The Lily and the Crown by Roslyn Sinclair
$9.99 / E-BOOK
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Description
The Lily and the Crown is a lesbian scifi romance about daring to risk your heart with someone you shouldn’t.
Ariana “Ari” Geiker lives an isolated life on an imperial space station commanded by her father. The skilled, young botanist rarely leaves her living quarters, where she maintains an elaborate garden. When an imperious older woman is captured from a pirate ship and given to her as a slave, Ariana’s perfectly ordered life is thrown into chaos. Her nameless slave is watchful, intelligent, dangerous, and sexy, and seems to know an awful lot about tactics, star charts, and the dread, marauding pirate queen, Mir. What happens when the slave also reveals an expertise in seduction to her innocent mistress?
Additional information
| Publication Date | December 2017 |
|---|---|
| Formats | epub (for Kindle Reader/Kindle Apps, for iBooks, Nook etc.), mobi, and pdf |
| Language | English |
| ISBNs | 978-3-95533-943-2 (mobi), 978-3-95533-944-9 (epub), 978-3-95533-945-6 (pdf) |
| Publisher | Ylva Publishing |
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If you encounter any problems, please select “Contact Us” from the menubar, and we will get back to you as quickly as possible.12 reviews for The Lily and the Crown by Roslyn Sinclair
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Mishael – :
I loved this book!
I enjoyed it as an unpublished work, and now that it was expanded and enhanced into a book, it was even better.
I am not a fan of alternate universes; yet with The Lily and the Crown, I was immersed in a galactic empire that felt very much real.
I was moved by the story and the blossoming of Arianna through the love of Mír. A love that brought out the humanity in Mír herself. At times I teared up and noticed how I slowed my reading so that I could savor the journey.
Their love scenes were hot, erotic and sexy and never felt out of place in the story or written for cheap thrill.
As an extra bonus, this is an age gap love story in which the age difference is a non factor. We are speared the “will they / won’t they” push pull or the agony of “too old for you” that bogs down so many other stories,(bravo to the author for that).
I recommend this book and hope others enjoy it as much as I did.
I received an ARC of this book from the publisher (YLVA) in exchange for an honest review.
Susan L Carr – :
Yay! The Devil Wears Prada fan fiction comes to print. Maybe it’ll become the new Fifty Shades of Grey.
Ana Leamaro – :
Free ARC copy in exchange for a honest review
I loved this book!
It’s the first book I’ve read from this author and I loved it. The story is very well constructed as well as the characters. Ariana naive and idealist, Mir, the hard heart of someone who had a very though life. This is a SY-FY book somewhere in space and time where a wrotten Empire is falling apart unable to move forward and living stuck in old traditions, prejudice and propaganda. Does it sound familiar?
Anyway the book is very good, I couldn’t stop until the end and I’m looking forward for the sequel.
Karola – :
***free ARC
At first I struggled with some words for some things in this out of space world. But the longer I read the better the story was. The shy, introvert Ariana and the proud Mír are becoming lovers through circumstances no one expects. I even had to hold back a tear, while reading how Ariana felt thinking Mír had died. All in all I really enjoyed this book. And I really hope for a sequel.
ZeroLilow (verified owner) – :
A joy to read. All the updated scenes were wonderful. It filled out the story nicely and brought more depth to the characters and setting. The sex scenes are steamy and bring with them all the butterflies, nerves, and excitement of sexual/romantic firsts. This author excels at inner monologue and perception. Really it is because of this more then anything that I find myself going back to her stories time and time again.
I really enjoyed the dynamic between the two main characters. I found Ari’s innocence, stubbornness, and intelligence completely endearing. And well… is there anything better then thawing an ice queen??
Kudos!
Carolyn McBride – :
This book is so much more than what I thought, and even though I wanted to stop reading it at some points, I never did. The characters had gotten under my skin too much to abandon them.
