The Queen of Vorn (Unpublished) (Part 5 - Chapters 13 through 22)
Hello, all. Welcome back to the chapter-by-chapter breakdown of The Queen of Vorn. Just a reminder that this breakdown will focus specifically on the balance - or rather, imbalance - if Showing versus Telling within the book on a chapter-by-chapter basis. Please see Parts 1 through 3 if you just want an overview of the book’s qualities and Part 4 for the breakdown of Chapters 1 through 12. All are accessible via this archive link.
With that reestablished, let’s dive in.
STATS
Title: The Queen of Vorn
Series: The Homecoming Triology (Book 1)
Author(s): Charlotte Goodwin
Genre: Fantasy (Epic)
First Printing: May 2025
Publisher: Self-published to Amazon
Rating: 2 / 10
SPOILER WARNING
Because this is a chapter-by-chapter breakdown, each section of this post will feature heavy, unmarked spoilers for the entire book through the end of the chapter covered in that section. There may also be mild, unmarked spoilers for events in later chapters, but there will be no heavy spoilers.
EDITIONS
This review will specifically focus upon the original release of The Queen of Vorn. It was drafted prior to the unpublishing of the book and only updated to the extent necessary to provide a record of said events, and thus, it applies specifically to the original release.
I do intend to do a comparative review if and when this book is re-released, which will serve as both a critique of the re-release version and an analysis of the changes made.
CHAPTER 13 - “Ramstor”
Story
Arndal drops Emma and Tom off at a town so that they can begin their journey to the elves. As the couple navigate the town, they discuss Garrad Gragor, the man they need to meet up with in order to make contact with the elves. Emma has a panic attack when she is separated from Tom for a few seconds, despite knowing where he is. This leads to her doubting she’ll be a good queen and to him validating her.
Show versus Tell
An extremely charitable interpretation of this chapter is that it Shows us that Emma is in no way psychologically prepared to be the queen of this country. It could be setup for a character arc. However, this is then cancelled out by Tom Telling Emma that she is already psychologically prepared.
This might have worked if we’d actually seen examples of Emma’s leadership previously. Without those examples, Tom’s words ring hollow. They’re a nice thing for him to say, so I guess we’re Shown that Tom is a devoted and supportive husband (which we already knew, since he agreed to come to this planet), but they don’t have any narrative value.
Impact
There is none. This chapter could be deleted outright.
CHAPTER 14 - “Ambush”
Story
Tom struggles to ride his horse, despite Emma’s encouragement. They are jumped by bandits. Emma is able to escape by riding off, but Tom falls off his horse and is captured. Emma then rides back and, using the bow skills she downloaded to her brain while on the Zargon ship, shoots enough of the bandits to drive the rest off and save Tom. Emma then freezes up when Tom refers to the carnage as a “murder scene”, freaking out about the fact that she killed people.
Show versus Tell
We are Shown how effective Emma’s bow skills are. On a first read, I really liked this. Yes, she may not have earned these skills, but we are getting a practical demonstration of what she’s capable of.
Unfortunately, a few chapters from now, we’ll also be Shown that the skills granted by the Zargons does not extend to an appropriate physique to apply those skills. Emma has not fired a bow prior to this point in the story - hasn’t even owned a bow until this chapter (since we get an explicit mention in Chapter 13 that she wants to buy a bow). It is therefore jarring that she’s able to actually fire it effectively. This is an issue I’d be happy to ignore, but again, we will shortly get confirmation that muscular strength did not come as part of the skills download. This is a self-imposed contradiction on Goodwin’s part.
In terms of Telling, we are Told why the bandits are here. Apparently, Tom was not careful when he was buying goods with GEMSTONES. Not only are we not Shown this pivotal moment needed to set up the ambush, we are outright being Told that Tom is a moron. Did Arndal not tell them what a reasonable exchange rate for the gems would be, especially since they are meant to finance their journey (and, per a line in Chapter 10, to help with the revolution against Queen Lila)? Did Tom never ask? Does he not realize that gems are valuable in general?
Then again, Tom was foolish enough to refer to his wife rescuing him as a “murder scene”, rather than simply telling her that they need to get away fast because “the last thing [they] need is a bunch of local watchmen or soldiers asking questions” (and, yes, that is a direct quote from a few paragraphs later). For a man who knows how to validate his wife when she’s insecure, he clearly didn’t think that one through. Emma freezing up and panicking over killing someone is his fault.
