Blog Tour: The Coronation – Justin Newland

Welcome to another fancy blog tour! This time for The Coronation by Justin Newland. This historical fantasy novel was published in 2019 by Matador and they’re giving it another push with a massive blog tour spanning a month hosted by Historical Fiction Virtual Blog Tours – click HERE for the full schedule (and check out some of my wonderful co-hosts posts too!). If this review has made you think that this is a book you might enjoy, there’s a giveaway for two physical copies for readers in the US as part of the tour which you can find HERE.

Many thanks to HFVBT for having me and for sending me a copy of the book for review. All opinions are my own.

SUMMARY: It is 1761. Prussia is at war with Russia and Austria. As the Russian army occupies East Prussia, King Frederick the Great and his men fight hard to win back their homeland.

In Ludwigshain, a Junker estate in East Prussia, Countess Marion von Adler celebrates an exceptional harvest. But this is soon requisitioned by Russian troops. When Marion tries to stop them, a Russian Captain strikes her. His Lieutenant, Ian Fermor, defends Marion’s honour, but is stabbed for his insubordination. Abandoned by the Russians, Fermor becomes a divisive figure on the estate.

Close to death, Fermor dreams of the Adler, a numinous eagle entity, whose territory extends across the lands of Northern Europe and which is mysteriously connected to the Enlightenment. What happens next will change the course of human history…

OPINIONS: Set during the Englightenment in a war-torn German Reich, The Coronation is an interesting (and rather weird) historical fantasy. It is told through the perspectives of mainly Marion von Adler and Ian Fermor, though others are sprinkled in. It is a compelling tale, and the three hundred pages of it fly by rather quickly. It deals with war and the consequences thereof on the society that stays back, combining it with the Adler, a mysterious supernatural entity that seems to shape the character’s destinies.

I’m not sure I fully understood the significance of the Adler when reading. Nevertheless, I did enjoy The Coronation, and especially its setting in the Enlightenment era. I liked how it didn’t discount female characters, which would have been easy to do in that period, but gave them agency – though the ones featured were very privileged in terms of social standing.

This is not a perfect book. But it is one that might be worth having a look at if you’re interested in historical fantasy, unusual entities or suchlike. Add it to Goodreads here, or order a copy from Amazon here.