Synopsis:

The balance of power in Epheria is shifting.

Gods are waking.

The world is burning.

Ashes and dust are all that will remain.

Review:

Firstly, Hello. The below is entirely spoiler free.

This will be the first piece of writing that makes its way to a public space in roughly two years, so I am deeply apologetic for how poor this will be, but sometimes you read books so good that they deserve a review, consider this my Michael Jordan moment.

Secondly, Ryan Cahill is a butthead. I’ve said it on twitter, I will say it again in other public forums. The man is consistent in his attempts at causing me emotional damage, but If I stop him then I get no more books, a vicious cycle.

And finally, before we get to the semblance of a review that you find below, if you haven’t read my writing before, its rambly and nonsensical, but it’s like having a chat with a friend and that’s all I really care about. So, either leave now or forever hold your peace.

Actual Review:

I bought my copy of Of Blood and Fire from Cahill’s own personal website when he was still selling copies he signed at home and posted out himself. While this may not seem important and is somewhat just me bragging about having one of the first every signed copies, it does link somewhat to what was one of my first ever reviews when I began blogging, I called OBAF a nostalgia bomb, a grown up, better written version of Eragon, I loved it, but I didn’t think it was mind-blowingly unique. I rated it highly.

The more I read of Cahills work the more I think this sometimes was entirely on purpose, as an unknown Indie author, he took one of this generations favourite fantasy books, remade it in his own image, and then punched us in the throat with it, figuratively speaking. We were all hooked, and we all wanted more.

Next was Of Darkness and Light, it was a 9.5/10. It wasn’t the Eldest v2 that I somewhat expected, it was undeniably its own book, it wasn’t a punch to the throat, it was a chokehold, one we were never removing ourselves from. Of War and Ruin came next, it was a 10/10, but if my scoring is anything to go by should then it should be a 12/10, (my rating structure is clearly flawed) and as I’m clearly stuck in the analogy now, I guess it was a front suplex maybe? I never watched any wrestling, but it looks suitably painful.

I would call Of War and Ruin one of the best fantasy books ever written. Its certainly in my top 5.

Of Empires and Dust. There’s a lot of reasons to love this book and the Bound and the Broken in general. Dragons are the coolest, this is an immediate win. Cahill writes incredible action and as the stakes get higher and more pieces appear on the board these moments only get more intense and more exciting. His world building continues to floor me, every book has expanded so much that it’s hard to believe that this is that same Epheria we where first introduced to. The new plot lines in OEAD absolutely floored me, so many bloody twists, so much I didn’t see, so much I shall have to look out for in my next reread.

“Nothing is ever like the stories. If the stories told the truth, people would never pick up swords.”

But what really gets me about Cahill’s writing is that well he draws you in emotionally. The connection I have with these characters, how emotionally involved I am with these boys that don’t even exist, equals and sometimes transcends those I have for living, breathing humans. Maybe this is a weird thing to admit, but I know full well if you picked me up and plonked me in Epheria I would follow Calen, Dann and the gang till my dying days.

“The elf didn’t approach, for which Calen was thankful; he needed a moment. In truth he needed a lifetime, but he’d settle for a moment”

Every POV is gripping, every character introduced is a necessary piece of the story, every page demands I read every word, and every paragraph makes me so excited I want to skip to the end of the chapter. Ryan writes with a passion that viscerally pours from the pages in a way I only feel from those great authors like Robin Hobb, Fonda Lee and John Gwynne. Cahill takes OEAD and those pages hes poured his love into and uses them to cement himself at the pinnacle of the Fantasy genre as one of the greats, and anyone that disagrees can fight me.

This book for all its action, all its rage and war, all its ruin and death, is a story of family, of loyalty and brotherhood, of promises made and love untold. It’s a book about the bonds between people and their fight to build a better world for the people they love. Its perfection in fantasy, its literary perfection, and its bloody spectacular.

My rating for Of Empires and Dust is 100/10. Its 500 gold stars. It’s every participation trophy I can buy. Its every award I can find.

tl:dr Of Empires and Dust is real good and you should read it. It made me cry 3 times.

Synopsis

Times have changed for Alwyn Scribe. Once an outlaw, he’s now a spymaster and sworn protector of Lady Evadine Courlain, whose visions of a demonic apocalypse have earned her the fanatical devotion of the faithful.

Yet Evadine’s growing fame has put her at odds with both Crown and Covenant. As trouble brews in the kingdom, both seek to exploit her position for their own ends.

Sent to the Duchy of Alundia to put down a rebellion, Alwyn must rely on old instincts to fight for his new cause. Deadly feuds and ancient secrets are laid bare as war erupts, a war that will decide the fate of the Kingdom of Albermaine and, perhaps, prevent the coming of the prophesied Second Scourge.

Review

Its been an age since I started writing a piece knowing I was actually going to finish it. As per usual apologies for the prelude before the review, but this one is slightly relevant to the book, you can always skip to a couple paragraphs down if you just want to hear my thoughts on the book and if you really don’t care you can skip to the bottom for a tasty little tl;dr.

I’ve found it genuinely hard to write in the past year. I think the majority of us readers want to do the writing thing, the idea of free books and being read by many is a very powerful motivator, but realistically the free books are payment for the hard work that is blogging and social media and I think as the time passes I write less for people to read and more for myself. It’s still super rewarding to be part of the community and I will try my best to get back on track, but reading has been so much more enjoyable since I stopped reading to review and instead do what I’ve done today, review because of what I read.

 I sat down to write a review for this book because its fantastic and I want others to read it, but honestly its my way of passing love notes to my favourite authors. In reality I do this because every retweet by the people I count as celebrities is that little dopamine rush I need. But realistically I need/have started to change my attitude to how I do this whole thing, and hopefully this is the start of my comeback as I find a happy medium.

 Apologies by the way, I’m a little rusty.

When I wrote my review for The Pariah last year one of the things I knew without a doubt was that in my opinion it was Anthony’s best book to date, and I say this as a massive fan of all of his current works. It was a blend of everything I loved about Anthony’s previous books but felt more refined. Blood Song and its following books had these incredible characters and exhilarating action scenes, Draconis Memoria series had much the same but with some truly spectacular world building. Its clear Anthony just keeps getting better, and because of that what we got last year was Alwyn Scribe, one of our best characters of 2021, in The Pariah, one of the best character driven Fantasy books of 2021, written in what was a year of truly exemplary character driven fantasy.

I loved The Pariah, it was everything I want from a proper fantasy book, but I really loved The Martyr. It was overall a very different vibe than the previous book, Alwyn feels very much the character he is going to be now, meaning less growth and instead a lot more refinement of who he is as he struggles with the man hes become and the choices hes made. I really loved his whole arc throughout this entire book, Alwyn really matured from that coming of age archetype we had in the first book to this mature and devastating man. The books story arc feels quite set in stone which would mean we wouldn’t have much new bought into the world, however, we still had some incredible twists thrown in that I really didn’t expect and some stupidly good supporting characters where introduced, the Widow (who you won’t have to wait long to meet, and I won’t spoil) was one of my favourite things about the whole book.

