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A Letter to 'Priory of the Orange Tree'

Dear Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon,

You have no idea how long I have been waiting for a book like you. A book that realigns itself into my heart, that makes me feel as though I’m merely a passenger in my own story, and forever wandering in the pages of yours. A book that feels so true to who I am and who I want to be. A book that makes me feel as though I’m returning home.   


(Although, honestly, a little less pain would have been appreciated.)


So, what do I love the most about you? I love the scope of your story, from secret societies to warring continents to ancient evils rising from their sleep. I love how you build your own world with inspiration from our own, and have done so with such thorough respect. I love how you are pure escapism, and how you never pretend to be anything else, because isn’t that what fantasy fundamentally is?


But I think, most of all, I love how you are so unstoppably, unyieldingly, unapologetically feminist. Your female characters are allowed to feel, to succeed, to live. They are allowed to be anything they want to be, whether it is a queen or mage or dragon-rider, or just someone struggling to get by. They are given their own journeys – the moments they fall, the moments they survive, and the moments they thrive. They are the protagonists of their own stories, and they are all allowed to be both gloriously heroic and gloriously human.


And honestly, I’m jealous of Tané Miduchi. She represents the fundamental human desire of having a mighty water dragon as your very own emotional support godmother, and that’s just unfair.


And how can I forget the beauty that is the romance between Ead and Sabran? Because honestly, I can’t remember the last time I’ve read a queer relationship that feels so organic to who I am, a queer relationship between a queen and her secret knight who fall in love as they go up against the world. But it’s also in the smaller moments – when they feel drawn to each other, yet have the unmistakable urge to rile each other up. When Ead gives Sabran a rose for sweet dreams, and Sabran kisses her cheek the next morning in thanks. When they whisper to each other in the dark and dance with each other in the light. When they are two women with their own hearts and their own journeys, who understand that love is a choice and choose to love each other every day. 


So, Priory of the Orange Tree, thank you. Thank you for existing. Thank you for writing a story that has ensnared the hearts of so many people across the world, a story that has paved the way for many more stories like it, a story that will be a statement of empowerment for years to come. Thank you for being the closest book a book can be to perfection.  


Love,

Ilisha Tanna

This letter was one of the top ten entries in the P.S. I Love Literature Letter Writing Competition of The Novel Room, our Book Discussion Club. Students wrote letters to characters, writers, poets, books as part of a creative review and response activity, and these were read out in the session on April 29, 2021.

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