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A review by kittyg
The Ninth Rain by Jen Williams
4.0
I meant to get to this book a long time ago but, after reading The Copper Promise by Jen Williams a while back, I really wasn’t sure if her writing was for me. Little did I know that this series is totally different to the Copper Cat one and much more epic, ticking so many of my boxes. I’m glad I did finally make time for this. I can see it being a very easy-to-binge series :)
We follow a world which is currently at peace but has been through many battles over time. There are two main peoples, the humans and the Eborans. The Eborans are essentially like elves, they’re stunning and live for hundreds of years unless killed. The two people have not always worked well together, but in the past they have come together to fight back a common invasive enemy.
The point that we pick up the story is a long long time after the last big war, known as the Eighth Rain, and the Eborans have largely died off from a nasty illness known as Crimson Flux. The humans are the main ones populating the world, and Ebora has been mostly abandoned to its fate away from the rest of the world.
We also have the Winnowry, a kind of prison for Fell-Witches, girls who are born with a fire within them which usually manifests in very dangerous ways. The girls are caught and sent to the Winnowry where they cannot harm the rest of the world, and one of our main characters is called Noon, and she is a Fell-Witch. I found Noon to be a likeable character although she is a little bit of an oddball at times as she’s been cooped up in a prison most of her life. She’s wilful and determined and she has a definite spark to her as she gains confidence, and I liked seeing her do that.
Hest and Tor are two Eboran siblings and we follow each of their storylines separately. Hest is one of the few who lives in Ebora still and doesn’t yet show signs of the Crimson Flux, but she is lonely and desperate to find a way to bring the God of the Eborans (a giant tree who used to grow gold sap which could heal anything) back from the brink of death. Hest is single-minded in her determination to live the Eboran life still, tending to those who need her and trying anything she can to help their God, even when it seems hopeless.
Tor, on the other hand, fled from Ebora a long time ago and has been largely making his money as a mercenary with particularly frequent missions for an older lady called Vintage. He is clearly very talented at fighting, being Eboran, and he is a loyal and honest man.
Vintage is probably my favourite character as she’s an older lady with a distinct passion for discovery and treasure-hunting on the form of old artefacts. She is determined to find out the source of the Wild, massively overgrown or warped plants which seem to be spreading through their world, and she needs Tor to help her defend against the nasties in the world as she does so. She reminded me of a natural historian and I very much liked her sass, her entitlement, and her kind streak. She was easy to enjoy as a character and I really wish there were more like her shown in more fantasy books.
The magic of this world is in various forms. We have the tree-god and his magic, the magical races of eborans and fell-witches, the magic of the Wilds, and the magic of the Enemy who have always torn the world apart when they came. The different facets of magic I really liked discovering and later on we also get magical spirits and beasts too which was awesome.
The world here is a fascinating one and I found the Eboran lands and the world of Sarn to be a great place to imagine. I definitely feel like I could visualise bits of this story and I am keen to see what other parts of the world or the world beyond we may uncover as we continue the series.
Definitely a series I’m keen to keep going with soon and I look forward to what happens next as the ending was very pacy and dramatic in so many ways! 4*s
We follow a world which is currently at peace but has been through many battles over time. There are two main peoples, the humans and the Eborans. The Eborans are essentially like elves, they’re stunning and live for hundreds of years unless killed. The two people have not always worked well together, but in the past they have come together to fight back a common invasive enemy.
The point that we pick up the story is a long long time after the last big war, known as the Eighth Rain, and the Eborans have largely died off from a nasty illness known as Crimson Flux. The humans are the main ones populating the world, and Ebora has been mostly abandoned to its fate away from the rest of the world.
We also have the Winnowry, a kind of prison for Fell-Witches, girls who are born with a fire within them which usually manifests in very dangerous ways. The girls are caught and sent to the Winnowry where they cannot harm the rest of the world, and one of our main characters is called Noon, and she is a Fell-Witch. I found Noon to be a likeable character although she is a little bit of an oddball at times as she’s been cooped up in a prison most of her life. She’s wilful and determined and she has a definite spark to her as she gains confidence, and I liked seeing her do that.
Hest and Tor are two Eboran siblings and we follow each of their storylines separately. Hest is one of the few who lives in Ebora still and doesn’t yet show signs of the Crimson Flux, but she is lonely and desperate to find a way to bring the God of the Eborans (a giant tree who used to grow gold sap which could heal anything) back from the brink of death. Hest is single-minded in her determination to live the Eboran life still, tending to those who need her and trying anything she can to help their God, even when it seems hopeless.
Tor, on the other hand, fled from Ebora a long time ago and has been largely making his money as a mercenary with particularly frequent missions for an older lady called Vintage. He is clearly very talented at fighting, being Eboran, and he is a loyal and honest man.
Vintage is probably my favourite character as she’s an older lady with a distinct passion for discovery and treasure-hunting on the form of old artefacts. She is determined to find out the source of the Wild, massively overgrown or warped plants which seem to be spreading through their world, and she needs Tor to help her defend against the nasties in the world as she does so. She reminded me of a natural historian and I very much liked her sass, her entitlement, and her kind streak. She was easy to enjoy as a character and I really wish there were more like her shown in more fantasy books.
The magic of this world is in various forms. We have the tree-god and his magic, the magical races of eborans and fell-witches, the magic of the Wilds, and the magic of the Enemy who have always torn the world apart when they came. The different facets of magic I really liked discovering and later on we also get magical spirits and beasts too which was awesome.
The world here is a fascinating one and I found the Eboran lands and the world of Sarn to be a great place to imagine. I definitely feel like I could visualise bits of this story and I am keen to see what other parts of the world or the world beyond we may uncover as we continue the series.
Definitely a series I’m keen to keep going with soon and I look forward to what happens next as the ending was very pacy and dramatic in so many ways! 4*s