Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    The Invasion of the Tearling: A Novel
    The Invasion of the Tearling: A Novel
    The Invasion of the Tearling: A Novel
    Audiobook18 hours

    The Invasion of the Tearling: A Novel

    Written by Erika Johansen

    Narrated by Davina Porter

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    In this riveting sequel to the national bestseller The Queen of the Tearling, the evil kingdom of Mortmesne invades the Tearling, with dire consequences for Kelsea and her realm.

    With each passing day, Kelsea Glynn is growing into her new responsibilities as Queen of the Tearling. By stopping the shipments of slaves to the neighboring kingdom of Mortmesne, she crossed the Red Queen, a brutal ruler whose power derives from dark magic, who is sending her fearsome army into the Tearling to take what is hers. And nothing can stop the invasion.

    But as the Mort army draws ever closer, Kelsea develops a mysterious connection to a time before the Crossing, and she finds herself relying on a strange and possibly dangerous ally: a woman named Lily, fighting for her life in a world where being female can feel like a crime. The fate of the Tearling —and that of Kelsea’s own soul—may rest with Lily and her story, but Kelsea may not have enough time to find out.

    In this dazzling sequel, Erika Johansen brings back favorite characters, including the Mace and the Red Queen, and introduces unforgettable new players, adding exciting layers to her multidimensional tale of magic, mystery, and a fierce young heroine. 

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperAudio
    Release dateJun 9, 2015
    ISBN9780062395474
    The Invasion of the Tearling: A Novel
    Author

    Erika Johansen

    Erika Johansen grew up in the San Francisco Bay area. She went to Swarthmore College, earned an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and eventually became an attorney, but she never stopped writing.

    Related to The Invasion of the Tearling

    Related audiobooks

    Literary Fiction For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      5 New Fantasy Novels Invigorate Old Tropes

      May 18, 2023

      Spell books, dragons, mermaids, fairies and a magic circus all take on new life in the pages of these five enchanting tales hitting shelves in May and June.

      5 min read

    • Article

      26. The Cullen Caveman

      Mar 24, 2022

      26. The Cullen Caveman
      2 min read

    • Article

      What Lies Beneath

      Feb 18, 2020

      What Lies Beneath
      4 min read

    • Article

      It’s Written On The Wind

      May 27, 2020

      It’s Written On The Wind
      6 min read

    • Article

      Great Read

      Feb 23, 2022

      Great Read
      6 min read

    • Article

      Great Banks There Was…

      Feb 2, 2023

      Great Banks There Was…
      6 min read

    • Article

      The Hard Way Down

      Jun 15, 2020

      The Hard Way Down
      5 min read

    • Article

      All Hail The King

      Jan 12, 2022

      All Hail The King
      5 min read

    • Article

      Lamport Hall

      Mar 7, 2024

      Lamport Hall
      6 min read

    • Article

      Roar!

      Mar 10, 2023

      Roar!
      2 min read

    • Article

      The One and Only Booger

      Feb 20, 2024

      The One and Only Booger
      10 min read

    • Article

      The Lives Of War Prisoners And An Ex-spy

      Apr 19, 2024

      Don’t allow yourself to be put off by the cumbersome title because this is a good book. South Africa’s contribution to the Allied cause in the north African deserts and Abyssinia is well known – less so that it resulted in upwards of 100 000 Italian

      2 min read

    • Article

      A Day To Dream About

      Feb 20, 2020

      A Day To Dream About
      5 min read

    • Article

      Leading A Peasant Revolt In Battle Brothers Part II

      Feb 4, 2021

      The locals in Waidtal call the monstrous spiders that live in their woods ‘webknechts’. The things are horrors the size of a large dog. After a day spent wandering the woods we find a boy hiding beneath a handcart surrounded by the strewn remains of

      7 min read

    • Article

      Tom Horn Days

      Jun 6, 2023

      R and Selle got the idea during the early days of the pandemic. “It started during COVID,” he says. “After Cheyenne Frontier Days and the bigger rodeos cancelled, I didn’t think we needed to shut everything down. I figured we could social-distance by

      6 min read

    • Article

      A Day To Remember

      Apr 16, 2020

      A Day To Remember
      5 min read

    • Article

      The Old Un’s Notes

      Aug 25, 2021

      ✻ How quickly time flies! It is already ten years since the death, on 22nd September 2011, of the much-loved British comic actor Jonathan Cecil (19392011), once described by the Spectator as ‘one of the finest upper-class-twits of his era’. Upper-cla

