Please note Priest of Crowns is the fourth book and final book in The War for the Rose Throne series. If you have not read books one, two and three, what follows is likely to contain more than a few spoilers. Consider yourself duly warned! ‘Praise be to Our Lady of Eternal Sorrows, and blessed be the Ascended Martyr.’ Those were the words on lips of the faithful: Blessed be the Ascended Martyr, and woe betide you if you thought otherwise. The word Unbeliever had become a death sentence on the streets in those days. Gangster, soldier, priest. Governor, knight, and above all, Queen’s Man. Once, Tomas Piety looked after his men, body and soul, as best he could. Then those who ran his country decided his dark talents would better serve in the corridors of power. Crushed by the power of the Queen’s Men and with the Skanian menace rising once more on the streets of Ellinburg, Tomas Piety is forced to turn to old friends, old debts and untrustworthy alliances. Meanwhile in the capital city of Dannsburg, Dieter Vogel is beginning to wonder if the horror he has unleashed in the Martyr’s Disciples might be getting out of…

A hundred years ago, a man with a secret could travel a few hundred miles and give himself a new name and life story. No one would be any the wiser, as long as he didn’t give anyone a reason to start asking questions. These days, that’s not so easy, with everyone on social media, and CCTV on every street corner. So Daniel Mackmain keeps his head down and keeps himself to himself. But now a girl has been murdered and the Derbyshire police are taking a closer look at a loner who travels from place to place, picking up work as he goes. Worse, Dan realises the murder involves the hidden world he was born into. When no one else can see the truth, who will see justice done? One of my many obsessions is the folklore and mythology of the British Isles. I’ve always been utterly fascinated by all the stories. I grew up reading books like Mythago Wood by Robert Holdstock and Watership Down by Richard Adams. On television, I was entranced by The Box of Delights, while musically albums like Songs from the Wood by Jethro Tull were always near the top of my playlist*. Heck,…

Everyone is not as they seem in this fantasy novel, replete with war, witchcraft and secrets. Christophor Morden lives by night. His day-brother, Alexsander, knows only the sun. They are two souls in a single body, in a world where identities change with the rising and setting of the sun. Night-brother or day-sister, one never sees the light, the other knows nothing of the night. Early one evening, Christophor is roused by a call to the city prison. A prisoner has torn his eyes out and cannot say why. Yet worse: in the sockets that once held his eyes, teeth are growing. The police suspect the supernatural, so Christophor, a member of the king’s special inspectorate, is charged with finding the witch responsible. Night-by-night, Christophor’s investigation leads him ever further from home, toward a backwards village on the far edge of the kingdom. But the closer he gets to the truth, the more his day-brother’s actions frustrate him. Who is Alexsander protecting? What does he not want Christophor to discover? And all the while, an ancient and apocalyptic ritual creeps closer to completion… It’s the premise that is going to capture your attention initially when it comes to Equinox by…

Please note, The Hunger of the Gods is the second book in an ongoing series. I would strongly advise reading book one, The Shadow of the Gods, before proceeding further as what follows will likely contain minor spoilers. Consider yourself duly warned.  Lik-Rifa, the dragon god of legend, has been freed from her eternal prison. Now she plots a new age of blood and conquest. As Orka continues the hunt for her missing son, the Bloodsworn sweep south in a desperate race to save one of their own – and Varg takes the first steps on the path of vengeance. Elvar has sworn to fulfil her blood oath and rescue a prisoner from the clutches of Lik-Rifa and her dragonborn followers, but first she must persuade the Battle-Grim to follow her. Yet even the might of the Bloodsworn and Battle-Grim cannot stand alone against a dragon god. Their hope lies within the mad writings of a chained god. A book of forbidden magic with the power to raise the wolf god Ulfrir from the dead . . . and bring about a battle that will shake the foundations of the earth.  I’ve been looking forward to this. The Shadow of…

Jack Corman is failing at life. Jobless, jaded and facing the threat of eviction, he’s also reeling from the death of his father, one-time film director Bob Corman. Back in the eighties, Bob poured his heart and soul into the creation of his 1986 puppet fantasy The Shadow Glass, but the film flopped on release and Bob was never the same again. In the wake of Bob’s death, Jack returns to his decaying childhood home, where he is confronted with the impossible — the puppet heroes from The Shadow Glass are alive, and they need his help. Tipped into a desperate quest to save the world from the more nefarious of his father’s creations, Jack teams up with an excitable fanboy and a spiky studio exec to navigate the labyrinth of his father’s legacy and ignite a Shadow Glass resurgence that could, finally, do Bob proud.  I still remember it vividly; when I was eight years old The Dark Crystal was released. I remember being enthralled and terrified in equal measure. This wasn’t like anything I had ever seen before. There was a darkness in the story that I had never encountered. The good guys were undoubtedly good, but the…

