Bloody Rose
The Band series, Book 2
Nicholas Eames
Orbit
Fiction, Fantasy/Humor
***** (Great)
DESCRIPTION: Like many people in Grandual, Tam has looked up to the mercenary bands that protect the people from roving monsters (though these days bands are less likely to be found tramping around the Heartwyld forests seeking danger, instead putting on shows slaying monsters in arenas). She has family ties to the bands, including tangential ones to the beyond-legendary band Saga, saviors of the land and slayer of the cruel, nigh-immortal druin lord Lastleaf... but her father, heartbroken after the death of her mother, forbids her to so much as learn to carry a tune, let alone take up a harp and join a band as their bard. Tam is determined to prove herself and get away, but even in her wildest dreams, or the wildest tales of her formerly adventurous, now perpetually drunk and broke uncle Bran, she never imagined she'd end up with the band Fable, led by none other than Bloody Rose herself.
Daughter of Saga's former frontman, Rose has spent her whole life in the shadow of a man she's come to resent. Even when she held off a siege and helped liberate innumerable captives while waiting for rescue, all anyone saw her as was "Golden" Gabe's daughter - a daughter who needed rescuing by her daddy, not the young woman who beat impossible odds on her own. Everything about her, from her dyed red hair to her band Fable, is all about making a name for herself... down to the increasingly reckless contracts she takes on. Even now, when a horde of monsters led by a vengeful giant has every mercenary who ever picked up a weapon heading off to face the threat, she leads Fable the other way, intent on a contract that will, without a doubt, prove that she's more than just the daughter of the most famous frontman alive.
As their greenest member and their new bard, Tam's job is simply to observe and record (and embellish in verse as needed) the band's progress... but the more time she spends with them, the harder it is for Tam to stay on the sidelines, even as she comes to realize just what is at stake, for Rose and Fable and the whole of Grandual.
REVIEW: The first book in this series, Kings of the Wyld, was one of the most enjoyable tales I've read in years, but I'd heard some mixed reviews on this sequel. As far as I'm concerned, it more than lives up to the exceptionally high bar set by the first installment, serving as both a sequel and its own story that expands the lore, the world, and the characters into new places.
Tam is no reluctant heroine who must be drug out the door; she's been champing at the bit since childhood, training as a bard in secret to follow in her late mother's footsteps despite her father's edicts - but he has his reasons, and actually lets go when he realizes there is no stopping her "wyld" heart from following the path that destroyed his wife, himself, and too many others to count. At first, Tam dismisses his warnings as his grief talking, enamored with "Bloody" Rose (a longtime infatuation) and the life of the bands. Like any groupie who finds themselves on the inside, though, she soon realizes that everything she thought she knew about the people and the bands, even after growing up on her uncle Bran's stories, is so much smoke and mirrors: the reality is far less glamorous, far more complex, and in many respects far more dangerous (at least for a band like Fable that still ventures beyond arenas and the staged bloodsports they offer the masses - particularly when they're driven by a leader as single-minded as Rose). Other assumptions - about Fable and Saga, about her land's history, even about what constitutes a monster - fall by the wayside, too, sometimes slaughtered in a single blow and sometimes dying slow and agonizing deaths over the endless miles. Neither Tam nor her companions (nor many of the other characters, friend or enemy or incidental) are simple characters, broken in some way by the past and seeking redemption or escape (or both), all teetering on the edge of tragedy and sometimes slipping over. By the end, everyone and everything has changed and grown. (For the better? Maybe yes and maybe no...)
As in the first volume, there's plenty of humor in the continued exploration of adventuring "bands" with all the tropes of rock stars alongside wild adventure, unexpected wonder and even beauty, and moments that tear your heart out and skewer it on a sword, then trample it underfoot and light it on fire for good measure. It grabbed me from the first page, and kept me up well past midnight to finish the final stretch. As in the first volume, much is resolved here, but more than enough remains to justify at least one more future installment, not to mention innumerable potential spinoffs and companion works; nearly everyone they meet and every place they go hints at a world packed to the stratosphere with stories to be told. At this rate, and assuming the quality keeps up, I'm happy to keep reading as long as Eames wants to keep writing.
You Might Also Enjoy:
The Coward (Stephen Aryan) - My Review
The Blacktongue Thief (Christopher Buehlman) - My Review
Kings of the Wyld (Nicholas Eames) - My Review
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