Posted by ESME’S REVIEW:
This contest is unreasonably difficult. I like this book just as much as I like the others on the board, but I can’t put every title in the top spot, and so basically my arm is being twisted right now.
This is a classic epic fantasy set in a medievalish world, which has a classic, more “handwavey” kind of magic. So, in theory, this should have broad appeal across fantasy reader fans. That said, if you’re generally turned off by those sorts of books, I’d argue it’s still fresh and reads quickly and excitingly, rather than feeling tired and “done.”
This is a world healing from a war that ended not too long ago. There are economic hardships as much of the kingdom has either been killed or wounded, and there’s also a plague running around the countryside that’s basically a zombie disease. They’re horrifying because they don’t just shamble around; the fresh ones with plenty of muscle tone can run after your ass, and if they touch you, you turn into one of them. Aranok, the King’s envoy, has been sent on a super dangerous mission — to restore a foreign queen to power. To do that, he has to cross through his own war-torn countryside full of all sorts of dangers. Along this journey, Aranok starts to see red flags that things aren’t as they seem. The king is lying to someone, possibly them, about the state of the world and which cities have or have not fallen to the plague. Why would he do that? What’s going on? Is someone lying to the king? No one is really sure, not even the characters, until some large reveals happen later.
What really makes this book shine are the characters — we get a fair number of POVs and they are all so distinct, there’s no mistaking whose head you’re in with each POV. My biggest pet peeve with large-scale POVs is that things get muddy, confusing, and I end up being bored by characters that don’t have enough page time to get developed. Generally speaking, when an author puts more than 5 POVs in a book, I start to wig out. However, in this book, we mostly get pairs of POVs; Aranok is the King’s envoy, and Allandria is his bodyguard/girlfriend, Meristan is a monk and he’s a mentor to Samily, who is a monk warrior, we have Glorbad and Nirea, a pair of pirates, and then Vostin, who also hangs around with Aranok and Allandria. In this way, when we switch POVs, the other characters are still on page and being developed even if we aren’t in their heads. This really lends depth to the characters in a way that most books with this many POVs fall short.
Trying to go into all of them would make this review painfully long, so very briefly: Aranok is my favorite, and I think he’s meant to be. He’s a pretty powerful magic user who genuinely wants to help the people of his kingdom. He’s the King’s envoy and has a lot of power and pull, but he uses it for the betterment of everyone and isn’t a typical asshole in power. He and his gf have a very loving, normal, healthy relationship, and I prefer those over toxic relationships by far. Allandria is a badass warrior/bodyguard who helps keep Aranok in check. Vostin is a young 15-year-old orphan who was trying to keep his father’s smithy alive when Aranok found him being bullied by the palace guard for not paying taxes. Instead of watching him get forced into general labor servitude to pay his taxes, he scooped him up and told the king he needed a blacksmith and whisked him off on a dangerous adventure.
Meristan and Samily are both hella religious, I mean everything with these two falls back on their religion and their god. Typically, these kinds of characters either irritate me or bore me to tears. They irritate me when they’re holier than thou but don’t follow their own rules, and they bore me to tears when they’re so goody two-shoes that they force their shit on everyone else. These two definitely have their beliefs and advocate for their religion, but I’d also argue they’re pretty tolerant of others, even if their in-head dialogue doesn’t buy what the other characters are saying. I live in a country where religious bigots are rampant right now, and these two are not that despite their rigid beliefs. I can see how they’d annoy others, but I found them to be a well-thought-out foil to characters like Aranok, who are not religious.
Nirea and Glorbad are the two rough-around-the-edges crew members, in that Nirea used to be a pirate and Glorbad is your typical soldier — but when I say rough around the edges, this is a loose term. I would not say they are “morally grey” as their decisions and thought processes on-page are almost always what the reader would consider the right thing to do; they’ve just had a bloodier past.
There are twists and turns and punches that get more frequent and hard-hitting as the book goes on – even on this re-read and knowing what’s coming, it was still exciting to read the reveal. Instead of being bored because I knew what was going to happen, my re-read was engaging, trying to find the clues dropped before the reveals.
Overall, this is one of my favorites from the contest!
KRISTEN’S REVIEW:
I also adored this book! It’s a fairly standard epic fantasy, following what are basically a mage and his bodyguard, an archer on their journey. Aranok is a draoidh, which is a kind of mage, and the envoy of the King of Eidyn. Allandria is his bodyguard, and his lover. The King, who is also a longtime friend of Aranok, is maintaining the kingdom but things aren’t going completely great. There is a plague across the land that turns people into mindless zombies, along with demons and other monsters, and the blame lays with the first draoidh to ever have two abilities… which just so happened to be necromancy and demonology (womp).
The King orders Aranok and Allandria to find an ousted queen and re-instate her to her throne so that she can ally with Eidyn, who is plenty in need of allies. They head out on their journey with a former-pirate, and an old soldier, and collect another few allies along the way, including a young paladin and a monk. Many, many shenanigans are hard along the way, as they run into zombies, demons, insect people, other draoidhs and more.
I listened to the audiobook, which was a no-brainer since it is narrated by one of my favorite narrators ever, and it was 20 hours or so of just… a great story. There were twists and turns, there were highs and lows, and there were some really great characters on interesting adventures. Also, at times, it felt like this book was written entirely so that Euan Morton could read it to people. It just… fit. He fit.
Aranok is easy to cheer for. He’s led a difficult life, as draoidhs are mostly reviled in this world. He managed to become the second most powerful person in the country by chance. Aranok is also just a good dude. Despite people treating him badly for what he is, he goes out of his way more than once to help a person in need. The relationship between him and Allandria is lovely, too. I dig a main character falling in love along their journey, but one in an established relationship that isn’t a shitshow is also great. Allandria protects him, but she also doesn’t take shit from him and will tell him what’s on her mind. It’s kind of adorable, in its way.
The last hour or so of this book was fucking bonkers, and I mean that in a good way. I saw absolutely none of that coming. There were clues… but they were so subtly placed… just wow. Well done.
All told, I thought this one was written well, paced well, and while it does use tropes that have been in epic fantasy since forever (not gunna lie, it kind of feels like a D&D campaign at times), I really enjoyed my time with it. It felt… traditional, but told in a way that was compelling to me, and I look forward to more of the story!
RATING
As it stands now 9/1/25, this book is third on the board for us, edging out The Grey Bastards but not quite surpassing Orconomics or Small Miracles. To be clear, we are splitting hairs. I gave 9s to all of our top three right now.