As an Emperor’s Justice, Sir Konrad Vonvalt always has the last word. His duty is to uphold the law of the empire using whatever tools he has at his disposal: whether it’s his blade, the arcane secrets passed down from Justice to Justice, or his wealth of knowledge of the laws of the empire. But usually his reputation as one of the most revered—and hated—Justices is enough to get most any job done.  When Vonvalt investigates the murder of a noblewoman, he finds his authority being challenged like never before. As the simple case becomes more complex and convoluted, he begins to pull at the threads that unravel a conspiracy that could see an end to all Justices, and a beginning to lawless chaos across the empire. For reasons too complicated to explain, it has been one hell of a week. The only hope of retaining any shred of my tattered sanity was escaping into some truly exceptional genre fiction. The good news is that The Justice of Kings by Richard Swan arrived at the top of my review pile. The early buzz I’ve heard promised something great and I’m glad to report I was not disappointed. I was reminded…

A newly-fallen angel accused of murder, Cassiel must save an elven girl and face demons—both literal and personal. She knows she isn’t the best person for the job, but she’s the only one who can do it. The police are ill-equipped to handle demons, even with magic, and time is running out. Cassiel and her friends—a disabled human veteran, a reformed elven gangbanger, and an ex-marine orc—face the hardest fight of their lives.  Moving on from the creepy cosmic science fiction from earlier in the week today I’m taking a gander at the new urban fantasy novel Fallen by E. Prybylski. There is an interesting duality in the main character. As an ancient heavenly warrior, Cassiel is imbued with the arts of conflict. It is her purpose, the reason to exist. This is perfectly illustrated at one point when she is presented with a gun for the first time. She has never seen one before but she knows everything about how it works, how to maintain it and how to use it. The flipside to all this deadly knowledge is her innocence and naivety when it comes to absolutely anything else. Initially, Cassiel takes everything quite literally, which does lead…

There is a saying amongst the killers of the Midnight Court, when rivals cross paths, blades always follow. Shey Jing is an honourable warrior, Sebastian Schiller a louche, schism touched bounty hunter known as ‘the Mosquito’. They are given a simple choice when they cross paths with the Roach King; work together or die together. But simple isn’t easy when two people hate each other. Thrown together by capricious Fate, the arrachid and the Mosquito must overcome their many, many differences and complete their mission. Only then can they get on with the real business of fighting over who gets to kill the Guild Blade they’re hunting. …and just like that, we’ve reached the final review of 2021. This year has been something else hasn’t it? There have been more than a few emotional ups and downs. My one constant throughout has been the ability to escape into a good book. I’m glad to say we end the year on a high. The latest novel by K T Davies, The Spider and The Fly, has been let loose on an unsuspecting populace and it is an absolute belter. Before we begin, it is worthwhile noting that The Spider and The…

Please note, Ghosts is book four in The Voices series. If you haven’t read the three books that precede this then there will most definitely be spoilers ahead.  Seven years ago, the voices came. Some people could hear and others despised them for it. As death and destruction spread, a ghostly figure was waiting in the shadows. Now the Flitting Man is ready to show his face – and no one is safe. Pilgrim was made for this broken world. He’s chosen his path and will stop at nothing to see it through. Lacey grew up in this changing world. She’s lost almost everything to the Flitting Man, but her fight isn’t over yet. Albus sees this world as others cannot. And the friends that he’s kept safe are facing terrible danger. Addison belongs to a very different world. She might just be the future, if she survives… If you are a regular reader of The Eloquent Page, then you know I normally write long rambling reviews about the books I read. I wax lyrical about how the writing made me feel. What I liked and what I thought of the characters, basically all manner of book-related waffle. I find…

Please note, The Fall of Babel is the final novel in The Books of Babel sequence. If you haven’t read what has transpired before it is highly likely the review that follows will contain spoilers. Don’t say you have not been warned! As Marat’s siege engine bores through the Tower, erupting inside ringdoms and leaving chaos in its wake, Senlin can do nothing but observe the mayhem from inside the belly of the beast. Caught in a charade, Senlin desperiately tries to sabotage the rampaging Hod King, even as Marat’s objective grows increasingly clear. The leader of the zealots is bound for the Sphinx’s lair and the unimaginable power it contains. In the city under glass at the Tower’s summit, Adam discovers a utopia where everyone inexplicably knows the details of his past. As Adam unravels the mystery of his fame, he soon discovers the crowning ringdom conceals a much darker secret. Aboard the State of Art, Edith and her crew adjust to the reality that Voleta has awoken from death changed. She seems to share more in common with the Red Hand now than her former self. While Edith wars for the soul of the young woman, a greater…

Don’t trust the Liar. Don’t go in the River. Do not cross the King. In Red Valley, California, you follow the rules if you want to stay alive. But even that isn’t enough to protect Sadie now that she’s unexpectedly become the Liar: the keeper and maker of Red Valley’s many secrets. In a town like this, friendships are hard-won and bad blood lasts generations, and when not everyone in town is exactly human, it isn’t a safe place to make enemies. And though the Liar has power—power to remake the world, with just a little blood—what Sadie really needs is answers: Why is the town’s sheriff after her? What does the King want from her? And what is the real purpose of the Liar of Red Valley? Granting dreams and wishes is old news. In genre fiction, practitioners of that particular art are ten a penny. Imagine if there was someone who could make your lies come true. At first glance, you might think that sounds terrible, but really think about it. You could wipe away that horrible thing you said or did. You could remove the hurt from your life. Sure, it would be a lie and there…