Impact
Emma reacting to having to kill for the first time could also have served as the start of an arc for her. That’s something to keep the story moving forward. Unfortunately, the next chapter happens.
CHAPTER 15 - “Life After Death”
Story
Tom helps Emma through her personal crisis over killing bandits by telling her a story of him killing a child while in Afghanistan due to a misunderstanding. Just like that, Emma is over said personal crisis.
Emma and Tom arrive at the in where they are to meet Garrad. Garrad reveals themself and joins them at their table. They tell him about the bandit attack, and his laughs at bit at hearing that Tom fell off his horse and is a poor rider in general.
Show versus Tell
This chapter is all Telling, but I don’t think that’s inherently an issue in this case. Tom needs to literally tell Emma a story from his past to help her.
Impact
So … what was the narrative point of having Emma freak out over killing someone? This was a blip. Her character hasn’t developed from this event. She just got upset for a moment, and now she’s over it.
Likewise, hearing this story from Tom doesn’t actually develop him. It certainly seems like an important background detail, but Tom is never put in a situation where this situation becomes relevant. Everyone he needs to kill from this point onward is an obvious enemy combatant trying to kill him and / or Emma.
The introduction to Garrad is confusing. Upcoming chapters will build up hostility between him and Tom so that Goodwin can then utilize that hostility once the plot begins. However, that hostility comes out of nowhere. I initially thought I’d missed something in this chapter that would explain why Tom has an axe to grind right out the gate, but there simply isn’t one. Yes, Garrad laughs at Tom’s expense, but he is also apologetic for laughing at the husband of the true Queen of Vorn and doesn’t dismiss Tom’s claim to have incredible sword skills. This introduction scene therefore fails as a foundation for a dynamic that’s going to define Tom’s and Garrad’s development later in the story.
CHAPTER 16 - “Fight or Flight”
Up front, I’ll say that this is the chapter where it first dawned on me that the goblins in this universe do not value each other's lives.
Story
Grinthy flees to the goblin city of Carrig. She nearly leaves a father and his daughter to die, but when the father dies and the daughter cries, she has a PTSD flash and doubles back … only to shrug off the child’s death moments later as evidence that she shouldn’t bother helping people. She climbs the walls of Carrig and is temporarily safe.
Realizing that Carrig will not hold out the humans forever, Grinthy seeks a smuggling tunnel that she knows of so that she can escape. The goblins defending the city notice her attempt to flee and try to conscript her to protect other refugees. She murders one of these defenders and dives in the sewers to escape the others.
Show versus Tell
We are Told about all the goblins who died during Grinthy’s journey to Carrig. This is functional as setup, though it doesn't build any sympathy in and of itself, as only one of those goblins was a previous established character back in Chapter 12 (namely, the owner of the wine cellar Grinthy hid in).
We are Shown how little value Grinthy (our only goblin POV) care about other goblins. The only other goblin she even tries to help is the little girl. She does this for her own emotions, and she immediately shrugs off said child’s death. Just look how fast this reversal happens.
The father fell, his final call fading to naught as the tip that pierced his heart slammed into the earth. The girl stopped. Grinthy leapt to the side, avoiding a collision with the stunned child, landing on one foot, bouncing ahead towards the wall, bouncing towards safety, but then the bouncing stopped.
The child began to wail, her voice slicing Grinthy’s heart in two like a frozen blade. It tore at her tortured soul and spun her on the spot. She stared in horror at the wave of mounted men thundering towards her, ahead of a line of archers. Her black eyes darted from man to crying child, from blade to tender flesh, from life to certain death.
One step, two; she reached an outstretched hand, tearing the girl’s fingers from the face they hid.
‘You must run!’ Grinthy screamed. ‘If you stay, you’ll die!’ She pointed a bony finger towards the thundering line of death, drawing the child’s stare. They were almost here; Grinthy would die soon, but she’d die trying to help another’s child.
A whistle, a thud, a scream.
The arrows still flew, and one found its mark, straight through the eye of the child. She tumbled back without a word, her fingers slipping from Grinthy’s grasp, yellow eyes staring in stunned shock, in horror, in fear. She would not die trying to save another this day. It was time to run.
As mentioned back in Part 1, maybe Goodwin was toying with the idea that Grinthy abandoned her morals in the interest of survival, but with how fast she shifts gears and how little emotional weight the child’s death carries, it instead reads like helping another goblin was a momentary diversion.