“I rolled onto my back, looking through recurrently blurred eyes at the strangely pelasing sight of a cloudless night sky speckled with stars, only partly occluded by the dark veins of tree branches. I always liked to comtemplate the trees, I thought, surprising myself when the notion brought a laugh to my lips”

With Alwyn seemingly locked into his path it meant we got swooped up in the adventures of the Risen Martyr (who is genuinely good enough to be a main character in her own right, I can imagine her POV and background/story would be an incredible read) and the Covenant Company as they are embroiled in the dirty politics of the land. This was a big win for me because it meant we got plenty of big set pieces that included some excellent stabby action we all know I really love. A moment to recognise that Anthony continues to write battle scenes that are just *chefs kiss*

“I tried to resist the lure of grim arithmatic but my mind was ever drawn to calculation. In comparing the number of days we might expect to sustain ourselves in this castle to the time required for our messnegers to complete their task, I arrived at a dolefully inevitable conclusion. “Oh,” I signed, finding wisdom in a dead mans mundanity as a fresh tumult of drums and shouts sounded from the west-facing wall, “shit on it.”

This was my first “middle” book review and it’s a different kettle of fish, the first book is easy to review because you have everything new to write about, the final book is probably quite easy in the sense you can discuss the wrap up, so the thing I decided was the most important to a middle book is did the author advance the story and keep it exciting? Yes, he did. Series like Wheel of Time have entire books that feel like waffle and can be really hard to get through, plenty of trilogies have entire middle books that just feel like one big time waste followed by a cliff-hanger to set up the third book. The Martyr didn’t feel like this at all, I think overall Anthony did an incredible job of advancing the story, everything carried on feeling fresh and exciting and everything introduced felt necessary to the story instead of being there to progress a point.

As far as I’m concerned Anthony wrote what I would class as a perfect fantasy book and its an easy 10/10 for me.

tl;dr Anthony Ryan continues to write incredible, gritty fantasy that ticks every box every time. Perfect Fantasy.

Synopsis

New York: two years after the Third World War. Humanity is rebuilding its cities brick by brick; the damage done to the people, however, is a lot harder to repair. Dan Hardacre is one of those people. An aspiring stage actor and experienced draft-dodger, Dan struggles to find his place within the Utopic rebuild of New York City. When he’s not caught up with the duties of work, Dan lives a quiet life in mourning for his mother, Dyani, who went missing when he was a teenager. One night, Dan experiences a vivid, terrifying nightmare that puts him right on the front lines of the war for which he dodged the draft; it ends with him facing Death itself in the form of a metallic, faceless humanoid creature that calls itself the Valkyrie. To investigate the reason behind his haunting experience, Dan seeks out a meeting with his estranged father, who reveals the startling truth about Dan’s dream: it wasn’t a dream. With this newfound knowledge and the powers it brings, Dan makes it his mission to return to the scene of his nightmare. However, he soon comes to know that confronting the Valkyrie not only endangers him but the war-withstanding world he leaves behind.

Review

I had the pleasure of reading some fantastic books in 2021, most of them pretty mainstream, and most of those you already know and love them. However one of my greatest honours over the last year or so has been getting author requests and I find myself privileged enough to read a few fantastic books by lesser-known and indie authors. One of these authors being Liam Quane, a truly lovely man that has been someone I’ve had great pleasure communicating with over this last year. Not only is Liam lovely to talk to but he was also kind enough to send me a copy of his stunning book, Road to Juneau is genuinely one of the best quality hardbacks I’ve received in years, beautiful cover, minimalistic design, great paper, and if you’ve read any of my work, you understand that I really like good quality paper. Also this beautiful Hardback is at the low low price of £6 on UK Amazon right now, go bloody buy it.

Firstly, Liam, apologies, this review shouldn’t have taken this long to come out but thank you for bearing with me.  

There’s a couple of things that really stuck out for me with Liams book. The first thing I want to mention and the thing that really impressed me from the get go was Liam’s fantastic world building abilities. What Liam managed to build up throughout the pages of RtJ was just incredible, we have this beautifully messy version of America after the end of WW3, and what Liam gave us was this very realistic look at what a post war US would look like, the effect of technology and modernisation that shadows their continued ideology that America is the greatest in the world, but with the continued decline of a nation struggling to fix its issues at a deeper level. Liam tied in a lot of the current political and economic issues that are part of a current day USA that gave it such a real feeling, yet without making this book another morbid look at our own terrible little world. This really helped give RtJ such a solid core for when Liam decided he wanted to go a little wild. The book quickly took a fantastic twist and Liam really flexed those worldbuilding muscles to a new degree, taking this story down a whole tagent I couldnt have guessed at in the slightest. I don’t want to spoil anything so I won’t go into detail, but I really loved the transition from what I thought I was reading to this more fantastical and massive universe.  

Worldbuilding skills aside, what really made Road to Juneau stand apart from other SFF books I’ve read was Liam’s style of writing. Road to Juneau doesn’t have that same rigid/structured style that most SFF has, instead I would consider it fairly unique in a weird and wonderful way. It had this twisty, hilarious internal monologue as the basis for the story telling, a first person POV but told from the thoughts and feelings of our main character in a more personal way than I feel I get from most SFF. We get the ramblings of a real person, mirroring what I feel I would be thinking if I faced the same situations that our protagonist finds himself in. I genuinely laughed at points during this read and I would relate that hugely to this internal monologue which made the characters smallest and most normal interactions feel so hilarious. For me having a book that can make me genuinely laugh is such a massive thing, there’s very few books that I would consider funny enough for a real out loud laugh and Liam achieved that on multiple occasions, so thank you. Because of this writing style I really found it hard to guess what would happen during RtJ, plot twists and curveballs coming from all over, having my expectations on the story progression changed is something I really enjoy and wish I got a little more often.  

And finally, the protagonist, Dan is a great character, superbly flawed and wonderfully vulnerable. Even with his progression through the story we never have this all-powerful man, this perfect character, a Gary Sue. Liam writes the realistic portrayal of a man struggling with his own anxieties and issues and these are continued throughout the book, Liam showing wonderfully the limitations of the human mind and what we can do. I felt a genuine connection to our main character and loved following his story. Liam does an incredible job of writing something so lofty and majestic, while so human at the same time.  

Road to Juneau is a truly unpredictable and unique book that I genuinely enjoyed reading. Liam is a wonderful guy and deserves you buying his lovely book. Thank you for giving me the chance to read it  

Dale xoxo 

Synopsis

Heroes will rise. Nations will fall.

Behind the towering walls of Belduar, Calen Bryer and his companions stand in defense of the city and its new king. In over a thousand years, Belduar has never fallen. It has stood as a bastion of hope. But the Lorian empire are at its walls once more, and the Dragonguard are coming.

In the North, with Faenir by her side, Calen’s sister Ella arrives at the port of Antiquar. She holds no fear of the unknown. She will see this through, no matter what – or who – gets in her way.

Meanwhile, at the embassy of the Circle of Magii in Al’Nasla, Rist Havel hones his newfound powers in preparation for the trials. Unbeknownst to Rist, he is being watched, measured, and judged. He was not taken into the Circle by chance. There is greatness in him. But great men can do terrible things.

As Lorian forces land on southern shores and Aeson Virandr’s letters of rebellion find their way to the right hands, only the Knights of Achyron see the true danger. The danger that stirs in the darkness. The coming shadow will not stop. It will consume all in its path. It wants for nothing but blood and fire.

Review

Hi. I haven’t written properly in a couple months now so, apologies for the rustiness. I have seven half-finished documents I haven’t touched since deciding I couldn’t finish them or not feeling the want to. Its odd how stressful reading can get when you feel you have to review every page you read, every good quote needs to be highlighted and a notebook needs to be carried everywhere just in case you need it. It’s no wonder so many bloggers burn out. In this two-month hiatus Ive read more than I did the rest of the year and I really enjoyed that time, but I loved writing and this whole journey has been incredible for me, so I feel like its time to start again, and what better book to write about than Of Darkness and Light by Ryan Cahill.

