Patty Jansen

First of all: this book does not contain a resolution to any of the plotlines brought up anywhere in its nineteen chapters; it ends abruptly at a cliffhanger.

The Church shown follows a common structure of Christianity-export-in-fantasy . . . save for some jarring details. And complete with a strong prejudice against magic, which is shown to be mostly picking up images and warnings from wood or wind. There is mention made of magic used to control bears and/or demons - there seems to be some confusion on this point - and other violent uses for it, but it is never explained how, given the already-shown definition of magic and what it does.

Our main character, Johanna, is our link to the world and she introduces it fairly well, though there are large swathes of important things that are never explained or touched upon. There is a fairly strong thread of the rebellious princess trope in Johanna - who does not wish to marry, despite being twenty-four, but even when she brings up specific examples - friends or women she knows who got married and now are not allowed out of the house at all, are not allowed even to do the shopping, have too many children to do anything else/maintain her own health - she says that she wants to have fun, not brings up those things as legitimate concerns of abuse or even constriction; she does not even bring up that she would like to do something other than marry, i.e. run her father's trading business, which she supposedly helps with now. (Though for all we see she doesn't seem to understand a lot of the business, much less actually help run it.).

Prince Roald is clearly neurodivergent of some stripe, and he cannot manage some basic tasks without assistance or instruction. He also regularly frightens the women around him. He makes sexual comments and tries to touch, without apparent understanding - even when it is presented to him simply - that it is rude at best and assault at worst.

There is also a supporting character, Loesie, who is a friend of Johanna's and also has magic, and who never speaks, because when she first appears she is speaking in tongues and has been possibly-possessed - Johanna wants to help her but is also frightened of her in this condition.

Johanna does not wish to attend the ball, nor to wear one of the fancy dresses required for such a royal event - with a very strong sense of unlike all the other women. The ball does turn out to be a bit excruciating to get through, even before Johanna's promised dance with the prince (and including pages of introduction and description of characters we never heard mentioned before or after) but all the way through including Johanna's inexplicable actions dancing in an empty room with a man she's never met, then walking further into isolation with him, arguing/fighting with him, and kissing him . . . up until they see a fire, started by demons, in the city, and he bolts. Johanna searches through the palace for her father and finds many people dead - including the king and queen - with many horrors, before she eventually escapes the palace and then the city.

In their escape aboard a barge, there are four - Johanna, her maid, Loesie, and the prince. They find more burned out horrors and death, balance their desperate need and the situation sometimes - understandably - poorly, and eventually Johanna, who was a candidate chosen by the now-dead king for the role, decides she must marry Roald. This leads to an incredibly awkward makeshift wedding and a horrifically excruciating consummation which Johanna may have walked into of her own choice but is regardless incredibly dubious consent even before the actual pain.

The book ends the day after, when they discover that the place Johanna has been leading them hoping - faintly - for help has also been burned out, and then they are captured by some of the people who have been burning and destroying the entire country(ies), who proceed to sexually assault one of the women, attack and bind all of them, and then head off to who knows where. Sudden end of book. With a note that it continues in the next in the series.… (more)

My first comment about this book is that it should be made clear at the point of sale that this book contains male on male rape scenes.   I'm pretty sure not everyone wishes to buy books with such content in them for very obvious reasons.

That said, let's get on with the review.

As a first book in a trilogy i was very impressed.   I feel it's certainly set the stage for some good grimdark fantasy to come.   It isn't pleasant, the characters are flawed and too busy struggling with their own shit to worry about you, the reader -- get over it!

No really, looking at some reviews i don't think some people get this genre of story telling: you ain't getting it laid out all spotlessly cleaned and ironed with your clean socks in the morning, it's crumpled, still got stains and a bit of a stale wiff to it.   But they're the only clothes you've got for the day so just throw 'em on and get out and enjoy the adventure they take you on.

To sum up, this was a great beginning to a trilogy that also has another trilogy following straight after.   As the stage builder for this grimdark, disturbing world that the story is set in, it's certainly got my interest and i'm diving straight into Dust & Rain to see if what follows can meet my expectations.… (more)

The final book in this trilogy that has certainly kept me turning the pages and wanting more.

My only complaint with this book is that it's collected together all the main protagonists from the previous two books and hops, back and forth, between each of their stories.   Not normally a problem but because there are so many protagonists, each with their own little story to tell you, there are quite a few chapters between the chapter you leave off one protagonist's story and the chapter you pick it back up again: each chapter in between belonging to a different protagonist's story.   This all leaves you starting each new chapter having to make an effort as to what the protagonist of that chapter was doing when you last heard from them.   It's not unwieldly or chaotic, but just loses the flow a little bit each time you get to a new chapter and you have to stop and think about where you are in the overall story each time.

And it's not that i'm not used to dealing with lots of protagonists with contrasting story lines, i've read plenty of books like that; it's just that in this book it just seemed to not quite flow as well and i'm not quite sure why.

And then all the protagonists stories coalesce into one single main event and *** BOOM *** it's all over, finished, thank you very much for reading.

Maybe it's just me being rather curmudgeonly, but i kinda wanted a lot more from the ending considering how much went on to get to it.   I really enjoy a good ending -- don't we all -- and this ending really didn't balance with the story that lead to it.

Or maybe it's just that i didn't want the trilogy to end so soon: maybe it could have done with another 100 pages just to keep this curmudgeon happy.

Yeah, so that all said, i did enjoy this trilogy as a whole and i'll certainly be reading the "Moonfire Trilogy" sometime in the future to see what happens once everything has settled down from the icefire chaos.… (more)