      4 min read

    • Article

      Battle Brothers part I I

      Feb 23, 2021

      The locals in Waidtal call the monstrous spiders that live in their woods ‘webknechts’. The things are horrors the size of a large dog. After a day spent wandering the woods, we find a boy hiding beneath a handcart surrounded by the strewn remains of

      7 min read

    • Article

      The Hamilton Road

      Mar 2, 2022

      The Hamilton Road
      7 min read

    • Article

      Fair To Middling

      Oct 29, 2020

      AMONG THE PIECES occasioned by Harold Evans’s death was a fond and generous memoir by Donald Trelford, his rival Sunday newspaper editor: “We found we had much in common — both of us short men with northern working-class backgrounds (his family in th

      4 min read

    • Article

      Great Read

      Feb 23, 2022

      Great Read
      4 min read

    • Article

      Readers’ Letters

      Oct 18, 2023

      Readers’ Letters
      4 min read

    • Article

      Salt in His Bones

      Nov 10, 2020

      Salt in His Bones
      11 min read

    • Article

      Memoirs And Country Ways

      Aug 19, 2021

      This excellent addition to stalking literature comes from a stalker; fieldcraft ran in Finlay Mackintosh’s veins and this love of a day on the hill is the leitmotif of his memoirs. After serving as a sniper on the Western Front, he was employed as a

      2 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for The Invasion of the Tearling

    4/5

    485 ratings42 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      I went into this book a little weary because I wasn't wowed by The Queen of the Tearling. I actually quite enjoyed it. It was definitely a little slow, sometimes dull, and a little frustrating, but overall I liked where the story went and the way it was told. I really liked the world building and how we got to know more about the Crossing and the past - there are definitely still more questions that I hope are answered in The Fate of the Tearling, but overall this was a good second book. The character development was done well - I enjoyed seeing Kelsea grow and also dip into madness, but we also got to see the perspective of other characters as well. These are definitely not fast-paced, quick moving plot books - not a whole lot happened to progress the plot, but we got to see a lot of other progression and things going on in the city.

      Overall I liked it 3.75/5 stars.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      The characters are believable and likeable. The story line is good and there is an air of mystery with some of the main characters. It,s light reading , but very enjoyable.
    • 5/5
      This sequel is better than the first book. It is still raw and dark--young adult version of Crown of Thorns. There are interesting flashbacks reminiscent of Station 11, but far more interesting.
    • 5/5
      aweSome
    • 3/5
      So different from the first book it was almost like reading a new series. I feel like this should have been the first book in the series.
    • 2/5
      This one started way better than the first one but as it kept going it was going for the worst. I have only one more book left bc I am masoquist like that and will be finishing the trilogy.
    • 5/5
      Excellent sequel to Queen of the Tearling although I was a little disappointed in the change in narrators. Katherine Kellgren is excellent in the first book and Davina Porter does a fine job here. However, Kelsea sounds like an uptight, cranky and brittle elderly person in this audiobook. Maybe this is to drive the point that Kelsea is no longer the naive 19-year old who was plucked from her little forest cottage? Kelsea is not very likeable in this book. Fortunately, the other characters (Mace, Father Tyler, Lily, etc) make you want to care about what happens next. Some interesting twists occur and the book leaves you wanting the third book to be released today. There are many loose ends that need to be answered. WARNING: this book contains graphic brutal scenes.
    • 1/5
      So far the story is fine but the audio keeps skipping parts? It will cut out for like 10 seconds and then cut back 3 sentences down the page. It didn’t do this on the last book so I don’t think it’s my device but the actual audio. Very annoying and disappointing
    • 4/5
      great story. I wish it was read by the same person as the first book of the series. In this one young queen has voice of 60 old woman :(
    • 4/5
      I have a lot of feelings about this book. It did not work on the same line as the first book, while it still was good and I found myself deeply invested. I felt the main character suffered at the birth of the newer main character in the other timeline. I care more about the main world, but felt like the writer was more invest in the newer one. I wish the newer one had been a novella, rather than a concurrent story telling.