As per usual I will try and keep this review spoiler free, thank you to Ryan for sending me a copy of his book in return for an honest review.

Ryan Cahill is a name that’s grown with some serious pace in 2021 and I’m starting to think that maybe Cahill is half man, half machine. He somehow has managed to put in serious time and effort into becoming a pretty large and wonderful part of our Fantasy community, while promoting his series and still managing to crank out a new chonky sized novel. How he’s managing to do it is beyond me, (I don’t think the man sleeps) but it’s definitely working for him. He’s even doing well enough that he’s gotten the attention of our communities main little troll (I’m looking at you Radagast the Salty) . Ryan is a wonderful man and was kind enough to send me both a digital Arc and a beautiful physical arc, and Ive obviously preorder a beautiful full copy from The Broken Binding.

Of Darkness and Light is the second book in The Bound and the Broken series, following on from Of Fire and Blood which I sadly didn’t review as I read it during my hiatus but will briefly mention. Of Blood and Fire was a solid 8/10 and the reason I want to mention this first book is because I think my only real criticism of the first book is one of the reasons I loved the second book so much.

If you’ve read any of my reviews you will know at this point, I really love books with Dragons, I like them to the extent I wish Dragons were real and I myself was a  Dragon Rider but not to the extent I have weird models of them throughout my house, just to clarify. My top 10 of all-time list contains Eragon and the Inheritance series, the incredible Shadow of the Gods and M.L Spencer’s fantastic Dragon Mage. Of Fire and Blood funnily enough contained Dragons and lots of action so you can see I knew I was going to love with before I even started. I wasn’t wrong either, the book was fantastic, it was gripping, the characters were well written and even being a multi-POV story, I didn’t want to skip over the chapters that didn’t contain Calen. My only slight critique about the book was that I felt I was reading something very similar to Eragon, the storyline had a few set pieces that really matched up and the whole arc of the story really followed similar beats. Regardless of this it had enough differences that I didn’t feel it was a copy but just similar tropes and a world that contained a lot of the same aspects of classic fantasy worldbuilding elements that I can find in a hundred series. And honestly, it isn’t a complaint, Eragon is still my favourite series almost 20 years after reading it, Of Blood and Fire gave me that feeling of nostalgia I crave, it was a book I loved reading and it left me with a massive urge to read book two.

Of Darkness and Light turned out to be everything I wanted and more. The book I was expecting wasn’t what we got and instead Cahill really flexed his world building muscles and expanded on what he had written before. Everything was bigger and better, Cahill took the building blocks of his world from book one and went to town, fleshing out the lands we had heard little about and introducing new character’s to go with these wonderous places, adding new peoples and cultures and giving the world of Epheria a real depth. The similarities between of Blood and Fire and Eragon fell away, and at no point during book two did I have that same thought. We had a number of new POVS which were excellent additions and added to the incredible story Cahill was building. We got some insight to things we saw in book one that I wanted to know more about, and we got some beautifully rendered set pieces that had me on the edge of my metaphorical seat.

A flicker of a smile touched the old mans face. “Not for a second. It is better to die with a sword in your hand then to kneel with a chain around your neck. Go, do what we could not.”

Not only was the story better but Cahills writing quickly took on so much more everything. It almost felt like these two books were written years apart, Cahill writing like a man that had put out another five stories in-between these two novels, the writing was more serious, the world grew darker, the action got bloodier. In Of Blood and Fire there were a few sentences that grated on me at times or some conversations I felt were overly cheesy, book two again didn’t leave me with these impressions and I feel like Cahills writing just got better. If this man continues to improve between every book like this, I feel like book three could be my favourite release of 2022, and this year’s entry already made its way into my best of 2021 list alongside authors like Gwynne and Abercrombie.  

Thats all bards ever seemed to talk about; Splendour and riches, the beauty of battle, and the honour of warriors. I’d wager every one of those bards would shit themselves if they ever saw the pointy end of a sword.

With Cahill’s growth in writing, we saw that transcend into his characters and I would be a fool if I didn’t point out the journey that Calen is making as a character and how incredibly well he’s written, he’s the perfect main protagonist. The issues Calen faces and the decisions he makes, added to the sometimes relationship with Valery’s, his Dragon, bring about genuine emotions in you as a reader and this is something I always think makes or breaks my enjoyment in a book. If I can skim through and finish and be happy, that’s good. If I come out feeling like Ive been punched in the gut and genuinely sad, then I think you’ve done something great.

All in all, Of Darkness and Light was an incredible book that had me gripped from page one, all the way to the last page two days later. Cahill is absolutely going to keep on getting better with each book that he puts out and I can’t wait to see what happens in book three and even where he goes after he finishes with The Bound and the Broken.

TL:DR If you loved Eragon or any of the books I mentioned this read is a necessity and you won’t regret it. Cahill’s Of Darkness and Light is magic, brutal, and an absolute pleasure to read. It will be released on 31/12/21 for the stupidly low price of £3.99 on Kindle or you can get a beautiful HB copy from The Broken Binding on the link below.

Thanks for reading.

https://www.thebrokenbinding.co.uk/product-page/of-darkness-light-ryan-cahill

Rating: 9.0/10

Synopsis

The Justice of Kings, the first in a new epic fantasy trilogy, follows the tale of Sir Konrad Vonvalt, an Emperor’s Justice – a detective, judge and executioner all in one. As he unravels a web of secrets and lies, Vonvalt discovers a plot that might destroy his order once and for all – and bring down the entire Empire. 

As an Emperor’s Justice, Sir Konrad Vonvalt always has the last word. His duty is to uphold the law of the empire using whatever tools he has at his disposal: whether it’s his blade, the arcane secrets passed down from Justice to Justice, or his wealth of knowledge of the laws of the empire. But usually his reputation as one of the most revered—and hated—Justices is enough to get most any job done. 

When Vonvalt investigates the murder of a noblewoman, he finds his authority being challenged like never before. As the simple case becomes more complex and convoluted, he begins to pull at the threads that unravel a conspiracy that could see an end to all Justices, and a beginning to lawless chaos across the empire. 

Review

The Justice of Kings – Richard Swan

First things first, a big thank you to Orbit and Nazia for sending me this ARC, not only is this my first big pre-release, but it was bloody signed and numbered. Then to really make me feel all sorts of ways I sat in shock as I was included in a list of not only some of my favourite bloggers but authors like RJ Barker and Anthony Ryan as they received this book as well. What is my life anymore?

This is a spoiler free review, I shan’t reveal any plot. Below is just some of my takeaways and if you can’t be arsed, there’s a tl;dr at the bottom.  

This book is being described as a “Medieval Judge Dredd” of sorts, something that when I read it got me instantly excited. Parts Geralt of Rivea and some man named Matthew Shardlake (sorry for those that love whatever series he’s from). But as much as this may be correct in a way, and I do agree with the Geralt of Rivea similarities, this isn’t a medieval Judge Dredd, It’s actually medieval Eisenhorn. Medieval Eisenhorn isn’t something I knew I needed but now I have it I will fight anyone that tries to take it away. If you’re not familiar with the Eisenhorn series and honestly, I dont see a lot of Black Library discussion in my little slice of the community, so I cant imagine most of you are. Eisenhorn is a series of books set in the Warhammer 40k universe, Eisenhorn is an Inquisitor of the Imperium, mankind’s secret police. Inquisitors travel the galaxy hunting down traitors, heretics and Xenos, these men and women of the inquisition holding almost unlimited power to act as Judge, Jury and Executioner as they see fit. Justices and Inquisitors hold similar rolls in these books, acting as the outreaching hand of the Emperor to make sure its laws are followed. I wasn’t surprised to find out Swan is a massive fan of Abnett, and you can see that reflected in how he writes.

