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The Ninth Rain (The Winnowing Flame Trilogy, #1)

The Ninth Rain (The Winnowing Flame Trilogy, #1)

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The Ninth Rain by Jen Williams
My rating: 4.5 of 5 stars

The Ninth Rain won the Best Fantasy Novel trophy in British Fantasy Awards 2018; this is a totally well-deserved victory.

On Goodreads, you’ll see that I put my co-blogger’s name as the one who recommended this book to me; do know that for the past two years, there were actually many readers who have told/asked me to read and review not only The Winnowing Flame Trilogy, but also William’s debut series: The Copper Cat trilogy. I’ll get to reading The Copper Cat eventually, but for now I’m so into this series, and let me just say that from the experience of finishing this book alone, I already know I’ll be reading any book that Williams published. This book is approximately 550 pages long and I finished it within two days; it’s been months since I felt this compelled to read a high fantasy novel at this pace. …

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The Blackest Heart (The Five Warrior Angels, #2)

The Blackest Heart (The Five Warrior Angels, #2)

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Review copy provided by the author in exchange for an honest review.

The Blackest Heart by Brian Lee Durfee
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I’m absolutely stunned by this 960 pages marvel.

Seriously, The Forgetting Moon was awesome already, but The Blackest Heart triumphed over its predecessor in every possible way. I don’t even have words to express how grateful I am that the author sent me these two books, which weren’t even on my radar, to review; it’s truly serendipitous that I found a new ongoing favorite series because of it. …

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The Forgetting Moon (The Five Warrior Angels, #1)

The Forgetting Moon (The Five Warrior Angels, #1)

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Review copy provided by the author in exchange for an honest review.

The Forgetting Moon by Brian Lee Durfee
My rating: 4.5 of 5 stars

A severely underrated epic fantasy debut.

The Forgetting Moon is Brian Lee Durfee’s debut and it has been published for almost three years now. Honestly, it’s quite sinful that this book has less than 500 ratings on Goodreads at the moment; not only this is THE biggest fantasy debut I’ve ever read so far, The Forgetting Moon is also one of the strongest beginnings to an epic fantasy series I’ve come across. I’m truly flabbergasted by how underrated this debut is. Gorgeous cover art by Richard Anderson, a beautifully drawn map by Robert Lazzaretti, high-quality floppy paperback (yes, this is a plus), and most importantly, amazing content. Why is no one talking about this book!? I seriously wish someone had recommended this book to me; I never heard about this series until the author himself sent a review request to me and I’m gratified that he did.

Picture: My signed copy of The Forgetting Moon (I have to share this. Check out the badass signature!)

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Wrath (The Faithful and the Fallen, #4)

Wrath (The Faithful and the Fallen, #4)

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Wrath by John Gwynne
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Masterpiece.

Mark my words, if this series ever gets adapted into a television series with the same production value given to Game of Thrones, it will create a myriad of fan bases all over the world. Watch out George R. R. Martin, while you’re waiting for the breeze from the Winds of Winter to come, John Gwynne has appeared out of nowhere and he has conquered the genre; the apprentice has become the master.

Wrath is, in my opinion, the best out of the four books in the series, which means the series always got better with each installment and with its completion I’ve decided to include John in my list of favorite authors of all time. That makes him one of my very few auto-buy authors; along with Brandon Sanderson and Joe Abercrombie, I’ll be content with buying every book they write.

“It will be a dark day, a bloody day, a proud day, for this is the day of our wrath.”

I’ll start off my review with two simple questions.

1. Does this series provide something new to the genre?

No, almost every single plot device here has been done before.

2. Is it good?

No, good is a really huge understatement. It’s damn near perfection for its genre. …

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Ruin (The Faithful and the Fallen, #3)

Ruin (The Faithful and the Fallen, #3)

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Ruin by John Gwynne
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Intense, brutal, gory, poignant, epic, and filled with love and vengeance; John Gwynne simply can do no wrong

“Two for vengeance. One for Love.”