      I am waffly on how this book became presently political as well, even while I appreciate the topics on which it focused (sex, cutting, dystopic government, and race/gender relations). It felt like these things made it a book that should have been in another series, because the whole first book missed having any of these notes.
    • 5/5
      This entire series is exceptional. Well-written and well-performed. Do yourself a favor and listen or read them or as I have done - do both. The Tearling series has well-developed characters with self-reflection, exploration, and growth. They have foibles - they're quintessentially human with a profoundly distinct focus on personal moral compass. I love love love this series.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Middle books in a trilogy are often a letdown, but this is not. I particularly like the fugue state parts where Kelsea seems to become Lily. Those are vivid and set you up for something intriguing in the final book, I hope.
    • 3/5
      Difficult to put down, and an incredibly complicated double plot going on -- I definitely want to know what happens next. And yet, I find myself troubled by it. I am repulsed at the sheer amount of brutality and rape in the book. I suppose that speaks to the quality of the writing that I am so sickened by it -- generally I have a high tolerance for written violence -- this is nasty. Also there was a huge amount of plot and yet very little happened in some ways. At the end of the book they are still at impasse, Tearling damaged and weak. I've no clue how she plans to resolve it.
    • 4/5
      This book feels unfinished and I hate that. I wished the author had gone just a little further down the road with the story before wrapping up book two. Seeing as this is the real world and I don't always get what I want, I'll just have to dive right into book three. There is not much I can say about the plot without spoilers. But I will tell you to read book one first. Don't pick up this book and think the author gives you enough background to understand what is happening because you will be disappointed. I loved that we get to find out more about the founding of The Tearling and Johnathan Tear. I also liked the introduction of Lily into the story though I wished there was not so much time spent on the pre-crossing story. Despite the minor things I did not care for, I thoroughly loved the story and the further character development of Kelsea. This series is a must read for fantasy lovers.
    • 4/5
      Oof, didn't want to put it down! Became more and more compelling as more depths unfolded.
    • 4/5
      In this second book in the trilogy, Kelsea has taken the throne of the Tear but now must face the ramifications of her choice to end the shipment of slaves to the neighbouring kingdom of Mortmesne. As Kelsea faces the reality of the invasion of her land, she is left with nothing but bad choices. As she grapples with what to do she is repeatedly pulled into visions of the life of Lily, a woman who lived in pre-Crossing America. What do these visions mean for Kelsea and how can she possibly preserve her smaller and weaker kingdom from the Red Queen and the massive army of Mortmesne?It's been a couple years since I read the first book in this trilogy but I fell back into the world of the Tearling easily. Kelsea's journey is compelling as she struggles to understand her magic, grapples with the impossible choices that face her as a leader, and fights always to become anything like her mother. Intercut with this are the flashes into Lily's world - a dark but believable dystopia which feels slightly reminiscent of the world in Margaret Atwood's [The Handmaid's Tale]. It is fascinating to see the roots of this medieval-ish fantasy world come from a dark near-future world. The narrative is compelling throughout and I look forward to seeing the resolution of the plot in the final novel.
    • 3/5
      This book suffers a bit from being a bridge to the next book. The entire book is waiting for the invading army to come after a quick rout of the first battle. The reader gets mostly Kelsea’s viewpoint and a new viewpoint character that only Kelsea can see since these are visions from the past brought to her by the sapphires. The sapphires are also changing her appearance quite a bit and people are noticing. She feels very much not in control of her life and people are trying to control what she does in order to protect their own self interests. The visions do eventually let the reader know how the Kingdom of Tear was founded and yet there is still some mystery about just how it happened. I’ll probably read the next one just to see if they explain it all in the next book but I’m not sure if I will hang for the entire length of the series.

      Digital review copy provided by the publisher through Edelweiss
    • 3/5
      While the book is titled “Invasion of the Tearling”, only small portion of the book is dedicated to the event. The main focus of the book is on the dystopia US before the crossing telling from Lily’s perspective follow the same thread of fanatic religious imposing on family value and demeaning of female roles in the society. I am having mixed feeling about the book.
    • 4/5
      After Kelsea's decision to stop the slave trade to Mortmesne, she knows the Red Queen will be declaring war, and it's only a matter of time before the Tearling is invaded. She continues to grow in her role as queen as she realizes how many tough decisions she will have to make, especially with a superior army breathing down her neck.The middle book in the trilogy continues in the vein of the first, as we see the difficult choices Kelsea has, and her growing power and understanding of the position she's in. There's some self harm and a little more descriptive violence than I tend to like. The story reveals both Kelsea's development as a character - just how unlike the Red Queen or her mother is she? - and takes us to another place and time with a woman named Lily, showing more of how the Tearling came to be. The end left me a little surprised and really curious to see how The Fate of the Tearling wraps things up.
    • 4/5
      Really Good