At first, I found Ari infuriating. She seems to be withdrawn and insulated, and she is, to a point. But she is also passionate about things she believes in, and courageous when she doesn’t have to be. She has a hidden intellect and feels so much so readily. I liked her far more than I thought I did. And her ‘Assistant’….how many times I wished she’d been given a name when she was so unwilling to share her own. She was crafty and kind, and yet, the reader can always feel the pulse of mystery. You know she’s going to do something, we’re just not sure what. And yet, when the big mystery is finally revealed (even though by that time, we suspect the truth anyway), we aren’t surprised.
I enjoyed that neither of the main characters changed with their circumstances. I liked that Ari asked for her friends’ lives to be spared, even though that came as no surprise either. And I especially enjoyed the ending. I won’t give anything away, but it was the perfect ending for these characters. It was everything I didn’t realize I was hoping for…until I read it and realized I was hoping for exactly that.
And I loved this line the best of all of them…
“We cannot change the world unless we have lived in it”
Jane Shambler – :
Wow!! To say this book is excellent is a serious understatement. This book had a bit of everything. Also, I don’t know if it is me but I couldn’t find any other books by Sinclair, So if this is her debut novel… well I’ll bow down and say wow way to go. For a debut this is excellent. ‘m extremely impressed.
Ari is a botanist on her father’s space station. Her father’s forces defeat a pirate ship and there is only one survivor a supposedly pirate slave. So her father gives her to Ari. Ari lives alone, works alone, socializes alone… ok so you get the point. So the captured woman is given to Ari as a slave. Problem is Ari doesn’t want or need a slave. It also brings up the question of who is the slave? Anyway they find a way to work together with Ari looking for ways to free her slave.
This is kind of steamy in places. It also isn’t love at first sight. But it is a gradual romance. It is really well thought out. The book really challenges things like politics, Ari’s own need to be alone, and war. Who is right and who is wrong.
I can’t praise this book enough. It’s one of those times when 5 stars seems not enough. Enjoy!
*ARC provided by publisher via Ylva Publishing*
matsu (verified owner) – :
Introverted botanist Ari gets a slave from her father, a bigshot officer on an imperial space station. Ari is opposed to slavery and makes this new slave her assistant. That’s the start.
Sinclair creates thoroughly intriguing and believable characters and tells the love story just beautifully. The backdrop is simple, rather like a watercolour sketch: here’s the station, here the surrounding space and a few planets, and there are space pirates who operate around there.. but it’s enough for the setting. It’s also general enough not to put anyone who’s not really into sci-fi off.
I love this book and have gushed about it to anyone willing to listen! I actually had to take a few days to gather my thoughts and think of what to say, or else this so-called review would have been just keyboard smashing and multiple exclamation marks (OMGsogood asdfasdgolkjeryhjj!!!!1111).. yeah, no. Wonderful book.
Lia Xiong (verified owner) – :
Absolutely love this book. I thought it’d be another age gap love story but it was so much more. I enjoyed the way Ari grew through the entire story and the effect she had on Mir by just being herself. What a beautiful and realistic (yes! Even for a scifi novel!)love story.
lobster – :
I much enjoyed this book. I was initially drawn to it because of the scifi setting and I will admit that at first I was a little disappointed about how it is less of a scifi and more of a romance in a scifi setting. However, the book is so beautifully written that I very quickly ditched the disappointment and enjoyed the book for what it is.
It’s not an angsty or overly problem driven story although there’s some family heartbreak in Ari’s background and some personality issues, too (shy bordering on hermit), but overall it’s about how opposites occasionally do attract and how even the meekest of flowers (to stay in the botanist’s world) will bloom if tended to with patience and understanding.
I especially liked how this book for once doesn’t grip the reader by the hair and yanks us from one nail-biting action sequence into the next pit of despair (I really, really hate it when books start like that!!!). Instead, it allows you to get to know the surroundings as you follow Ari into her gardens and watch her come alive, and oh, how beautiful all of the descriptions are! You even see the bloody mantis before your very eyes…It’s what a good storyteller does, make it all come to life in the reader’s mind, and it’s superbly done here.