Impact
This chapter does not move the narrative forward. Grinthy does not develop. All that Goodwin accomplishes here is to take the goblin who’s supposed to be our window into the victims of this genocide and make her out to be a fundamentally selfish person who will readily abandon and kill others if that is what is most convenient for her. No matter whether this was a deliberate choice by Goodwin or just poor execution, it is utterly disastrous for the framing of the genocide within the narrative..
CHAPTER 17 - “Cock Fights”
Story
Tom feels that Garrad is threatening his masculinity, both because Garrad is already a general in the local army despite being barely older than thirty and because Garrad comments on Tom’s inability to ride a horse. This leads to a comedy of errors from Tom embarrassing himself in various ways, culminating in Tom challenging Garrad to a practice duel. Tom nearly kills Garrad with a careless swing of his sword, leading Garrad to thrash him in retaliation.
Show versus Tell
This is where it is Shown that the Zargon skill training did not prepare Garrad’s muscles for swordplay, thereby raising the question of how Emma was about to use those same downloaded skills to fire a bow effectively.
We are also Shown that Tom feels insecure about Garrad. This comes out of nowhere. Tom doesn’t have any established character traits to explain this, and Garrad’s amusement at Tom’s inability to ride isn’t any worse than comments Emma made back in Chapter 14. Still, if we ignore the rushed setup, this is functional for defining Tom and Garrad’s dynamic for when the plot begins.
Impact
We now have a dynamic between two characters that development can scale off of and that will be carried forward through the rest of the book.
CHAPTER 18 - “Duty Calls”
Story
Days after the events of Chapter 17, Tom is barely speaking to Emma. She confronts him. He admits his frustration with how ill-suited he is for life on Dunia and expresses regret for coming here, which hurts Emma. Later, the two of them make up, with Tom affirming that he’s happier being here with Emma than he’d be on Earth without her.
While riding along the road, the trio encounters soldiers from the local army that Garrad is a part of. After feeding these soldiers a cover story, Garrad tells Emma and Tom that they’ll need to take a detour so that he isn’t noticed again and forced to report to the king. He also reaffirms his loyalty to Emma about the local king he serves.
Show versus Tell
We are Shown Tom sulking, and Told none of it matters when Tom immediately affirms his commitment to Emma above all else. This is not a new development, as it’s once again repeating what we already knew about their relationship.
We are Told that there is a change in plans.
Impact
A lot of the narrative potential for Tom’s mounting frustration goes out the window here. I’m not saying that him fighting with Emma and outright regretting his decision to stand by her side would make this story better, but Goodwin could have at least taken a few chapters to properly explore this arc before reminding us that he’s content with whatever helps Emma. It could have made for an interesting challenge to their relationship. As it is, she resolves this so quickly that it seems like she’s afraid that the audience will stop reading if there’s the slightest hint of potential strife in Tom and Emma’s relationship.
The setup of the detour is fine. What’s less fine is that we didn’t properly understand the original route. What is actually changing from what the audience already expected? It’s not like the original road they were on was devoid of danger, given that encounter with the bandits. This moment doesn’t even work as a character moment for Garrad. His only character trait, outside of any potential clashing with Tom, is his devotion to Emma, and we have been no reason to think he was wavering from that.
The end result of these two aspects of the chapter is that the whole chapter feels extraneous. Nothing is truly changing, and no one is growing. It’s just confirming things we already knew.
CHAPTER 19 - “Jumping Ship”
Story
We reunite with Grinthy on board a trading ship that she escaped to after fleeing the goblin city in Chapter 16. She and three other goblins decide to jump ship and go to join the goblin tribes in the wilderness of this new land they’ve arrived at. Rather than simply slipping into the water and swimming for shore, she and her fellow deserters decide to murder some human sailors in a rowboat and then swim for shore (they don’t even steal the boat). She and the two other deserters who make it to shore then strike out overland to join the local goblin tribes.
Show versus Tell
We are once again Shown how little value goblins place on the lives of others. Murdering the human sailors serves no purpose; if anything, it actively called attention to the goblins’ escape. The deserter who dies isn’t mourned; Grinthy and one of the surviving deserters merely lament the loss of the valuable information he had. Likewise, while Grinthy and this survivor wait around for the final deserter, they only do so because he also has valuable information.
In fact, the only time in this escape when Grinthy helps another goblin is saving one of the deserters from drowning after they murder those men in the boat. It’s made clear that all the deserters have information that Grinthy needs for her own survival, so this is less altruism and more pragmatism.
