#mark lawrence

***I received a galley of this book in exchange for an honest review. Thank you publisher! ***

6 out of 5 stars

From the beginning, from the very first few sentences of The Red Sister - I knew that this series was going to be special. I remember devouring the first book and falling madly in love with the characters of the world. When you love a series so much there’s always something very bittersweet when you receive the last book, and you cannot help but wonder - will it be good? Will it do justice to the characters I love? Well I shouldn’t have doubted Mark - he left my heart on the floor, sobbing my eyes out - it was beyond better.

I will not go into a lot of details because I do not want to spoil it for anyone. However, I will say this, the ending is everything you want and more. It is full of twists and turns and thing I never saw coming and loss and love and hope. And the last paragraph - my god - that last paragraph  is honestly EVERYTHING.

This is Mark’s magnum opus (in my opinion) and I highly suggest anyone who loves strong female characters, badass fighting scenes, close friendships, intense romance and incredible sci-fi setting to pick up this trilogy.

~Iryna

1. A Court of Frost and Starlight by Sarah J Maas.  1/5 

2. The Liars Key by Mark Lawrence 3.5/5 

3. The Wheel of Osheim by Mark Lawrence  3.5/5

4. The Lies of Lock Lamora by Scott Lynch  5/5

5. Red Seas under Red Skies by Scott Lynch  5/5

6. The Republic of Thieves by Scott Lynch  5/5

7. Prince of Thorns by Mark Lawrence  2/5 

 I read quite a bit of fantasy this month so I will probably need to go up into space in June. May was definitely a mixed month when it came to reading, starting off with the biggest disappointment going and then meeting my new fave Lock Lamora (Where is the rest of this fandom?!) 

Worst Book

Ive seen a lot of commentary on ACOFAS and now I’m going to put my oar in too. A court of frost and starlight was so, so disappointing for me. I love Sarah’s books, I will always read Sarah’s books and when I criticise the books it not a criticism on Sarah m’kay? A Lot of people complained that she got the characters wrong  but i would argue that the characters were the best aspect of the novella. Nesta’s character was the best thing about the book and props to Sarah for having the balls to represent what real trauma looks like and not having her run away with cassian and live happily ever after. She’s the most interesting character Sarah has got right now and I can’t wait to see where she takes her.  That is where the good ends for me. There was no real plot, i was waiting for it to get somewhere and bam the book was finished. It feels like a money making book rather than a labor of love and it actually read like a draft rather than a finished piece. I don't know if it was rushed or what but Sarah should know better than to mix first person with third person. That really jarred the reading experience for me. Okay I’m going to stop ranting about this now, don’t come for me okay. 

Best Book

On the Flip side. Holy Mother Forking God, Scott Lynch you clever bastard. Why have i not read these books before? The Gentlemen Bastard sequence is fire , it has taken over my life. READ IT. The world building is on par with Sanderson’s Stormlight Archives and is so inspiring for a writer to read such an engrossing, fully fleshed world. The characters are fantastically flawed but lovable all the same. If you liked Six of Crows you will love this. I was so gutted when i realised the next book isn’t out until next year but then again it means i can reread them all. Bastards 4 lyf . 

1.The Alloy of Law, Brandon Sanderson : 3/5  A bit of a change from the mistborn trilogy but very enjoyable. 

2.Shadows of Self, Brandon Sanderson : 3.5/5 Another solid installment, enjoyed this more and more as I got to know the characters.

3.The Bands of Mourning, Brandon Sanderson : 4/5 loved this, taking the characters out of Elendel really worked for me. Can’t wait for The Lost Metal.

4.Illuminae, Jay Kristoff and Amie Kaufman:  3/5 Really enjoyable, the format was a bit jarring to begin with but I quickly got used to this. 

5.The Emperor’s Soul, Brandon Sanderson : 4/5 Loved this read just wasn’t long enough for me.

6.Gemina, Jay Kristoff and Amie Kaufman : 4/5 Fabulous, more engaging than the first installment. Brilliant narrative, nice little world-building tidbits, great characters. 

7.Obsidio, Jay Kristoff and Amie Kaufman: 5/5 One of the best conclusions to a trilogy I have read in a while. I’m not often floored by a plot twist but these guys completely surprised me.

8.Sixth of Dusk, Brandon Sanderson : 2.5/5 it was okay, not Sanderson’s best short but I appreciated its place in the Cosmere.

9.Shadows for Silence in the Forest of Hell, Brandon Sanderson : 4/5 Exciting and intriguing short. Hope Sandi writes more in this world. 

10.Prince of Fools, Mark Lawrence : 3/5 took some time to get into but enjoyable. A nice fantasy with dastardly characters. 

11.  The Rose and The Dagger, Renee Ahdieh : Did Not Finish. Didn’t like it so i put it down.

Best Read of April : Obsidio :) 

‘THEY CAME AGAINST HER AS A CHILD. NOW THEY FACE THE WARRIOR.

The ice is advancing, the Corridor narrowing, and the empire is under siege from the Scithrowl in the east and the Durns in the west. Everywhere, the emperor’s armies are in retreat.

Nona faces the final challenges that must be overcome if she is to become a full sister in the order of her choice. But it seems unlikely that Nona and her friends will have time to earn a nun’s habit before war is on their doorstep.

Even a warrior like Nona cannot hope to turn the tide of war.’

The shiphearts offer strength that she might use to protect those she loves, but it’s a power that corrupts. A final battle is coming in which she will be torn between friends, unable to save them all. A battle in which her own demons will try to unmake her.

