AD 573 - The Battle of Arderydd. Signe Pike’s THE FORGOTTEN KINGDOM (Lost Queen #2) continues the story of Languoreth and her twin brother, Lailoken. Set during the very beginnings of Christianity, The Forgotten Kingdom continues to spin the tale of Lailoken (otherwise known as Merlin) and his lesser known twin sister, Languoreth. Wary of the new religion, their family believes in a different God and the old ways of their ancestors. After the death of his father, Rhydderch has become King and Languoreth is his Queen!

"Togetherness was our bargain. Allegiance until the end."

In the Battle of Arderydd, the House of Pendragon of which Lailoken was a member was decimated. Although this major battle has been mostly forgotten as Languoreth became “The Forgotten Queen”, the survivors of which there were only nine found shelter in a cave in the Caledonian Wood. With her uncle Angharad, the youngest daughter of Languoreth, who was to be taken safely by her father, Rhydderch, the leader of the opposing forces, back to her mother, Languoreth, but was not. Thus, Angharad became lost to her mother.

The different perspectives in this book are well written in that it's immediately obvious whose perspective you're reading even if you skip the identifiers on the chapter title page. As mentioned, I loved the Lailoken and Angharad chapters immediately, and the Languoreth chapters grew on me. Angharad's chapters were my favourites. The timeline was not consistent across the POV shifts, however. Dates are given on chapter title pages but with three perspectives and several years' worth of time difference later on in the book, sometimes those leaps back and forth in time got a little confusing. Most of Lailoken's chapters, for example, follow the outcome of the first battle we see with relatively little fast-forwarding, but by the time Lailoken has only progressed a couple of months from that battle, we've already read a much older Angharad. Some POV shifts required the mental flexibility to realize which parts we had just read will actually be in the future for the character we are now reading.

Overall I enjoyed this book. As mentioned, Languoreth's POV grew on me and Lailoken and Angharad were great from the beginning. My opinion of this title improved along with Languoreth's chapters. At this point, I rate THE FORGOTTEN KINGDOM a solid 4 stars out of 5 and I look forward to book three. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in historical fiction or fantasy.