We are explicitly told that the long-term game plan is to rally foreign goblins to kill humans as a retaliation for the genocide.
Impact
I honestly can’t tell what Goodwin was thinking when she wrote Grinthy’s chapters. This is a villain. It’s not even like any of the horrible things she does are connected to the genocide (either by forcing her hand in the name of survival or committing Necessary Evil to oppose it). She is going out of her way to murder people while treating her fellow victims of genocide as utilitarian assets.
This could work if the point was to write a villain arc. Maybe Goodwin’s goal was to comment on continuing cycles of violence, with Grinthy preparing retaliation that will almost certain trigger another genocide in the future. It’s just that doesn’t really work if the people at risk of continuing the cycle display such open contempt for the lives of others. With how Goodwin is characterizing Grinthy, she’s actually making the argument that the best way to end the cycle of violence is to make sure you kill all the evil people on the first sweep, so that none can escape to plot their revenge..
CHAPTER 20 - “Guts and Gore”
Story
While traveling through a forest, the trio of Emma, Tom, and Garrad come upon goblin tracks. Emma and Tom banter about his dynamic with Garrad, with Emma easily convincing Tom to make more of any effort to be nice to Garrad (something she could have done weeks ago, if I correctly understand the timeline Told to us in this chapter). Tom attempts some friendly small talk with Garrad which ends in him accidentally putting focus on Garrad’s dead wife and child.
An unknown period of time later, the group hears a battle. They intervene in a clash between soldiers and goblins. Once the goblins are dead, Emma notices that the goblins were not soldiers themselves. Garrad banters with the soldiers a bit, then we are told that the journey ahead will be a few more days in forest, then crossing open country before reaching the elves’ forest.
Show versus Tell
Goodwin tries to Show us that the goblins are victims, forced to violence because they are refugees with no other options.
The goblins weren’t dressed for war. They wore ordinary clothes of browns and grubby grey. With big, bare feet and long, spindly fingers, some that still grasped the blades they’d fought with. One held a butcher’s cleaver. Another a wood-axe. One lay by a roughly carved club of wood. These weren’t soldiers. Emma’s stomach clenched.
She saw one with an arrow in its chest. It lay on its back, scraggly hair trailed from its head. Narrower face. Softer features. Was it a female? Have I murdered a she-goblin? She came to an abrupt halt and gasped. A hand shot to her mouth. She felt Tom’s hand on her shoulder.
‘I killed her,’ she muttered.
‘She’d have done the same to you in a heartbeat,’ a deep voice spoke. Emma turned. A soldier grinned at her. ‘Thank you for your help, miss. You perhaps saved me one more dent in my armour.’
Is Goodwin forgetting that the bandits from Chapter 14 were, themselves, not soldiers? Does she think the audience will forget that Grinthy needlessly murdered sailors in the last chapter? With everything she has showed us, this soldier is right. Killing these goblins was self defense.
Impact
Tom says he’ll try to get along better with Garrad, which is technically development.
Goodwin executes the basic message of, “Genocide bad,” so poorly that it’s hard to believe that it’s not on purpose. This angst over killing the poor goblins falls utterly flat. At this point, every indication is that fighting them is a moral imperative, so why should we care that Emma has to kill one? (I also love how Emma fixates on killing a “she goblin”, as if that is somehow more evil, when our female goblin POV is a violent psychopath.)
CHAPTER 21 - “Massacre”
Story
Queen Lila oversees a bloody battle against goblin forces. She uses magic to tactically nuke the goblin forces, leaving the cleanup to her soldiers.
Lila is visited by her daughter Kala, who is distraught by the carnage and her role in facilitating it by helping to find goblins with magic Her second-youngest son then visits. Lila discusses her scheme for world domination and destroying the elves and dwarves with him.
We get a scene on the Zargon ship of Zark and her supervisor commenting on the ongoing genocide.
Show versus Tell
We are Shown the destructive force of Lila’s magic, but it’s nothing we didn’t already see in Chapter 3.
We are Shown that Lila’s daughter is distraught about the genocide, and we are Told Lila’s ambitions. I think this is another incident of Telling making sense, since the alternative would be to write chapter after chapter to flesh out geopolitics so as to spell out for the audience what Lila’s ambitions might be.
The scene with the Zargons neither Shows nor Tells anything. They’re just repeating information the audience already knows.