(The Eisenhorn series is written by one of my favourite authors of all time, Dan Abnett, and the series is now being adapted for television, I would wholly recommend trying this series out along with my favourite sci-fi series of all time, Gaunt’s Ghosts.)

First things first, quick shout out to another author hitting us those magnificent first sentences. Please authors, keep doing this. Its first sentences like this that instantly have my attention, that make me know this will be a book I want to continue.

“It is a strange thing to think that the end of the Empire of the Wolf, and all the death and devastation that came with it, traced its long roots back to the tiny and insignificant village of Rill”

As much as I think Swan did a great job at hitting all of the key elements of what is needed in a good fantasy book, what I would consider to be Swan’s area of expertise would be his character building, the characterizations of our main cast and the relationships between these people being what really made me enjoy this book, obviously on top of the excellent fight scenes, the incredible story, and the beautifully crafted world. The book revolves around two characters, Sir Konrad Vonvalt, the Emperors Justice. Konrad is meant to be the main focus of this tale, but this story actually centres on Helena Sedanka, Konrad’s clerk and the actual POV for this book, she is a nineteen-year-old street urchin that Konrad employed some years before. Konrad is exactly who I expected him to be from reading the blurb, incredibly smart, filled with the confidence that comes from a man that’s fully aware of his power and abilities, a narcissism that is to be expected of a man whose job it is to decide whether people live or die. It felt like I got the full range of everything from Konrad, his emotions, his thought processes, and him just wholly as a person pouring through the writing, Swan did an incredible job of portraying a character so vividly while from the POV of another. Helena was a wonderfully vibrant character to read and a wonderful narrator for this story, her emotions, reactions, her ups and downs felt perfectly realistic, and it also gave me this sort of coming-of-age trope that I love.

“Both he and his father had had to believe that Sovan citizenship, and what it represented, was an end in itself. How else could one have justified the horrors of the Reichskrieg? Vonvalt had embraced the ways of the Sovans with the Zeal of a convert, and though he was no fool, I knew that as a consequence of his adolescence – for the man had only been fifteen years old when he had gone to war – the very kernel of his worldview was softer and more vulnerable than any would believe.

These twos stories are strongly intertwined and the closeness between these two meant a lot of page time together. Something a lot of authors can struggle with is making those interactions feel realistic, their little touches, their conversations, if you cant imagine sitting in the room with these people and it feeling natural then it’s wrong. Too often we get conversations that feel robotic, cold, and forced, I always think about the Lost Fleet series from Jack Campbell, it doesn’t matter how good the action is or how well the plot is written, the conversation in that series never flowed well making it feel disjointed, unrealistic. Swan never suffered here, Helena and Konrad’s relationship was incredibly well written, its complicated nature written perfectly for who these characters were meant to be.

The plot of this story was solid, Swan giving nothing away as he allowed his story to slowly ramp up, the mysteries our protagonists investigated slowly becoming clearer as the story builds, rising to crescendo into such a bloody, tense, exciting ending, I struggled not to speedread the final 50 pages as  everything started to hit the fan. Not only was the main story excellent but Swan introduced the themes and plotline for the rest of the trilogy masterfully, layering them beautifully under the main storyline, and he managed it with very little in the way of info dumps (I think there was maybe two paragraphs in the whole book that actually felt like an info dump). I also really loved how Justice of Kings ended, no massive cliff-hangers, Swan set up for the next book, and an ending to the one we were on, I will forever love authors that do this. I find Swan is another of those debut authors I just find incredible, this man has so much raw talent for storytelling that I truly cannot wait to see what this man is writing for us in a few years’ time as he continues to improve.

“Sir Otmar nodded vigorously, but he was almost certainly lying. These far-flung villages and towns, months’ worth of travel from distant Sova even by the fastest means, rarely practised Imperial law. It was a shame. The Reichskrieg had brought death and misery to thousands, the system of common law was one of the few good rubies to come out of an otherwise enormous shit”

I wish I could delve into the world building, the politics, and the story proper, but I don’t want to spoil anything, purely let you know this needs to be a book that you add to your TBR, make sure February 22^nd is in the diary.

Ive already pestered Swan (sorry dude <3) for book two on twitter and I will continue to do so till he lets me read it.

My tl;dr

Swan has built a dark and gritty world, filled it with beautifully written characters and lays out a master crafted story to create an incredible book that you can’t put down till long after bedtime. Read it.

The Justice of Kings by Richard Swan will be out on the 22nd Febrary 2022 and can be preordered on amazon already.

Rating: 9.0/10

Synopsis

Born into the troubled kingdom of Albermaine, Alwyn Scribe is raised as an outlaw. Quick of wit and deft with a blade, Alwyn is content with the freedom of the woods and the comradeship of his fellow thieves. But an act of betrayal sets him on a new path – one of blood and vengeance, which eventually leads him to a soldier’s life in the king’s army.

Fighting under the command of Lady Evadine Courlain, a noblewoman beset by visions of a demonic apocalypse, Alwyn must survive war and the deadly intrigues of the nobility if he hopes to claim his vengeance. But as dark forces, both human and arcane, gather to oppose Evadine’s rise, Alwyn faces a choice: can he be a warrior, or will he always be an outlaw?

Review

As always, I’m going to go on a little tangent so if you have no cares for my little personal snippet skip below for my comments on the book itself. Ive always loved reading, but in my later teenage years and during Uni that passion died off as I became interested in other things, namely alcohol and the events that go hand in hand with said alcohol. But then I got really ill and spent years not being able to work, or socialise, or even leave the house, so books became my escape. Escapism is important for so many of us, in recent times more than ever, and in my opinion Fantasy books are able to do something that few genres can which is create something so incredibly different from the world we live in, that for a little slice of time we are able to leave the shitty world we find ourselves in and find ourselves amongst heroes, gods and dragons. This all happened around 2010-2012 and during that period I devoured series like The Wheel of Time and The First Law Trilogy, anything I could find with decent recommendations since I was fairly out of the loop when it came to what was good. Towards the end of 2012 as I got better, I was finally able to go back to a store, and so I went to one of my favourite places on earth, my local Waterstones. On that first visit back I wandered to the Fantasy and Sci-Fi section, straight to the new hardback releases and sitting in all its glory was the newly (re)released Blood Song.

Since reading that book Ive been an avid fan of Anthony Ryan, at that same Fantasy section for the release of every book so far to make sure I have his books day one. I saw a tweet a few days back about what authors could release a book and you know nothing about it but buy it regardless, there’s a few on that list but right at the top with Mr Gwynne and Mr Abercrombie is Mr Anthony Ryan. That meant when I heard Ryan was working on a new series it went straight to the top of my most anticipated list, it doesn’t matter if Ryan had decided to change to crime as a genre, it didn’t matter if he wrote my least favourite trope of all time, the love triangle, I still would have been there to purchase this book on release day.

For me Ryan is another of those authors I think is exceptionally good at doing… everything. I find his character building incredible; no one can argue that Blood Song isn’t an amazing book and the biggest reason for that is because Vaelin Al Sorna is so well written that reading a book without him brings a hint of sadness.  His world building is easily among the best, while his first Trilogy and its following Duology may not offer anything I would consider crazy different from a lot of fantasy books, they are beautifully written worlds that are filled with a massive amount of culture and history, but then if you want to see Anthony flex that world building muscle you only need to go to Draconis Memoria, a series of books that is not recognised as much as it should be, these books having explosive action, more dragons than you can ever count and world building I would consider some of the very best around. I could write about everything else Anthony does well, but I shan’t babble any longer.

