AUTHOR: Matthew Zorich
GENRE: Fantasy, Grimdark
RATING: 3.75 Stars
BOOK 1 OF THE CONSPIRACY OF THE CROWS
SUMMARY
As prophecies usually do, lives of people are at stake because of people who believe in them. And one such prophecy puts the focus on the Ashburn siblings. The eldest among them, Ben, was already a soldier. A soldier who is in a constant state of scrutiny and pressure is the son of a General. The only sister, Alysha found herself using her alias to protect herself as her town was burned and her mother dead. Struck with the sudden loss of everything, she found herself as a slave and an apprentice to blacksmiths. The youngest of the three, Runt, followed Doc and his apprentice as he saw his hometown destroyed. With the sudden loss of his family, he slowly tries to do the only logical thing, meet his father and brother.
But muddled with politics and the merging of past and present, the siblings have to overcome many obstacles before they find their way back to each other.
The past is a funny thing and it cannot leave Doc’s mind. While everyone is following the King’s order or playing the King’s game, Doc is doing something else altogether. But is it for the greater good or bad? Time will tell.
“Neither the dead nor the living spoke in reply.”
MY THOUGHTS
Bastards of Liberty by Matthew Zorich is one of the books that had me constantly moving up and down on a roller coaster. There were some good punches. Some were freaking good and at times, I would sit and wonder why. The prologue as we know is something that has created debates over time. I cannot start the book without prologues and this book has won me with the prologue. Directly, between a battle. If that isn’t a strong start, I don’t know what is. So, a big plus point to the writer.
“He looked at his hands and knew the joy of life after surviving.”
I would love to stress how this book is a fraction of what the author has planned. The scope of the book is quite easy to understand. Being the first book in the series, this book is going through all the different places and different phases- jumping between time, place and characters. But as soon as you reach the last page, you realise just how many stories are in play and you want to know them all.
“When the birds fly away or you can’t run them, that’s when there’s trouble.”
Starting with the format, I love how the siblings have their journey. In this book, we focused a little more on Runt’s journey but the overall progress for each of them was something I enjoyed reading. While I generally love a character-driven book. This book was not one of them. I think there was a lot of potential for this to be a character-driven book because of these amazing characters and that is one of my complaints. I loved the story, the plot and I was reading for the story. But not for the characters. I would not have cared for any of them. But but, things were looking a lot better towards the end. I also found a certain stage where there were jump scenes. There was a scene going and suddenly I felt lost. I think it was an editing error rather than writing.
“Hear the rain and thunder…the lightning is mine.”
There is something about the stories that shows a battle is won but war isn’t. I feel this series is one of them. We witness political instability, unrest of citizens, people losing faith, people punishing for their faith, fallen war heroes, unsung criminals, hidden magical abilities, and connecting with animals. So, on and on. Thus, proving once again my point that this series has the potential to become something huge.
So, to sum it up. I think this series can become something big. The story spans between ages and thus is going to be a wonderful epic once we see the whole story. And I can’t wait to know more in Book 2 Maiden of Storms.
Read the review for When Shadows grow tall by Marissa Voss here.
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