Ruin, the third book in The Faithful and the Fallen series is a great example of how a penultimate epic fantasy installment ought to be written. This was even better than its predecessors; making this the best book in the series so far. …

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Valor (The Faithful and the Fallen, #2)

Valor (The Faithful and the Fallen, #2)

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Valor by John Gwynne
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

‘War has erupted in the Banished Lands as the race for power intensifies’ and with that eruption, comes a well deserved 5-stars rating.

I gave huge praises to Malice, it was impressive but Valor, the second book in John Gwynne’s debut series was incredibly better than its predecessor. I included both Malice and Valor in one of my all-time favorite lists; that’s two out of four books of the series already. Judging from the quality progression of the series, I strongly believe the second half of The Faithful and the Fallen will follow that notion. …

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Malice (The Faithful and the Fallen, #1)

Malice (The Faithful and the Fallen, #1)

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Malice by John Gwynne
My rating: 4.5 of 5 stars

Do you ever have this feeling, just after you finished reading the first book of a series, you knew immediately there’s a huge potential for the series to become one of your favorite series of all time? Malice, the first book in The Faithful and the Fallen quartet by John Gwynne is one of those rare cases for me.

What started out as a simple classic tale of Good vs Evil ended up being not as simple as I thought. As the story progressed, the story evolved darker gradually while keeping the theme ‘Good vs Evil’ at its heart. Has this theme been done before in the past? Yes, more than a million times already. Will I ever get bored with it? No, never. It’s my favorite kind of story; it’s the essence of the majority of epic fantasy books, video games, and movies. What this theme requires to reach greatness has always been a touch of creativity, to make the story unique, make it the author’s own story to share and this, John Gwynne did phenomenally. …

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Red Sister (Book of the Ancestor, #1)

Red Sister (Book of the Ancestor, #1)

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ARC provided by the publisher—Harper Voyager—in exchange for an honest review.

Red Sister by Mark Lawrence
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The magic of rereading Red Sister strikes a gold mine.

Other than a few changes or grammatical fix, I rarely rewrite my full review. However, Red Sister merits one because I loved it so much more than my first read; the quality jumped from great to amazing in my criteria. I was pleasantly surprised by this. I decided to reread Red Sister in order to refresh my memory before I continue with the series, I didn’t expect to enjoy it this much and I certainly didn’t realize how much I forgot and failed to appreciate in my first read. …

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Blood Song (Raven’s Shadow, #1)

Blood Song (Raven’s Shadow, #1)

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Blood Song by Anthony Ryan
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A masterwork you don’t want to miss; it is with temerity that I declare Blood Song as one of the best debut novels I’ve ever read.

Why do I love this book? The simple answer would be because this is a book that has everything I love in epic fantasy and that it hit all the right notes for me. I could practically end my review with that answer but that wouldn’t do justice to how great this book is. Now, it’s time for me to take on the role of the Chronicler and inform you why it’s essential for you to read Vaelin Al Sorna’s coming-of-age story. …

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The Hod King (The Books of Babel, #3)

The Hod King (The Books of Babel, #3)

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The Hod King by Josiah Bancroft
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The Hod King is Bancroft’s best work so far; a novel that’s stunning in originality enhanced with suspenseful and exciting moments.

Before I start my review, I would like to mention that, if you need a detailed summary of the series so far as I did, check out www.bookseriesrecaps.com for their great plot overviews—tons of spoilers, of course—of both Senlin Ascends and Arm of the Sphinx. I finished reading Arm of the Sphinx in July 2017 and since then I’ve read and reviewed almost 200 novels. Saying that I needed a reread of the series or at least a memory refreshment is a massive understatement. A reread is always preferable but if you’re being crushed by your TBR tower—I know you are—and don’t have the time to reread the series at the moment, this website is your solution; without it, I wouldn’t have been able to appreciate this book without rereading the entire series. For the sake of making this review as spoiler-free as possible, I’ll keep this review shorter than usual and there won’t be any in-world characters’ names mentioned.

“My sense of being, my identity, whatever you want to call it, it doesn’t reside in my parts. It lives in my past, and in the continuity of my present thoughts, and in my hopes for the future. I’m more afraid of losing a memory than a limb.”

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