
Hall of Smoke
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Buy Now for £23.99
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Narrated by:
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Samara Naeymi
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By:
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H. M. Long
About this listen
Epic fantasy featuring warrior priestesses and fickle gods at war, for fans of Brian Staveley's Chronicles of the Unhewn Throne.
Hessa is an Eangi: a warrior priestess of the Goddess of War, with the power to turn an enemy's bones to dust with a scream. Banished for disobeying her goddess's command to murder a traveller, she prays for forgiveness alone on a mountainside.
While she is gone, raiders raze her village and obliterate the Eangi priesthood. Grieving and alone, Hessa - the last Eangi - must find the traveller and atone for her weakness and secure her place with her loved ones in the High Halls. As clans from the north and legionnaires from the south tear through her homeland, slaughtering everyone in their path, Hessa strives to win back her goddess' favour.
Beset by zealot soldiers, deceitful gods, and newly-awakened demons at every turn, Hessa burns her path towards redemption and revenge. But her journey reveals a harrowing truth: the gods are dying and the High Halls of the afterlife are fading. Soon Hessa's trust in her goddess weakens with every unheeded prayer.
Thrust into a battle between the gods of the Old World and the New, Hessa realizes there is far more on the line than securing a life beyond her own death. Bigger, older powers slumber beneath the surface of her world. And they're about to wake up.
©2021 H. M. Long (P)2021 Recorded BooksEnjoyable read.
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Worth the LIsten
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After a thrilling opening the next few chapters meander and take a few false turns before the real story really gets going. After that the world building and character development really seizes control.
A few of the early threads and characters don't really pay off, but those that stick around into the back third are benefited by much tighter writing and action, with pitch-perfect pacing building from a slow burning threat into a late rush and a powerful and overwhelming finale that had me clinging to every word to hold on.
That back half really earns the 4* for me, and would probably be a 5* on its own, which bodes very well for the sequels!
Nb. I listened to this on audiobook whilst driving through the fyords of Norway on my honeymoon, an experience of the novel I can hugely recommend!
A gathering crescendo
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(Not actually rating the story because I couldn't finish it, but Amazon demanded a rating, so 3-neutral)
Narrator: distractingly bad Irish accent
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However, I only made it half way through before I decided to stop as I just wasn't grabbed by any aspect of it really. The concept of not all powerful gods tied to areas is interesting, but I just wasn't getting anything from this. As a tale from here to there doing fantasy stuff it's written rather well, but lacked the depth I need to get my teeth into a book. If I'm honest, if it wasn't a free audiobook I wouldn't have made it as far as I did and I might feel more negatively.
Competent Fantasy
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An unexpected find
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