This is my ode to Anthony Ryan, one of the best authors to ever grace the genre, and if you take one thing away from this ‘review’ today, its that you should read his books.

Do you want a quick judgement? Yes? The Pariah is Ryan’s best book yet.

I mentioned in my last review that books with amazing first lines, prologues, paragraphs are my new favourite thing, they are the literary version of a jump scare, they get your blood pumping and that sweet serotonin to the right places. We often have those discussions about slow burners and series that get better after this point (I love WOT but just the thought of rereading book 10 makes me anxious), what I want is a slap to the face from the starting point and I want that energy to burn throughout the book, I want them to continue, and I will pay whatever bribes are necessary.

“Before killing a man, I always found it calming to regard the trees.”

This book is all about Alwyn Scribe, an outcast, a bandit, and an altogether loveable rogue. Alwyn is the heart of this book and again Ryan has written us another character you can’t but help finding yourself completely immersed in. I’m a big fan of coming-of-age stories and protagonists and even though we come across Alwyn in his teenage years I still got that same joy from reading his story, as we see him become more than just an outlaw, grow as a person and I find myself completely enthralled every time I turn the page as I get to read this boys story. This book was my favourite sort of book, a wonderful single POV. Perfection. However, Alwyn comes with a fantastic supporting cast that add so much to the story, Ryan adding so much characterization to these people so eloquently that I would have happily read any of them in their own chapters.

“You say my claim to the throne was false, that I began a war that spilled the blood of thousands for nothing. I ask you, Scribe, what meaning is there in truth or lies in the world? As for blood, I have heard of you. I know your tale. History may judge me as monstrous, but you are a far bloodier man than I”

Ryan’s world building is once again absolutely fantastic, I would call this Ryan’s most grimdark novel so far, its various shades of misery and despair clinging to the characters throughout the book with very little in terms of joy or happiness, things going from bad to worse and Alwyn and his companions clinging on to life by their fingertips, this just helped deliver a story that couldn’t stop me from turning the pages nonstop, keeping me up till I was blurry eyed and needing sleep. Ryan filled this world with so much culture and lore in such a short amount of time, delivered without the need for any info dumping but instead as a master of writing does, entwining it into his plot as and when its needed to deliver this flawless tense and well-paced beauty of a story.

”Thus spoke Ulthnir, Father of the Altvar. Every battle is a forge, and every soul that survives the flames is made stronger.” The events of a long and interesting life have forced me to conclude that Ulthnir, like many a god, was full of shit.

One thing Ryan is never scared of is getting his hands dirty, his previous books have brimmed with action, it being an overwhelming feature of all three major series so far and that’s not something I’m sad about in any way, Ryan does incredible work when it comes to swordcraft and his action scenes and big set pieces are always incredibly exciting and fun to read. The Pariah took a much lesser approach than before and the action was much more spread out, the one big set piece we did get however felt like one of the best Ryan has written so far, the fighting brutal and real, chapters that made me want to burn through pages as quickly as I could. Ryan turned to the pen instead of the sword this time round to build his story, It notably did give the story a slightly slower pace than some of his previous entries, but I feel we got a better plot and character development because of it and I’m 110% ok with that.

“Hearing an enraged shout to my rear, I ducked and whirled, dragging the billhook clear and bringing it round to smash the knees of the churl who came at me with a scythe. He collapsed instantly, landing on his back and clutching at his ruined legs, his screams ending as Toria landed on his chest and sank her dagger into the hollow of his throat.”

The Pariah is very simply the best book Ryan has written so far, which when put against the library of his works is impressive, he continues to get better as a writer, his prose continues to astound me, his every word gripping me intensely, the world and characters he writes becoming more immersive and ensnaring every time and my love for what this man writes continues to grow. I think this series will go from strength to strength, Alwyn becoming such a truly incredible protagonist, and for those that maybe miss out on that typical Ryan blood and guts we didn’t get this time will be sated before the end.

Read this book. Read Ryan’s other books. Do it now.

Thanks for reading.

Rating: 8.0/10

Synopsis

In a brutal desert empire, Jael Crowfeeder survives as a Beast Hunter. Last of his kind and despised by society, he’s betrayed and thrown in prison just as a legion of man and monster storm the border. Forcibly conscripted, Jael will soon wet his sword in the front lines.
 

Standing against the invaders is General Larika, warrior princess and heir to the throne. As monsters of legend tear a bloody rent through her soldiers, a treasonous knife readies to strike.
 

Defeat is a breath away. The enemy have harnessed an ancient magic that turns the order of man and beast on its head, a magic created by Jael’s ancestors that only he might break.
 

Jael is torn. Larika may become a worthy Queen but can he fight for an empire that slaughtered his people?

Review

I love when authors reach out to me to review their books, and I have a problem because I say yes to nearly all of them, sadly this overstretches me a bit and I feel guilty to those books I miss, my TBR is enormous, and I really need to learn to be better with this. So those are maybe reading this that have sent me a book, I promise, one day I will read it and I will review it, just bear with me. However, Empire of Blood and Sad was one of those that I did read and how could it not be with the synopsis you just read…

After Alister Hodge emailed me as with any author I haven’t heard of I do a little googling, as far as I can tell Hodge is a very unknown author with a few books under his belt, all those books seem to have over 4/5 stars and a fairly large chunk of reviews showing that those scores seeming to be well earned but after being one of those people that got to read his book Ive decided he’s definitely an author that deserves more recognition. When you review smaller authors books whether that be just debut authors or smaller self-published authors there’s often those signs of inexperience or a lack of confidence from the author that disappears as they publish more books and get braver with their writing. Alister wasn’t one of those authors in my opinion. Empire of Blood and Sand struck me as a book from not only a noticeably confident and well-polished author but also something I would expect from a much bigger publisher. This was a well-crafted book that was an easy read, it was genuinely fast paced and entertaining with a level of polish that left me genuinely impressed.

Empire of Blood and Sand has all the bits needed to be very classic fantasy book, we have plenty of classic fantasy tropes, and this isn’t a complaint, those tropes are popular for a reason, because they work so well and are the building blocks of the books we love, and we will continue to reread them over and over, good versus evil, the reluctant hero, wars between the gods, my all-time favourite, coming of age stories. Hodge had some fantastic additions to these and built something that felt original while following these classic story arcs we all love.

A really big thing that really grabbed me for this book and something I really love in general, but as of recent years authors more and more seem to be going for impact right out of the gates, their first sentences, first paragraphs aiming to be a punch to the reader, putting you on the back foot from the get-go, a rock to the senses as you are introduced to this world born on to a battlefield.

“Blood ran hot over Jael’s fingers as he sawed at the sentry’s neck. The man convulsed with agony, bladder voiding in an acrid-smelling flood as he hacked through muscle and vasculature, opening a hideous smile where there should be none.”

How can you not read further after a start like this? This is the sort of paragraph that instantly draws you in, you aren’t making a choice at that point, you need to read further. After reading this book I went straight into Anthony Ryan’s The Pariah and he did something similar, I love it, keep them coming please guys. I don’t want that slow burn, give me that dopamine hit straight away.