      This was good but not as good as the first one. The breaks in the story that were flashbacks were a little tedious. Can't wait for the third though
    • 4/5
      The Invasion of the Tearling by Erika Johansen is the second book in the Tearling fantasy trilogy. I was a little thrown off by the addition of a new storyline but the author meshed this story into the main plot and it eventually explains how the world of the Tearling was founded. With the threat of invasion looming over the land and tremendous changes occurring to Queen Kelsea, there was a lot going on in this book.Kelsea is maturing into her role and accepting the responsibilities that come with being the leader of her people, and although she knows she is the reason the armies of the Red Queen are invading her land, she still believes strongly that she did the right thing in stopping the shipments of her people to Mort. We learn that the Red Queen has other motives for the invasion as well. The added storyline comes as a series of flashbacks to earth before the “crossing” and it was obvious that this author has been influenced by Margaret Atwood’s Handmaid’s Tale as her view of earth was much like Atwood’s in that book. Overall this second book was much darker than the first, it was also obvious that the author was setting things up for the final volume. Some of the side plots that will be developed further involve the new High Priest of God’s Church who has been revealed to be a crazy right wing zealot, and I believe, the legend of William Tear will be continued as well. Also there will be consequences to the release of the dark being that Kelsea bargained with. The Invasion of the Tearling was an absorbing read and I would have wanted to continue on to the third book even without the cliffhanger ending that this book closes with
    • 5/5
      Wow, one of the strongest sequels I have read in a long time. I'm not sure why but this second book resonated with me much more than the first book. Can't wait for the third book!
    • 3/5
      Kelsea starts becoming such a badass in book 1, which is part of what makes the second book so frustrating. Not only does it become increasingly clear she is going to make a horrible bargain with the devil (like I think he honestly is a demon), but she also becomes ridiculously obsessed with the Fetch and decides to hook up with someone she isn’t particularly into because he rejects her. FOR LIKE THE 30TH TIME. Someone get this girl a copy of He’s Just Not That Into You. The Fetch is even more of a dickbag in book 2, and not in an “I know it’s wrong, but I like it anyway” type of situation.
      Additionally, the plot alternates between Kelsea’s storyline and the introduction of a previously unmentioned pre-Crossing character, Lily. It’s hard not to feel bad for Lily, who is constantly victimized by a dystopian, Handmaid’s Tale-type society where women have almost no rights. However, it’s also really hard to actually like Lily, who remains completely oblivious to the suffering of those around her for a fucking long time.
      This book also reminds you that the, ahem, hero who led everyone over in the Crossing thought it was a good strategy to put EVERY doctor and EVERY piece of medical equipment on one fucking ship…that SANK. Brilliant plan, dude.
      Also there’s the big reveal of a time travel thing that doesn’t make a ton of sense.
      I did at least finish both books, and I will more than likely pick up the last one because I really want to know what happens (erm, mostly to the Mace).
      However, I couldn’t help feeling the specifics of the Crossing hadn’t been hammered out before the series was written, making for a rather disjointed story in book 2 with some frankly desperate plot twists.
    • 5/5
      I read (well, heard) the first in this series three years ago, so I was a bit hazy on the details of what happened in the first story. This one seemed much stronger: I really liked the switching between Lily's life and Kelsea's. I had been listening to the book on my commute, but was enjoying it so much that I borrowed the hard copy from the library so that I could devour the rest of it at reading speed (much, much, faster!). I might have to call in at the library tomorrow and get the last one...
    • 3/5
      I enjoyed the continuation of Kelsea's journey. Her relationships with others deepened with complexity & wit. Her inner struggles weaved deftly through the plot; her moment of triumph felt sweet. My only complaints are the back-and-forth between two different characters, and the violence, which seemed a bit more gratuitous than necessary this time. Still, I'm excited to discover how Kelsea's — and her people's — story will conclude!
    • 4/5
      The Mort invasion is coming and Kelsea, Queen of the Tearling is troubled, trying to find a way to protect her people as well as trying to figure how these visions of a woman named Lily Mayhew are related to her and the Tear. Kelsea continues to grow and mature not only as a woman but as the Queen and is not afraid to make hard decisions.I loved the way the stories were interwoven so that the reader would finally find out about how the Tear came to be and the details of the Crossing.Look forward to the final installment!
    • 3/5
      I was so looking forward to this book but this time something got in the way of the story. The story was good, I just wanted it to flow a little more smoothly and make those connections with the characters as I did with the first book.

