Posted by There seem to be two themes to my batch so far this year — zombies or the undead mixed with classic epic fantasy.
Children are going missing, a lot of children, and it’s said that the Grey Wanderer is responsible. The Grey Wanderer is a horror story turned real and he’s a necromancer-type villain who raised the zombie character in the prologue. We follow this risen character through most of the story and his is a broken tale, forced to abduct children and obey his new masters. He can’t remember much from his old life and he’s sort of cast adrift mentally. He remembers his name was Brogon Lord but that’s about it. His old life is like an echo that grows fainter over time. He can sort of discern the kind of man he was based off what he was wearing when he died (armor and swords and died via sword wound). So, he knows he was a ‘man of the sword’ but doesn’t know if he wa was a good man protecting the innocent, or someone who preyed on the innocent. He has urges to go against the will of the Grey Wanderer, he knows what he’s doing is wrong, so he thinks he may have been a decent person. He doesn’t want to hurt the kids but the tune the Grey Wanderer sings can’t be denied. It was this character that hooked me because I don’t see that kind of POV often.
We then cut to the character who’s trying to find the Grey Wanderer, Brogon, and stop the abductions. His name is Einos and he’s a small lord over a decent sized town and it’s his problem to find the lost kids and who’s responsible. He was actually just chilling in his house when a ghost came to him, a girl missing half her face, and she was asking him why she had to die. Apparently, the supernatural is not a common occurrence in this world. Einos makes it a point to establish he doesn’t believe in the supernatural but couldn’t come to any other conclusion after the apparition that was in his house. Einos is a genuinely good-hearted governor and wants to do right by his people… and to do that he has to admit he can’t handle the problem himself, he has to call in the war priests.
Enter war priest, Quenlin, and his apprentice who are also their own POVs. These two are a fairly typical master-apprentice pair with the kind hearted mentor teaching the shy, less confident apprentice. I feel like people who want this kind of trope could find themselves satisfied with this portrayal.
We also follow Lizette, a mother to one of the lost children and she’s convinced her daughter is dead. None of the kids have returned and so with each passing day she becomes more resolved about her daughter’s death. She wants to find the person responsible and bring them to justice, turning her grief into rage. I found her arc to be compelling. Unfortunately, I have several friends who have lost children and it’s a sort of pain unlike any other. One of them lost her son over a decade ago and he’s still a constant topic of conversation and a point of pain for her — daily. Every day. So, to get this sort of character right takes a LOT of understanding of grief over the loss of a child and it could be challenging to put on page because as a reader it would seem like a single point character trait, loss. I feel like her character explored a lot of the darker elements of the story and her resolution was a good one.
There is a ton of world building in this and it was a nice drip feed where we get little bits at a time, just enough to let us know what’s going on in the current scene, and enough to get us interested in knowing more. There are all sorts of various fantasy elements, but they’re kind of in the background sometimes, like the floating city of the merchants, or the witch queens of fairy tails. We get to see a lot of the supernatural side of things through the undead character Brogon. We get to see why the children are being abducted and who’s doing it through his POV and it’s not for the faint of heart. There’s a lot of violence, gore, and darker topics in this book including child death so be forewarned.
The pacing was a little slow, especially at first when I was getting to know all these POV characters and how they fit into the world and story. Once I was about 30% in I felt like I was investing in both the plot and characters and things picked up pace. The style of the writing is definitely more old school, again, that seems to be a theme with my batch this year. As mentioned in other reviews, I do prefer a more modern tone and vocab because I tend to fall into a story easier if the dialogue matches how I speak, but that’s completely personal preference and your mileage may vary. Although this is book 1 in a series I found that the story wrapped up nicely with little to no loose ends. This feels like each book may tell the story of one of the war priests adventures and then move on to the next story/book, much like Pratchett — except this isn’t comedy, lol.
Overall, I would recommend this book to those who enjoy classic but darker epic fantasy stories with many POVs, lots of world building, and a slow build up to a large scale plot.
I read this book to completion and as such this book is marked SAFE at the time of this review.
(I am cutting DNF books first, and then I will start cutting books that I had finished in batches of 2-3 leaving the 3-5 semifinalists I’ll be handing over to Kristen)