This book was a two person POV, our first character being Jael Crowfeeder, a grizzled veteran of the kings armies and part of the race known as the Scalzini, human in all ways but a magical people with an affinity for the beasts that roam from the chasms. A people that has been killed off for their differences from regular folk, hunted down because of peoples fears. Jael is one of the last Scalzini left and travels the lands as a Beast Hunter, killing monsters for a few pennies here and there. I’m not going to lie, a big reason I read this book was because the synopsis and Jaels character gave me massive Witcher vibes and I’m a massive fan of Geralt, with that in mind I never felt like I was reading a clone or a spinoff, Jaels character and the world we were in had its similarities but very much felt like its own thing. Jael is closely followed by Pyx, a young girl he has all but adopted and looks after, Pyx was the perfect accomplice to Jael, offering the springboard we needed for Jaels character to flow out that little more and was great supporting cast for Jael’s chapters.

Larika was our second character, Princess, and heir to the Empire, and a great second POV for this story. I loved that with Larika we got the opposite of the classic princess tropes that you come across, from the get-go Larika was strong and kicking ass, a soldier, and a leader of her men. We didn’t have to struggle through the typical gender issues to allow Larika to become the person she was or meant to be, Hodge from the get-go introduced us to a strong and powerful woman who was a fantastic arc of this story in whole and I can’t wait to see her continue to kick arse in the next book.

Hodge takes these two and builds up their own distinct and exciting storylines, he did a brilliant job of playing out those storylines, slowly intertwining these two together for an ending you knew was going to be exciting and exploded in a fantastic set piece. I mentioned how polished I thought this book was but again I just want to point out there wasn’t a part of this story that felt wrong or forced, Jael and Larika didn’t act out of character to fit the story and even though this isn’t something that’s commonplace, it happens enough that I really appreciate a story that flows well.

Finally, another thing I want to mention that really impressed me from Empire of Blood and Sand is Hodge’s worldbuilding. The setting and world he created had many of those common tropes I mentioned but he built something that differed enough that it felt unique, a fun spin on a classic idea. Hodge did a great job of painting this world very vividly and I had no issues imagining this apocalyptic desert setting, chasms running through it delivering both lush green lands and beautiful waters, gorgeous oases in the middle of this barren, dry world filled with plenty of terrifying monsters.

Empire of Blood and Sand is a brutal, nonstop rollercoaster that keeps you fully entertained and wanting to blitz through to the end, if you love the Witcher series and books like the recent Seven Deaths of an Empire, this is for you. Ive already bought myself a physical copy of Hodges book as this was one was I needed to add to my bookshelf, I genuinely can’t wait for Hodge to carry on this story and see this world explored more. Go read this.

If you dont trust me, trust the fact Devin Madson loved this and that should be enough…

Rating: 10/10

Synopsis

Kinch Na Shannack owes the Takers Guild a small fortune for his education as a thief, which includes (but is not limited to) lock-picking, knife-fighting, wall-scaling, fall-breaking, lie-weaving, trap-making, plus a few small magics. His debt has driven him to lie in wait by the old forest road, planning to rob the next traveler that crosses his path.

But today, Kinch Na Shannack has picked the wrong mark.

Galva is a knight, a survivor of the brutal goblin wars, and handmaiden of the goddess of death. She is searching for her queen, missing since a distant northern city fell to giants.

Unsuccessful in his robbery and lucky to escape with his life, Kinch now finds his fate entangled with Galva’s. Common enemies and uncommon dangers force thief and knight on an epic journey where goblins hunger for human flesh, krakens hunt in dark waters, and honor is a luxury few can afford.

Review

I write reviews, if you’re here today reading this review, it means hopefully by now you might have read a couple of my other reviews. If that’s true, then you’re going to read todays piece and I imagine you will probably think something along the lines of “Oh Dale, you are such a loveable and handsome fool”. Now most of that sentence is fairly self-explanatory, but why am I a fool you may ask? Because I’m going to make a proclamation that Ive made multiple times already this year, and since I feel the need to defend myself, I’m going to continue to blame the authors of these books for my foolishness. So, in a second when I once again make my great proclamation, I’m going to add a cliff note just to help with future reviews.

The Blacktongue Thief is the best book of 2021. *

*So far.

And you know what? Before I started reviewing books, I didn’t have this issue, I just read a book and when it was done, I would go “Oh fuck me, that was really good, I’m sad its over” and on to the next one. Now days I can’t do that, I have to think about the books as I read, and then afterwards I write some jumbled words on why you should read it too. So here, enjoy my jumbled words on why once again this might be my favourite book of 2021.

Before the community started whispering in excitement about The Blacktongue Thief I had never heard of Chris Buehlman, he is better known in the Horror community, and it best known for his book Between Two Fires. Chris’s debut into the world of high fantasy managed to land him a spot on nearly every most anticipated list of 2021 apart from mine apparently. I’m actually somewhat doubly a fool right now, because at no point did I ever pick up on the hype for this book, but least I rectified that.

The Blacktongue Thief is the story of Kinch Na Shannock, who is funnily enough, our thief. Kinch owes the Thieves guild a few coins for the training they gave him, and this debt has driven him to lay in wait, next to some old dingey forest road waiting for some poor sod to walk past so he and his acquaintances can rob them. Unluckily for Kinch, that poor sod turns out to be Galva, Handmaiden of the Goddess of Death, a survivor of the Goblin wars that decimated the lands and a one of the best Spanth Knights in the land. Obviously, the robbery goes wrong very quickly and instead Kinch suddenly finds his life intertwined with that of Galva’s as he follows her on her grand quest to find her Queen.

I could outrun the Spanth, but not the bird.

I pissed myself a little, I’m not ashamed to tell you.

 “Archer,” she said in that r-tapping Ispanthian accent. “Come out and help your friends.”

That they weren’t really my friends wasn’t a good enough reason to leave them maimed and wrecked on the white road, nor was the fact they deserved it.

There’s a ton of reasons why this book is superb, but I’m going to focus on the three things that really hit the spot for me. Humour in books isn’t something I overly care about, most fantasy these days has some elements of grimdark and don’t really need you to have a chuckle. However, that hasn’t stopped Nicholas Eames becoming a community favourite in the last few years, his books being to the genre like what the Guardians of the Galaxy films did for the MCU. Eames books are funny, they are books that make you laugh out loud, a book that makes you chuckle at every chapter, at the same time he manages to write a book that keeps its tensions growing, that’s filled with action and uniqueness throughout. Buehlman takes this to a new level as far as I’m concerned, Ive never laughed as much while reading as I did during my read of The Blacktongue Thief, I found myself telling random people who have zero interest in these books about the jokes just because I enjoyed it so much and I will forever think the “Brown Magic” paragraph will be one of the best things Ive ever read to this day.

I was half a heartbeat from pitying him, but my face  still stung from his bastard hand, so I said “You can have another slap at me, as far as the guilds concerned. Seems a shame  you wasted your first one doing so little harm, you fatherless kark.”

A kark is a wet fart, by the way, if you’ve never been to Galtia or Norholt. The kind you think will be one thing but it turns out to be the other, to your shame and sorrow.

The Second thing that I just found spectacular throughout but something that very much divided the readers of this book was Buehlman’s method of giving the reader information. Info dumping isn’t something that most people enjoy, massive slabs of information bang in the middle of the chapter takes you away from the story, it often feels jarring and unnatural, I saw numerous tweets about how this put people off during their own reads. However, don’t decide to end this review now and avoid this book, Buehlman is one of the few authors were Ive found this method not only works but is incredibly enjoyable, managing to make the large bits of information he delivers funny and genuinely interesting. These sections having such an important part to building the world we found ourselves in and giving it such a tremendous amount of depth. Even more amazingly, he managed to do it all without slowing down the pace at all, everything written felt important and necessary and I genuinely wish more books were written with this style.