A battle in which hearts will be broken, lovers lost, thrones burned.’

Many thanks to Harper Voyager for a copy of Holy Sister in return for an honest review.

I first read ‘Red Sister’, the first instalment in the ‘Book of Ancestor’ trilogy, in 2017. I immediately fell in love with the tumultuous adventures of our protagonist, Nona Grey, who manages to find herself with mortal enemies before she exits single figures. A worker of dark magic and adopted by a monastery of fighting nuns, Nona’s story is spread across a trilogy and ‘Holy Sister’ is the final work that brings all the threads of her story to a stunning conclusion.

By the start of ‘Holy Sister’ we have followed Nona through her childhood and teenage years, through her education in fighting and magic and her journeys along the length and breadth of the Corridor. Nona is a strong and impassioned young woman who has developed a sense of person and her own brand of right and wrong. Surrounded by fierce and complicated characters, such as her fellow magic worker and former nemesis Ara and the shadow touched Sister Kettle, Nona has reached the prime of her power and the understanding of just how much the world has to fear from the plots spawning on all sides. Lawrence manages to bring the complex storylines to a conclusion that is eminently satisfying.

Through the course of these books I’ve laughed and cried in equal measures. The relationships between characters are complicated and fraught in all the best ways. I won’t spoil the final relationship status of Nona at the end but it’s beautifully resolved and, honestly, made me well up with happiness. It’s a conclusion that makes beautiful sense considering how well it had been seeded through the rest of the trilogy.

The ending of this book will make you feel something. There is overwhelming loss and terror. No character is safe in a realistically destructive battle that will make you feel sick to the base of your stomach in fair measure. I’ve always loved how these books meld both science fiction and fantasy and the ending of this book brings those threads together wonderfully. It’s a dark, bleak and emotive conclusion to a series that I will read over and over again.

If you enjoy dark fantasy with complicated heroines, interesting world building and stunning writing then I deeply suggest you pick up the ‘Book of the Ancestor’ trilogy. I’ll be interested to see whether Lawrence writes further novels in this world and, if he does, I will be picking them up in a breath.

5 stars

“I was born for killing – the gods made me to ruin”

At the Convent of Sweet Mercy young girls are raised to be killers. In a few the old bloods show, gifting talents rarely seen since the tribes beached their ships on Abeth. Sweet Mercy hones its novices’ skills to deadly effect: it takes ten years to educate a Red Sister in the ways of blade and fist.

But even the mistresses of sword and shadow don’t truly understand what they have purchased when Nona Grey is brought to their halls as a bloodstained child of eight, falsely accused of murder: guilty of worse.”

I wasn’t sure what to expect when I started reading this book. I wasn’t a fan of Lawrence’s ‘Broken Empire’ series, I couldn’t get into the mindset of the protagonist at all. I wasn’t even going to pick up this book initially, but reviews from friends lavished it in praise and I put in a review request, and then, assuming said request had been rejected, bought a copy. A copy arrived in my inbox just as another dropped on my doorstep and, I thought, well, this book and I were just meant to be together.

This book starts with an epilogue of sorts, but I won’t say too much about it, because to do so would be to ruin other parts of the story. The first entree into Nona’s story proper isn’t even through her own eyes, it’s through the eyes of a friend who’s viewing what little is left of their dwindling life from the wooden boards below a noose. Needless to say, the book opens with Nona having been sentenced to death for a crime unknown, and escaping the noose only through the good graces of the Abbess of the Convent of Sweet Mercy.

What follows after is my favourite sort of book. I am a complete sap for schools of magic and violence, all of my favourite books have some kind of place of learning in them. The beauty of this book is that it manages to stay ‘external’ whilst focusing inwards. We learn the stories of Nona’s early life and the history and politics of the world around her. It’s all told in great detail but I never once felt as if the information was simply being dumped upon me.

One thing I have always appreciated about Lawrence’s books is the genre that they lie in. A sort of post-apocalyptic fantasy. In Nona’s world, they are living on a planet watched over by a dying sun, where the feeble light grants them only a narrow corridor of living space between the ice. Moreso, they people of Abeth are not even from that world, having arrived on the planet many hundreds of years ago aboard great ships. I love the interplay between the fantasy and science fiction aspects of the book, how the magic seems to be amplified by the ‘shiphearts’ or reactor cores of the ancient space ships.

Nona, herself, is a wonderful character. She’s courageous and frightened, naive and world weary, stubborn and tentative. Basically, in all aspects, she is a young girl coming of age, a young girl thrust into a dark and unpleasant world and forced to come to terms with it. One of my favourite books when I was growing up was ‘Lirael’ by Garth Nix for many of the same reasons that I’ve come to love this book. We have a curious and introverted protagonist carving herself a niche in an environment that is both fascinating and dangerous. A young girl who has managed to utterly unbalance the world around her just by her existence. The way that Nona is written, and her feuds and friendships with those around her, is just amazing. I had flu for the last couple of days and just being able to curl up with this book was perfect escapism.

This is book filled with shadow, poison and politics. It’s a slow, rich, dark odyssey that, even after almost 500 pages, I felt sad to finish. ‘Grey Sister’, the second book, is due to be published next spring and, honestly, I can see myself reading this a good few times between.

So if you like complicated and truthful heroines, blood and bladework with a hefty dose of darkness then this is definitely a book you should have on your radar and your ‘to be read’ list.

Many many thanks to Harper Voyager ( @harpervoyagerbooks) for a copy in return for an honest review. What a book!

Review originally posted at Moon Magister Reviews.