Posted by ESME’S REVIEW
This book will be for people who like Sons of Anarchy but wish that instead of humans riding motorcycles, the main characters were all Orcs riding literal hogs. This is not a book for people who prefer to avoid violence, sexism, racism, rough language, sex scenes… I could go on. Consider this to be a book with a trigger warning for “all of it.”
Jackal is the main character in this book, and he’s a part of something called a “hoof,” which is basically just a clan of riders akin to a biker gang. These guys are extremely rough around the edges, and much of this book’s page time is taken up with dialogue of these guys shit talking each other. Jackal’s hoof is unusual because there’s a female rider among them named Fetch. Jackal was one of the few who tried to get her into the clan, and they’ve been close all their lives. These dynamics take twists and turns throughout the book, and it’ll leave you surprised sometimes at how things turn out.
Half-orcs typically grow up without fathers because all half-orcs are born from orc-on-human mating, and these are not usually consensual encounters. Typically, the women falling victim to these assaults will kill the babies after birth or give them up to someone else who would take them… or sometimes they kill themselves before the child is even born. Jackal is not unique in his lack of biological family life, and it’s not as if he can start his own family either, since half-orc males are always sterile. It’s kind of a lonely life where his hoof is his family, and he wants to protect it as best he can.
So, here’s where the tension comes in — he deeply disagrees with the hoof leader’s recent behavior. Jackal thinks the current leader, the Claymaster, is putting the dwindling clan in danger and ultimately leading to its ruin. Believing he can do a better job, he’s planning on challenging the Claymaster for leadership. Given their incredibly rough lifestyle, it shouldn’t come as a shock that if you challenge the leader of a hoof clan, you’re asking for an execution if your plot fails. It’s within your rights to challenge the leader, but it’s the custom to be executed if you fail to get enough support (determined via clan vote).
The world-building in this book was strong – there were so many details and nuances to the culture and practices that it felt lived in without becoming overburdening and overwhelming to the story. Small tidbits about Orc lore, history, biology, and culture, sprinkled in from time to time, which gave a layered experience that built up as the book continued. I prefer this sort of method over info-dumping in long paragraphs that can be difficult to digest and enjoy.
I don’t know that I really *liked* any of these characters. They were all kind of dicks, all kind of violent, and in general, not my sort of folks — but I will say they were well-written and thought out, and so I was engaged with the story even if I wasn’t really rooting for anyone in particular.
KRISTEN’S REVIEW
Shenanigans with lots of cursing (love it), crassness (also love it), dick jokes (that I laughed at a bunch of, not even lying), crazy-ass-violence against centaurs, elves, and orcs and pretty much anything else that threaten them (sweet!) and more surprises and plot twists than I think I was ever expecting. Things go down in this book that I was legitimately surprised by the first time, and, while not as much a surprise the second time, were still very noticeably well thought out and intricately plotted. There are plenty of twists and turns, and the whole thing was riveting to read. This book is so well paced that it was hard to put down to read other things, most notably eating and sleeping (after all I was trying to fit this book in around 5 other books, lol). It made me laugh, it made me sad, and it made me angry at times. Even the second time around!
But it’s obviously not going to be for everyone. There are a plethora of f-bombs in this book (and I love it!), but that’s only the tip of the iceberg of vulgarity. Words like cunt, cunny, and quim get thrown around as well. Our heroes go whoring often enough that they have built a repertoire with the whores, and they joke about sex perhaps more often than anything else, but despite how distasteful any of that might sound, it all fits in the world very well. This is what these guys (and Fetch, the sole female member of the Bastards) are. This is the world that they live in. They are mongrels, half-breeds. They’re hated by the humans, hated by the orcs, hated by just about everyone but each other… and hated by each other sometimes too. This isn’t a happy world. It’s not a beautiful world. This is a gritty, dark, misogynistic, homophobic, xenophobic world, and despite all that, it’s still fun as hell to read about, because Jackal and his hoofmates make it fun to read about by being ridiculously vulgar about absolutely everything when they need to be.
So, I mean, if you don’t like the word fuck, you should probably not read it. But if you do, like I do… you’re probably going to have a fun time. 😀
In short, it’s still definitely 5/5 stars from me! I still fucking loved it! Live in the Saddle! DIE ON THE HOG!!!!!!!!
PLACEMENT:
Currently placed third 8/24/25 – subject to change