*All opinions are my own, and are no way influenced by writers or publishers of the books reviewed here*
The book I picked for January's review was "The Name of Death" by Joshua Robertson. Without realizing it, I selected the perfect book to kick off the new year, and my revived blog!
Description from Amazon:
Drada Koehn is a fearless, formidable fighter ensnared in a presaged war against the northern humans. When the Speaker foretells their victory upon discovery of the name of death, she sets out to unravel the mysterious prophecy. Now, bound by duty and honor, Drada faces untold horrors with her companions, searching for what may never be found. In a story of unexpected twists, she soon finds that her resolve to see the quest done will be the fortune or doom of her people.
The story takes place in the same universe as his fantasy trilogy, "The Kaelandur Series". From my reading I would say that it takes place after the events in the trilogy. I downloaded this onto my iPad when it was first released, and after reading the first two in The Kaelandur Series, wanted to give it a go.
While it does take place after the events in that trilogy, it did not spoil the ending. Which was a very good thing since I have yet to finish the last one. Whoops! Sadly my iPad is filled with books I need to get to, as well as all of the physical books on my shelf that need reading. But alas, life with an 8 month old doesn't leave as much reading time as I would prefer to have.
It was a very quick read, which I rather appreciated! Robertson jam packed the story with information and plot, but kept the story moving forward and didn't get bogged down in details. Right off the bat you are transported to a fantasy world where Drada is waiting for her war brother to die after being mortally wounded by a *gasp* human who used poison. A very cowardly thing to do according to Drada. Humans are weak, and Drada's people (the Uvil) have been at war with them for years.
Drada and her war brother were on a quest to find the name of death, and with him gone it is up to Drada and her unlikely Kras companion to continue the journey. They are joined by a human and his companion. Which creates a bit of tension and depth to the story that in something this short, was necessary.
A creature makes its way back into the pages that I was happy to see again, the Svet. AKA a centaur. I loved the Svet in his other books, and was excited to see another one in this story. For being such a short read, the characters are well rounded and easily distinguishable from one another.
I don't want to ruin the end, but it definitely left me looking for more. Would reccomend to any fantasy readers out there. I give it a solid 4 out of 5 stars!
Links to Robertson's Website, Twitter, Instagram, and Amazon are below. He is one interesting writer, and posts freqeuntly about the writers life and publishing journey. One of the people on my "Must follow" list for writers!
https://www.robertsonwrites.com/
https://twitter.com/RobertsonWrites
https://www.instagram.com/robertsonwrites/
https://www.amazon.com/Name-Death-Joshua-Robertson-ebook/dp/B01N2XQYPY/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8
Fantastic timing then on my part! I have two books on the docket, then I'll be heading into book three, and I can't wait :) Happy to help out a fellow author!!
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