This is a difficult book to review without spoilers.  It's much better than the 2nd book in the series, but there are still problems with it.  However, in the end, it was probably the book that most felt like it hung together as a cohesive story better than the original trilogy.  

The first half reads like a fanfic redemption of Elyssa, where I kept getting taken out of the story by thinking "but that's not how it was in books 1-3, is this some kind of alt-history or did the author just not re-read the books before writing this one?"  Then after a while I started to settle into the idea of it being an alt history because I realized how did all those little "historical quotes" used at the start of each chapter get written?  In book three just about everyone dies while Kelsea does her jaunt into the past, so presumably even if that timeline continues, how was Father Tyler alive to write them?  And when did he get those quotes from her?  They barely talked in the trilogy.  Kelsea "comes back" to the modern day future and the other people she cares about are all about the same age as she remembers them so my assumption is that this is supposed to have been the same "moment in time" just with everything all happy hunky dory now.   

But no, about 2/3rds of the way in you realize what the author is planning to do and while the author carefully murders off all the other named characters who would remember Elyssa being different, she conveniently forgets EVERYONE ELSE.  Fetch doesn't mention knowing Elyssa.  The people on the street don't talk about Elyssa and her whiplash proclamations.  The horrible slaughter of the Altmont field-slaves is somehow mostly forgotten despite only being 19 years previous.  How did they even clean up after such a charnel house grave?

Anyhow I was really bummed about how they made the witch wipe out Elyssa's mind because up until that point I was really enjoying it.  Elyssa was a far more interesting and balanced Kelsea, Niya was a great support character to her arc, and the Mace backstory allowed for showing more of the Tearling's festering blight.  I wish that it had just been some other characters, perhaps some early queen in history, a brief bright blip of hope, it would have been my favorite of all four books if it had stayed that way.

Of course, I was once again disappointed at the overreliance on rapes and child rape & abuse to indicate depravity.  I was hopeful that there was going to be one scene of a man being raped to balance out all the explicit rapes of women, but no.  There's a single scene where it almost happens but he's saved before anything explicit happens, and it frames the victim as rather cowardly and weak which is awful.  True, a male child is sexually abused, but that's not exactly the kind of egalitarianism I mean.  The notes of all the rapes in war "oh and of course some men were raped too" always seem tacked on by someone who reminded the author that men can get raped too.  There's a lot of "if you're beautiful you get raped, if you're ugly enough maybe you can avoid it" which is a fundamental misunderstanding of rape, it's not lust for attractive people, it's toxic abuse of power.  Pairing this attitude with the blanket disapproval of sex work, and it means that sex can only ever be used to make people feel shitty.  The guy's wife in Book 3 couldn't possibly actually be happy being a prostitute, despite her saying that she has her own business, her own friends, is treated well and better than she ever was in the Tearling.  Ugh.

I loved Erika Johansen’s Tearling trilogy. I thought Kelsea’s growth from unencumbered teen to the protector of her people was as fascinating as it was entertaining. In Beneath the Keep, Ms. Johansen once again brings readers back to the world of the Tearling. This time, however, we find ourselves at a point before Kelsea’s birth, so that we may understand the politics at play behind her hiding as well as the chance to obtain the backstories of certain key players in Kelsea’s future.

As much as I enjoyed the original series, I will admit to the fact that it took me quite a while to remember all the characters and their later significance to the story. In fact, if it were not for some rudimentary wiki fan pages, Beneath the Keep would be nothing more than an entertaining but very dark story that precedes Kelsea’s own. Because I was able to identify the connections, however, I find that the prequel helps in one’s understanding of the trilogy.

Not only does it clarify any lingering questions one might have about the Tearling society and its government, but it also includes character development for key major characters who did not need any such development to fuel Kelsea’s story. For instance, we learn Mace’s origin story and get greater insight into his unique abilities. More importantly, we get front row seats to Arlen Thorne’s rise to power. We get to see other familiar faces as well. All of which makes it rather a fun sort of revisit.

However, Beneath the Keep is not easy or light-hearted in the least. Mace’s story, in particular, is as brutal as it is triggering, and anyone uncomfortable with any form of child abuse or pedophilia should stay far away. For me, it simply highlights that nurture does not always win out in the fight between nature and nurture, and it makes Mace that much more impressive a person. It is not this way for everyone though, as Ms. Johansen does not fail to show humanity at its worst as well as at its best.

Beneath the Keep is a welcome return to the world of the Tearling. While I initially struggled to remember characters and the history Kelsea learns in the original trilogy, by the time I finished with the novel I was more than ready to dive back into the trilogy to read it with my new-found knowledge. I haven’t done so as of yet, but as Ms. Johansen promises more of Kelsea’s story is on the horizon, I will be doing so sooner rather than later.