Last on that list is a simple one, Kinch himself. We all know by now that I love a single POV story, and Kinch may be one of the single most enjoyable characters Ive ever had the pleasure of reading. I knew on the very first page that Kinch was going to be a character I loved, and I knew by the end of the first chapter that I was correct. Kinch is incredibly sarcastic, hilariously pessimistic but yet a man that gets up and faces everything that comes his way with a smile, and even with the humour and ridiculousness that is Kinch, I think the author did something that is rare for this type of book which was give you a character you genuinely cared about still. Buehlman wrote a person I would love to know, albeit I’m sure it wouldn’t be a relationship that would go amazingly well for me, but I would love to meet this man regardless.

What a fabulous kingdom the mind is, and you the Emperor of all of it. You can bed the dukes wife and have the duke strangled in your mind. A crippled man can think himself a dancer, and an idiot can fool himself wise. The day a Magicker peeks into the thoughts of commoners for some thin-skinned duke or king will be a bad day. Those with callused hands will rise on that day, for a man will only toil in a mine so long as he can dream of sunny fields, and he’ll only kneel for a tyrant if he can secretly cut that tyrants throat in the close theatre of his bowed head.

Ive written what I believe makes up a good book before, the need for interesting and intriguing characters, a compelling and imaginative plot, a world that feels well put together and unique in its way, in fantasy we normally want a magic system that feels different from the usual rehashed classics. Buehlman did all of this and vastly more. Not only was Kinch incredible, but we also got a supporting cast that were all incredibly beautifully written and entertaining, I would have loved to read the POV from any one of them. We got a plot that twisted and turned masterfully, keeping you on your toes and always making you want to turn to the next page, constantly funny and constantly exciting. We got a world that went beyond what most authors manage, Buehlman writing a fascinating world that feels rich with history and culture, plus creatures and races that we’ve seen many times over manging to feel that slight bit different. And we got that magic system we wanted, we got something wonderfully intriguing, magical tattoos and hidden traits that I won’t ruin for you by discussing further.

It proved a blessing we oiled our leathers. It rained like a bastard as we took the North road toward Norholt, the kind of rain that wets you in no time at all and just keeps at you until there’s nothing dry about you. The Kind of rain that makes you feel you’re just a turd the gods are trying to wash off the road.

I honestly can’t wait for the second book in this trilogy but in case the idea of having to wait is putting you off at all, this book is easy to read as a standalone, we get a fantastic conclusion to the main plotline Buehlman writes that doesn’t leave us on a massive cliff-hanger, and I will forever love an author that doesn’t leave us in pain at the end of a book.

This is my book of 2021, and I would incredibly surprised if that changes.

Rating: 9.5/10

Synopsis

A brand-new epic fantasy adventure set in the beloved world of the Demon Cycle, following a new generation of heroes, from New York Times bestselling author Peter V. Brett

Fifteen years have passed since the end of the war with demons, creatures of darkness who have hunted the night and plagued humanity since time out of mind. The heroes of humanity’s hour of need have become legend, and those who remain struggle to escape their shadows.

Olive Paper and Darin Bales have grown up in this new peaceful world. Demons have been all but destroyed, but dangers still lurk for the children of heroes.

Olive, Princess of Hollow, has her entire life planned out by her mother, Duchess Leesha Paper: a steady march on a checklist to prepare her for succession. The more her mother writes the script, the more Olive rails against playing the parts she is assigned.

Darin faces challenges of a different kind. Though free to choose his own path, the weight of legacy hangs heavy around his shoulders. It isn’t easy being the son of the man people say saved the world. Everyone expects greatness from Darin, but the only thing he’s ever been great at is hiding.

But when Olive and Darin step across the wards one night, they learn the demons are not all gone, and those that remain hunger for revenge. Events are set in motion that only prophecy can foresee as Olive and Darin seek to find their own places in the world in time to save it again.

Review

Thank you to Harper Collins and Netgalley for the ARC of The Desert Prince.

Ive tried to keep this review as spoiler free as possible, however if you haven’t read the Demon Cycle in completion and plan on reading this first (which I would not recommend) then some of the elements I discuss could be considered spoilers, in that case I would skip this review and instead just know that this book is amazing, you should add it to your TBR.

When we discuss Fantasy books the same titles and authors often come up, these people and their stories hold special places in peoples hearts and at the forefront of people’s minds.  But there is one author that I don’t think is mentioned nearly enough and we should remedy this, that author is Peter V Brett, the man behind the Demon Cycle. I would love to spend the rest of this review explaining to you all the reasons I love the Demon Cycle series, all the elements that make it so exciting and unique, but its been four years since I finished The Core, and my old man brain wouldn’t be able to pick out anything but the major plot points at this point. However, I do remember enough to know that Brett manages to hit every nail on the head when it comes to the four main elements of Fantasy writing, Characters, Worldbuilding, Plot, and Prose, and he does all of these amazingly well.

The Desert Prince is no exception to this and honestly, this is Brett’s best book yet.

The Desert Prince is set fifteen years after the events of The Core. Arlen Bales, The Painted Man, is gone, and the Demons have been for the most part, wiped out. Our book focuses on two characters, our first being Darin Bales, the Son of Arlen, the Son of the Deliverer. The legacy of his father hangs heavily on his shoulders as people hope that he will be the man his father was. The second is Olive Paper, Princess of the Hollow, daughter to Leesha Paper, Duchess of Hollow County, different from her mother in a lot of ways, living a life of confliction and secrets and again with the expectation of greatness weighing heavily on their shoulders.

As I said, I genuinely believe that Brett is able to do everything right when it comes to writing, but in my opinion what he really excels in is his character building. The Demon Cycle would never have been the book it was without Brett’s ability to write rich and exciting characters. He writes characters you fall in love with and characters you want to hate but struggle too. He writes imperfect people with all the flaws of real humans, people that make numerous mistakes just like me and you, and even though he might have some of these characters become immensely powerful they are never overpowered, their humanity dragging them down and their enemies always managing to surprise them.  

Brett played into this strength with The Desert Prince, writing two incredibly brilliant main characters that I loved to read. This book is a two person POV, which is only one over the perfect amount of POV characters to have in a book, and because of how much I loved both of them, I will allow it this time. Olive is clearly the star of the book and is our main protagonist, I would say around 80% of the book follows Olive’s story. For those who don’t remember from the first series, Olive was born intersex, the plot of the story heavily following the struggle to deal with Olives identity in the world she lives in, different aspects of her life expecting different versions of her, to the point she is never really allowed to choose for herself. As always Ive read a few reviews and saw a few people commenting on how they sometimes disliked how Olive reacted when she found out certain decisions made regarding her life, measures of control put in place and secrets kept from her. I think Brett did a fantastic job of writing a fifteen-year-old character that of course would not act logically, let their emotions speak for them and did not understand why those choices had been made even if technically they were the right thing to do.

“One day I will not be there to protect you, sister. Will you lay down and die?” The derision in her voice strikes harder than her kicks and punches. What was I apologising for? Not knowing secrets she made enormous effort to keep from me? Wanting a life of my own?”

Darin was a pure joy to read, as much as I loved Olive and her entire story, I’m devastated by how little page time he got. I’m not going to go into any great detail here, but Darin is beautifully written and feels so realistic, he’s perfect in the sense that we didn’t need another Arlen or a poor copycat of him, Instead we needed something new, and we got all of that with Darin, yet we get that gentle reminder of the character we loved the most in the previous series. On top of this Darin is incredibly unique to this book and world, were as the majority of The Desert Prince has a feeling of similarity we have something completely different and I cant wait to find out the extent of what Darin can do. Darin has so much promise and so much to give to this story, I love him.

