My Five Word TL:DR Review : A Refreshingly Unique Fantasy Voice

You know what, I’ve really been struggling with this review.  When I was reading this book I didn’t totally gel with the story, BUT, I love Anna Smith Spark’s writing style.  She has the most refreshingly unique voice that I can recall reading for a long time.  It’s like a stream of consciousness that encompasses everything from the mundaneness of ordinary day life to the fantastical ghost children that worked and died in a former mine.  I mean, literally, I love her prose and I can’t say enough good things about it.  This is an author that should be soaring over the stars and moon, her writing makes my eyes fill with tears and even when I’m not exactly loving the story she still fills me with emotion.  The pen is truly mightier than the sword.

Having said that I didn’t totally get along with the story, now that I’ve been wringing my hands, and over thinking things, as I generally tend to do, this has given me a new appreciation for the content.  I think, on reflection, this is a story that I probably need to revisit – and this of course is the conundrum of the book reviewer – how often do we return to a good book?  It’s criminal really.  But, to get to the point, I have found myself a whole new appreciation for some of the concepts at play here.  We have a female MC who totally steps out of the norm.  A middle age farmer’s wife, and mother to three children.  Gravity has started to take it’s toll on her body, she isn’t superfit or drop dead gorgeous, sometimes she breaks wind!  Oh the horror.  Anyway, Kandra has put her past behind her and this is something that will slowly be revealed during the course of the story, because Kandra has a totally unexpected past, especially given the way she now lives.  She’s striven to forget the past and as you read you’ll discover why.  Unfortunately, the past refuses to lay buried forever and soon enough evil seeks her out.

This story feels like it’s seeped in folklore, the type of story that would have been told around a campfire and passed down from one generation to the next growing in strength and becoming more fantastical as the years pass. There are great warriors who ride out to vanquish untold foes, armour shining, swords blazing, horses racing gloriously into the fray.

Speaking of beautiful prose, don’t let this lull you into the false notion that this story is all rainbows and unicorns because it is DARK this author is not known as the Queen of Grimdark without reason.  And this is dark in a heart wrenching way – so be warned.  No hand holding here.

I realise I haven’t really said very much about the story.  To be fair I think readers need to discover this with fresh eyes and without preconceived ideas.  All I can say, with this author in mind, is expect the unexpected.

In short, whilst this story maybe didn’t quite hypnotise me the way I initially wanted (and I will say that I had unreasonably high expectations given my love for Empires of Dust), it was fascinating nonetheless, beautifully written and quite frankly groundbreaking in the way it puts tropes on their heads and basically says ‘like it or do not’.  An auto read author for me.

I received a copy through the publisher courtesy of Netgalley, for which my thanks.  The above is my own opinion.

My rating 3.5 of 5 stars (rounded to 4 stars because the style is simply stunning, words that I want to gobble up)