      This time around Kelsea Glynn must face her decisions and the Mort Army. But Kelsea must also worry about her fugue states - is she going crazy or is it visions and if they are visions - of what, for what purpose?

      I'll read the next story but I do hope Ms. Johansen returns to connecting us to the characters.
    • 4/5
      A great follow up to the first book. Lots more backstory.
    • 4/5
      Very definitely a bridging novel this was all about Kelsea finding her power and owning it.
    • 4/5
      “Fortune favors the bold, history tells us. Therefore, it behooves us to be as bold as possible.”The Invasion of the Tearling, the second installment of the trilogy, opens with Queen Kelsea struggling to devise a way to save the Tear from the incoming Mort invasion. As if an impending invasion wasn’t bad enough, Kelsea is also dealing with executions, romantic dalliances, her sapphires which have fallen silent magically speaking but are subtly changing her physical appearance for reasons unknown to her, and also the visions she’s having of a woman named Lily Mayhew from pre-Crossing America. The story roughly splits the time spent between both women, showcasing the differences between the time periods, but these visions aren’t happening without reason. Could learning about the past possibly help her secure the future for her people?“The wrongs of the past are not less significant, they’re just harder to fix. And the longer you ignore them in favor of more pressing issues, the worse the harm, until the problems of the past actually create the problems of the future.”If I felt like The Queen of the Tearling was lacking in complexity, The Invasion of the Tearling made up for that in spades. There were a great many tiny things going on and yet Johansen maintained a steady handle on everything and kept it from getting too complex. There was Kelsea’s changed appearance as well as her obsession with her appearance, her desire for romance (she is 19 after all), the Mort invasion, her strange fireplace visitor, uncovering the mysteries of the Mort Queen, the visions of Lily and determining what they could possibly mean, the peculiar conflict with the Church, and Kelsea’s struggle to reign in the darkness inside her that craves violence (it’s very Gollum-like).Honestly, this strange world managed to completely enthrall me this time around even if it was terribly violent and exceptionally difficult to read at times. In the pre-Crossing world, women are treated as nothing more than incubators and the sole property of their husbands. Lily’s husband Greg was a loathsome individual that brutalized Lily often for no reason at all. She was under constant surveillance in her own home and wasn’t allowed to go anywhere without an escort. It felt very much like The Handmaid’s Tale: a horrifying train wreck that you can’t look away from. I’m not sure if this bird’s-eye view of the past was intended to inform us of how terrible the world could be, and that it’s not out of the question for it to go back to that way in time, or if there was some other lesson there. I don’t think we’ll be returning to Lily’s story though. It served its purpose by educating the reader on this “pre-Crossing America” that was previously only referenced briefly. Considering the amount of questions I had regarding the serious lack of world-building, I was pleased to finally get some answers.“There’s a better world out there, so close we can almost touch it.”I had a lot of issues with the first installment and I can’t say for sure if I would have continued reading if I hadn’t already committed to a complete binge read. Even with my concerns for the entirety of the plot and my mountain of unanswered questions, I was still always intrigued enough to keep reading. Whenever I have similar issues with books there’s always this voice in the back of my head that wonders whether or not it will get better and all be worth it in the end. Primary reason why I have such difficulty DNF-ing anything; that possibility, no matter how minuscule, that it would all pay off if I just had some patience and kept at it. I never would have expected to go from disliking The Queen of the Tearling to be completely absorbed in The Invasion of the Tearling. Sophomore slump? No such thing here. Granted, my mountain of unanswered questions has only been slightly diminished, however, the biggest issue which was dealt with is the issue with the past and present. We’re given a curious glimpse at the pre-Crossing world and what led to the world becoming how it is in Kelsea’s time. It transforms this straight fantasy/medieval story into something out of a dystopian novel and I am incredibly intrigued to see how everything ends up playing out in the final installment.