“My name is Darin Bales, and everyone says my da saved the world. Its fine, I guess. He died before I was born so I don’t really miss him, and Ive no shortage of family—blood and otherwise.”

I want to point out how impressed I was with Brett’s writing regarding sexuality and same sex relationships. A book with an intersex main character isn’t something Ive read before (I don’t believe) and reading about the confusion and issues that someone who doesn’t understand their own sexuality goes through gave the book something so much more important than the usual issues we would experience in a classic Fantasy novel. And not to trivialise any of the issues that people who struggle with these issues face, but as someone that hasn’t had to face those struggles, I felt I could experience that a little bit of that struggle through Brett’s writing and help me as a person understand it a little more.

“We are what life makes us, sister,” Micha says. Again, that word, like a needle stuck through the heart of me. “Brother!” I snap, and it feels right. Micha is taken aback for a moment, but she takes a deep breath and immediately her tension eases. She Nods. “Brother. Forgive me if it takes some getting used to.” I’m so ready for a fight it takes me a moment for the concession to sink in.

The start of this book was honestly quite slow, and after years of peace why wouldn’t it be, the characters themselves had become older, fatter, and complacent, and the book reflected that, but holy damn did it explode eventually. Brett popped out from wherever he was hiding and after a powerful uppercut you suddenly know you aren’t in Kansas anymore. This book goes from strength to strength, Brett managing to build tension constantly, we go from scene to scene wondering what the hell will happen next. I burned through The Desert Prince in less than a week, which you may scoff at if you wish, for me these days managing to finish a book of this size in less than seven days is an achievement, this book kept me up every night, demanding your attention.

tl;dr

The Desert Prince is a book that demands you turn the page, a book that that you think about when you cant be with it, a book that is relentless in its need to be read. Brett is a master storyteller and knows how to punch you in the gut when it comes to torturing you with a masterfully woven plot and I can’t wait for the next instalment so I can feel it all over again.

The Desert Prince is released on the 3/8/2021, You can buy yourself a copy of over at Broken Binding, they are offering handsigned copies with sprayed covers and a wrapping for 25 quid, plus with my code DFREVIEW221 you can get 5% off

Rating: 9/10

Synopsis

Never be lost for words again…with this book of lost words. Have you ever wanted to wield the silver tongue of Loki, or to hammer home your point like a Thundergod? Old Norse is the language of legends and the stuff of sagas, the inspiration for Tolkien and Marvel, for award-winning manga and epic videogames. It is the language of cleverly crafted kennings, blood-curdling curses, and pithy retorts to Ragnarök. Old Norse for Modern Times gives you the perfect phrase for every contemporary situation—from memorable movie quotes (“We’re going to need a bigger boat.” Þurfa munu vér skip stærra) to battle-cries to yell on Discord (“Do I look to be in a gaming mood?” Sýnisk þér ek vera í skapi til leika?), from mead hall musings (“This drink, I like it! ANOTHER!” Líkar mér drykkr þessi! ANNAN!) to tried-and-tested pickup lines (“Nice tattoo!” Fagrt er húðflúrið”). With over 500 phrases inside (plus the chance to add your own!) it is the perfect guide for Vikings fans, whether they are re-enactors, role-players, or simply in love with Ragnar.

Review

Thank you Ian for supplying me with a copy of your book for an honest review.

This is an oddity for me, I’m reviewing something that isn’t a fantasy book….

I’m always very honoured when an author comes to me with a request to review a book, I find it a massive compliment and it also fulfils a dream of mine that I’ve had for many years, so when Ian Stuart Sharpe came to me asking if I would review the book that he wrote along with Dr. Arngrímur Vídalín, a professor of Icelandic Literature and Joshua Gillingham, a fellow Canadian author, I quickly said yes. This book was “Old Norse for a Modern Time”, a language guide of sorts, not the most practical one I will say, definitely not the sort that will help you survive a trip to Iceland but maybe one that could get you a few laughs from the locals. When Sharpe sent through this request, I was already heavily steeped into the beautiful Norse world written by John Gwynne (The Shadow of the Gods), so how could I say no? I mean learning a few extra words to immerse myself that little bit more into a world and culture I love, that felt like a rather good idea. Learning a few extra words so that every time I challenge someone to Holmgang* I have something else to back it up with instead of just beating my own chest, that felt like a great idea.

*You may at this point go “Dale, how many times have you challenged someone to Holmgang, it can’t be that often?” Well, its four, and I only learned the word in May.

Honestly if this book does one thing other than entertain, I hope its that it helps to set off a spark of curiosity, Norse history is beautiful and incredibly rich, and you should delve into it fully. It features in so much of what we love, from movies like Marvels, Thor, some of our favourite tv shows, Vikings and The Last Kingdom being possibly some of the best things on TV, all the way to our favourite fantasy such as Tolkien’s epics. Norse mythology and Old Norse Culture isn’t something that’s mentioned enough or taught in our schools, we learn about the Greeks and Romans and other ancient civilisations but learn so little about the Norse who had such massive impacts on our world and even more so on my own little country.

Now there’s two ways to enjoy this great little book, I read some actual pages, and being a man that can barely speak my own first language of English, let alone a scrap of old Norse, it comes with a handy little guide at the beginning to some of the non-Latin letters that haven’t been used in our own language in 500 years (a little titbit I stole from the book, extra points for learning!). Plus, as an added bonus, the professor has added a few handy notes throughout, these are wonderfully entertaining and useful for what you’re reading. There is also a fantastic audio book version that has beautifully accurate and appropriate pronunciations which I would also urge you too check out if you want to make sure you get these perfectly correct, unlike my own butchered attempts when trying out some of my favourites to my magnificent little better half.

Here’s some of my favourites, and honestly this is only from the first half, there’s some beautiful pop culture references in here that had me chuckling.

If I die in battle today, please delete my browser history.

 Ef ek skylda falla í þessi orrustu, fyrirkom þú þá vefsǫgu minni.

Gods, is that the time? My wife will have me blood-eagled.

 Við guðin, es svá áliðit orðit? Kona mín mun rista mér blóðǫrn.

May the Force be with you.

Megi fjǫlkynngin fylgia yðr

I am the monster parents tell their children about at night.

Ek em skrímsl þat, es foreldrar kveða um til barna sinna á kvǫldin

What do you mean the Easter bunny isn’t real either?

 Ósvinnu mælir þú, at páskahérinn sé hugarburðr einn?

I used to be an adventurer like you, then I took an arrow to the knee.

 Vas ek víkingr sem þú, áðr ek fekk ǫr í knéð

After reading through this I found out Ian Stuart Sharpe has actually published a few other books and honestly, they sound amazing. One thing I really could feel through the small amount of writing I experienced, and the reviews of Sharpe’s other books, was the passion he has for this subject. The research and knowledge he’s poured into these books clearly shows and I can’t wait to read more of his writing. Sharpe’s VikingVerse is an alternate History where the Norse culture didn’t die out in favour of Christianity, the Vikings now rule the Stars and the Seas with their Restless Fleet, reviews calling it part history, part fantasy and part sci-fi, I call it a series I’ve quickly added to my TBR.

Old Norse is a fantastic quick little read, educational, and humorous, even if it’s not something quite up your alley it’s a perfect little gift for that friend you know that loves everything Norse, and if there’s one thing you can take away today, it’s that Viking helmets didn’t have horns.

Go buy this great little book.