Review: "A Queen's Match" by Katharine McGee

A Queen's Match by Katharine McGee
Published November 2025 via Random House Books for Young Readers
★★★★

A Queen's Game introduced us to a bevvy of princes and princesses looking for matches, and in A Queen's Match McGee brings things to a close. Now, I'm going to keep this short:

1) My father read a lot of murder mysteries, and he always read the end first ("to see if it was worth reading"), which drove me up the wall. What's the point, when you know the end of a murder mystery? Well...reader, I erred: I got so curious at around the 25% mark that I went down a Wikipedia rabbit hole. Because...these are real people McGee is writing about, and though she gets creative with the details, the basic shape is intact. Don't be me; maybe reread A Queen's Game before jumping in here (I didn't; that was a smaller error), but don't spoil the story for yourself.

2) My gosh. The drama! It's such a soap opera—and yet in some ways some of it is less dramatic than real life. I went down many more Wikipedia articles after finishing the book, and...well, you can see why McGee chose to dramatize the story for a YA audience. You can also see why McGee ends the story where she does; some of these real-life people had happier endings than others. I'm sorry that this seems to be only a duology, but...well, read the books, and then read the articles.