The end – what is Assistant’s true identity? – didn’t really surprise me although I’m usually rather slow when it comes to a story’s mysteries but it was still great fun to read. Well, it sure wasn’t fun for poor Ari who went through quite some heartache and pain because of Assistant, but it makes for an interesting twist.
If there’s anything I’d frown upon it’s the rather rapid ending. I would have liked to read a bit more about how Ari familiarizes herself with her new situation and how she makes herself a new home in her new surroundings, but the book doesn’t end so abruptly as to leave tons of questions. Rather, it was more of a ‘I don’t want to say goodbye just yet’ kind of thing for me. And there is a rather lovely epilogue to wrap it all up, so: no harm done!
Definitely recommend this for an enjoyable read!!!
5 out of 5 stars.
Word Saviour – :
There’s this 70s movie “A New Leaf” (if you haven’t seen it yet, you should definitely give it a try) a real comedy classic and one of the protagonists is Henrietta, a nerdy, very weird botanist, and every time Assistant had to remove some leaves out of Ari’s hair, I was pleasantly reminded of that movie. That beeing said, “The Lily & the Crown” is such a lovely book which I thoroughly enjoyed reading. Therefore I immediately started with “The X Ingredient” 🙂
S.C. Peregrine – :
At first glance of Ylva’s catalog of genre and authors, I of course went straight (perhaps that’s not the best word in this case) for the sci-fi. I set my sights on The Crown and the Lily by Roslyn Sinclair, which also leapt forward in my list for its age-gap and “ice queen” tropes. Which really is just the full package, if I’m being honest. It’s post year 3545, according to the protag’s none-too-clever use of her birthday and initials in a password (you’d think in such an advanced year we’d have evolved beyond poor security password choices, so I found humor in this irony–well played) and the space station for the story’s setting is carefully laid out with imaginative and realistic sci-fi verbiage that many nerds like myself have come to know and love such as sickbay, airlock, etc. I especially loved the way Ariana’s living quarters are arranged and described, because who wouldn’t want wooded gardens with large and imposing oak trees just outside of their living room. Life is peaceful and predictable for Her Ladyship, young Ariana Geiker, and when her Lord father gifts her with an unusual present in the form of tall, muscled, life-long pirate slave with no apparent name of her own, just a set of piercing eyes and a bad temper to boot… her little green-leafed world gets thrown into disarray.
While I seemed to wrap my head around the plotline’s eventual twist concerning this mysterious character rather early on, it made the overall story no less enjoyable from beginning to end. I’m almost positive that this was sort of the point, as the author had carefully laid breadcrumbs and hints for the reader concerning this character, aptly named Assistant, and the fact that she was written with about as much subtlety as a flying brick–which I loved about her.
With what I’m fairly certain had humble beginnings as a MirAndy fanfiction paired with delightful wordplay and banter that had me laugh out loud more than a few times, Ari and Assistant fight their attraction to one another as long as they can… until they just can’t. I found that I very much resonate with a main character who is so deeply introverted and at peace in her own little undisturbed atmosphere that any outside interaction with other humans can best be described as clumsy, laborious, or just downright disappointing. I also felt that hollow, empty feeling when Ari had finally resolved to accept this outside interruption as a part of her daily life just to have it ripped away again as if it were never there, leaving a hole big enough to dock a warp-capable space freighter in. I bonded to this character quickly because solitude and routine are the bread and butter of a true introvert, so I had no difficulty establishing a connection with the emotional upset that took place during the events of this story.
I look forward to reading more of Sinclair’s offerings, knowing that if someone can make me cry over a praying mantis, an insect of all things, that anything else they have written I will thoroughly enjoy as well.
-S.C.
(Review originally published on http://www.fleetoffandoms.com)