“Two empires…one in decline, the other ascendant and hungry for conquest…
Upon his father’s mysterious assassination, young Haru reluctantly becomes ruler—Tain—of his once-fearsome island nation. Threatened by a world they once dominated, Haru’s people, the Cryori, struggle with the peace the old Tain championed, nostalgic for the violent glories of their past. But across the ocean, an alliance of old enemies has formed, led by a madman bent on righting old wrongs. Enigmatic and fanatical, Reius decries the Cryori and their living gods, determined to erase their influence and beliefs.
Now Haru must get justice for his murdered father and defend his people from the coming scourge over the sea. Promising his ancient, grieving goddess to kill Reius, he reunites his father’s failed circle of protectors—a magical band of avenging misfits known as the Bloody Chorus.”
Title: The Bloody Chorus
Series: Standalone
Author: John Marco
Page Count: 455
Genre: Fantasy
Rating: 4.5/5.0
Date Read: September 10th, 2023
| The Bloody Chorus by John Marco was our buddy read group selection for the month of September 2023. We somehow got onto the stories of ships at sea the last two months with this one following Wrath of Olympus by E.M. Kkoulla. This one seemed like it was closer to our group’s usual length of reads. I had a lot of enjoyment reading this book. I’ll touch on my usual three standard topics below in a moment. I just wanted to point out that I found this read very unique. There is a lot going on in this book so I feel readers will need to focus and keep up with the characters and the story or they may get lost. I myself found the first few chapters confusing only in one part of our Protagonists’ race or visual characteristics which I reached out to the group looking for clarification. After that, it was smooth sailing for me the rest of the read. The felt the pacing was done well. There are some subtle eb and flow moments but nothing really jarring. There is enough action or suspense throughout to keep things interesting even when we are simply setting up the world and it’s characters. I didn’t find any troubles with names or characters or other things within the world. No issues with vocabulary used either. The world building was right up my alley. As mentioned earlier there is a lot going on in this story. I felt the author did a great job both in describing this world as well as giving us a feel for the size or scope of things throughout. I do love a good read with a lot of races or cultures to explore and this one did it well for me. The character development was also nicely done. I do honestly feel that some of our supporting characters had a slightly better character development than our main protagonist. It just seemed our main was fairly steady throughout the story and didn’t seem to make a lot of developments until closer to the end of the read. I think our antagonist was done really well though. I felt almost an immediate connection with trying to understand our antagonist in this read which is always rare yet enjoyable! All in all this was a really good read for me. I will certainly be looking to continue to read some of John’s work in the future. World Building 4.5/5 Pacing 4/5 Character Development 4.5/5 |
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