The Queen of Dreams and Dust

by Grace Carlisle

Terrible and beautiful. A tale of wonder, grief, and trauma. As bleak as Tuesday mornings in November. Nightmares. Nightmares come to life. 

A modern tale of faeries, closer to dark psychological horror than dazzling, sassy urban fantasy.

The Queen of Dreams and Dust is the sequel to The Forest of Forgotten Vows (review here), which was one of my favourite reads of 2022. Considering the pace at which many indie writers seem put out new books these days, I’d pretty much given up on there being a sequel, so I was delighted to discover it had been published earlier this year. 

In retrospect, I probably should have re-read Forest before starting on Queen, as I was a bit hazy on some of the details and didn’t remember all of the major characters.

Fortunately, I got back into it soon enough, and I was able to immerse myself in the story with little difficulty. At least, there was no difficulty in keeping up with the plot, but The Queens of Dreams and Dust is not an easy read. I don’t think it’s possible to talk about the plot without giving away the ending of the first book in the series, but for a story like this, I’d rather talk about the themes anyway.

Tamsin, our main character, finds herself in a situation not unlike a Moloch Trap – a game with no winner, where you can’t break even, and where everyone loses regardless of whether they play or not. Her reality has shifted to one she can neither accept nor reject, where she doesn’t know the rules, and where everyone else is cheating. In her new reality, the social and moral codes Tamsin grew up with are but incomprehensible jokes – her values dust.

It’s almost painful to read about how she struggles to hold on to something that no longer exists. Painful and frustrating. If she just lets herself suffer enough, maybe she can make up for the pain and hurt she’s caused, that she didn’t even knew she caused. More than once, I had to take a break to process what I’d been reading.

Trauma and gaslighting were a big part of the first book in the series, and while the gaslighting is no longer in focus, Tamsin’s mental health is clearly taking some serious hits. Everything she knew to be true has been ripped to shreds, rebuilt into a mockery of itself, and turned against her.

What I’ll whine about

Tamsin clearly hasn’t read as much fantasy as I have, or she’d have a much better idea of what’s going on with the fae. Obviously, this is a completely ridiculous complaint, but it did impact my reading of the story. Tamsin’s behaviour is probably realistic. I can’t honestly say I would have reacted differently if I’d been in her situation. I’d probably have been even more of an idiot. 

However, as a reader in the comfort of my own home, Tamsin’s inability to understand a faerie realm that adheres to most of the common tropes of modern fantasy did grate on me. 

Yes, it’s realistic and believable, but it’s still annoying. No, I don’t know what would have made it better.

What I’ll gush about

The soul crushing bleakness of everything. Tamsin is so completely out of her depth it hurts. She hangs on by a thread and sometimes not even that. Despite this being a fantasy tale with faeries, the human aspect of it is incredibly real. Irrational, stupid, hopeful, stubborn, annoying, and real. It’s about desperate people trying to do whatever they think is right without being able to trust in anything they see or hear or touch.

Allegory. I don’t think it’s intended, seeing as this series got started quite a while back, but the book could conceivably be read as an allegory of the world today. The gentry of the fae could easily be thought of as the billionaires of the broligarchy making the world their plaything, with no care or understanding of the human lives they ruin. The parallels don’t quite follow all the way through to the end, though, which is another reason I don’t believe the allegory is intended, but once I’d seen it, it could not be unseen. It sure ads to the bleakness.

Final Words

Dark, terrible, and beautiful. The Queen of Dust and Bones is fairytale horror at its best.

Find The Queen of Dreams and Dust on Goodreads.