Impact
I suspect Lila’s daughter is going to be an ally to Emma and Tom in a future book, with this being the setup for that future development. Beyond that, I can’t see what else her angst accomplishes. Her wailing about dead goblin children falls flat when, just five chapters earlier, we saw how little the death of goblin children means to even the goblins.
The bit about Lila’s ambitions is a bit puzzling. I can’t tell if Goodwin is trying to elevate the threat Lila poses or make some commentary about how dictators who draw power from Othering people will always be looking for more people to other. Neither idea really works. Elevating the threat feels like an admission that the genocide of the goblins really isn’t that important, not if Goodwin needs to dangle of well-being of races we haven’t yet interacted with as a replacement for the non-human race she has bothered to share with us. As for the theme, it’s undermined by the portrayal of the goblins. If goblins are demonstrated (via the POV of one of their own) to be every bit as foul as Lila indicates, then why shouldn’t we trust Lila’s opinions about dwarves and elves as well?
CHAPTER 22 - “Thieves in the Night”
Story
After an unspecified time skip, the group of Emma, Tom, and Garrad are out on the plains. During a night when Emma is on watch, their camp is attacked by goblins. Emma is dragged off, and Tom and Garrad battle the goblins who remain to attack the camp. Garrad is severely wounded, forcing Tom to tend to him rather than trying to pursue the goblins.
From Emma’s POV, we learn that one of the goblins who has her is Grinthy, and they are taking her to some goblin chief to be eaten.
Show versus Tell
We are Shown how limited Emma’s own abilities with magic are, with her being exhausted just by trying to light a campfire. This is a nice point of contrast to Queen Lila and confirms earlier lore about how Earth humans are stronger in magic than Dunia humans, which has the knock-on effect of hammering in Tom’s importance as a magical weapon to help Emma.
Through this ambush, we are Shown that the goblins are not, in fact, refugees raiding merely to survive. If Grinthy is here, it means that the goblins she was trying to join up with and weaponize for her own revenge are the same ones presented in Chapter 20 as merely being desperate to survive. Add to this that Emma is explicitly being abducted as food and a line from Grinthy about how the goblins thought Emma’s group were defenseless farmers. What this all adds up to is that, at best, goblins are inherently dangerous to human beings and, at worst, the tribes as a whole are savage villains who’d be engaging in these behaviors regardless of any refugee crisis.
We are Shown Tom’s strength of character in a crisis when he drops everything to help Garrad, despite their antagonism.
Impact
I hate to keep hammering on how Goodwin fumbled a basic moral axis about genocide, but it really is absurd at this point in the narrative. The impetus behind this narrative, the moral justification for bringing Emma back to Dunia and overthrowing Queen Lila, was that the goblins were victims of a genocide. Every scene where Goodwin presents them as cannon fodder and stereotypical monsters erodes the foundation of her story. All we’re being left with is that Emma is technically the rightful heir to the throne, but that wasn’t something she really cared about until the Zargons revealed her history to her. Add to this the fact that, despite us being so far into this book, Emma has almost nothing in the way of characterization, so it’s not like her personal journey is particularly compelling.
With that being said, the plot has finally kicked into gear. Emma’s abduction is not a problem that will be resolved in Chapter 23 and then forgotten; likewise, Garrad’s injury is going to linger for a little while. Goodwin is going to continue with this status quo rather than doing resets. This starts a conflict that can properly hook in the audience from chapter to chapter.
THE PLOT PROGRESSES
On September 5th, Part 6 will finish out the analysis of The Queen of Vorn with Chapters 23 through 33. Up front, I will say that this last section is the best part of the book. There will certainly be Show versus Tell issues to cover, but the continuity of events allows for tension to build and consequences to play out. If the entire book were like this last chunk, then this story would have been much better off.
Before then, on August 29th, we’ll cover Chapters 34 through 37 of Onyx Storm. For the third power fantasy cycle, Violet and her cohort visit the island of the wisdom god’s followers. What ensues is horrific. Yes, the time has finally come to discuss Yarros’s “destigmatizing”, “beautiful” portrayal of premediated child murder.
Thank you all for joining me this week. Please remember to subscribe to the newsletter if you’d like weekly e-mails with the latest posts, including both book reviews and the latest part of “The Unbottled Idol” (Chapter 9 of which releases next Tuesday). Please also share this review with others if you enjoyed it. Whatever you’re here for, take care, and have a great weekend.
