softcartilage 's review for:

Lord of Silver Ashes by Kellen Graves

5.0

dark emotional hopeful mysterious sad tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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Amazing and gorgeous and lovely.

I finished a different book by Kellen Graves (A Bone In His Teeth) before starting this one so I already knew Kellen had improved so much as a writer since Prince of the Sorrows—and I adored POTS, it was already an amazing start for a debut novel—but seeing that improvement in the same series with the same characters is magical.

Thought on why this is dear to my heart as someone from a storytelling culture:

I'm so excited to see that improvement continue! I'm mixed indigenous and storytelling and storytelling culture and dear to my heart. Written stories have a little sorrow attached to them because they're dead in a way oral tales aren't, even when they're alive too. This is one of the dearest to my heart examples of how written stories live in the way oral tales do and how the fact they're born with their own death is a uniquely lovely thing in a uniquely lovely way.

There are old tales woven into this, changing and finding new life like oral tales do, and extending that life beyond what so many of those would otherwise get. And Kellen Graves is as much as a storyteller as any of them who never commit their stories to a fixed shape on paper, just as responsible for keeping dear parts of history and culture alive and changing.

Highly recommend this to everyone forever and ever.

Also I have a crush on Asche. <3