Salira. The book succeeds more as a romance than as a fantasy and nicely charts the pair’s growing attraction and eventual love, with healthy respect paid to consent.
Anything you didn’t like about it? The plot meandered and then rushed with the intrigue becoming incomprehensible. I still don’t know what happened at the end. Apparently there’s some kind of magical force in Iliad, but Kopp didn’t develop this strand so it wasn’t much help to the queens. Kari regularly transformed characters into manga-faced children for no apparent reason; similarly confusing, characters would randomly lose half their face to a gray mask. Words and arrows were sometimes employed to convey action, but it was totally unnecessary to include the word STAB when someone was obviously being run through with a sword or GRAB when Amelia tried to snatch an incriminating vial of poison.
To whom would you recommend this book? Teen readers who want a lesbian love story mixed with fantasy. The visual richness of the costumes and hairstyles may appeal to readers who enjoy manga, although the flat and empty backgrounds do little to build a convincing and rich fantasy world.
Who should buy this book? High schools and public libraries
Where would you shelve it? Graphic novels
Should we (librarians/readers) put this on the top of our “to read” piles? No
Reviewer: Susan Harari, Keefe Library, Boston Latin School, Boston, MA
Date of review: June 8, 2024
Youth Services Book Review 
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