Age of Ash: The Sunday Times bestseller - The Kithamar Trilogy Book 1

Product Information

I feel that this book only touched upon the surface of this though, so I’m eager to discover much more because Abraham definitely has my attention here. Abraham builds on The Dragon's Path to create and sustain a rich, satisfyingly complex epic fantasy. While I didn’t necessarily love how these characters behaved at times, Abraham’s does make an effort in justifying their actions.

I highlighted all those people’s names when I was reading the prologue, and when reading, I kept asking: where are you? With this step in mind, I’d assume that the third and final book in the series will concern the current ruler of the city of Kithamar and the character that comes late into this book and seems of primary concern. With his death, her grief takes over in it’s various stages as she tries to stay connected to him any way she can. Overall, the exploration of her loneliness and desire to help the friend she knew (and not who she was becoming) was very well done and is why she became my favorite character. When a new prince rises to power, it marks the beginning of a year of tumultuous events in the city.Age of Ash is the first book in The Kithamar trilogy and follows Alys, who lives in Longhill, Kithamar. Age of Ash is a bit of a strange one for me, because I usually leave my reviews for a couple of days after finishing the book, and let everything sink in, mull it over for a bit.

If you enjoyed the character exploration and development in the Expanse, the political intrigue, and how one plan could shake everything (and did), you may certainly enjoy this. Age of Ash 's Kithamar is a spectacular creation, a city brought to life by dense, intricate worldbuilding and subtle magic. I have some mixed feelings about Age of Ash, but a lot of what Daniel Abraham does well still ended up shining through and I thought this was a solid first entry to the series in the end! The story definitely had its moments, with some of those interesting character developments driving the plot forwards in the latter stages of the book. Some cool concepts were hinted at or introduced, but we didn't really get enough information to get me really invested.

Despite owning The Dagger and Coin series for years, this is my first foray into Abraham’s novels, but after being utterly enchanted by his prose, I definitely want to read more. I did find myself wanting some more depth to The Daris Brotherhood, their use of powers and their limitations were never quite fully explained and some parts left me somewhat confused. Each member of the group has a job, and they perform those jobs so regularly that they’ve become rote. I thrive on that kind of connection and found myself despairing, angry, and a whole myriad of other emotions right alongside them. Abraham’s prose is alluring and wonderful, rich with beautiful descriptions and exquisite characterisations.

Abraham builds this world with all the confident craftsmanship you'd expect from an author with his pedigree . But to whatever degree Age of Ash is an imperfect book, it sets a lovingly detailed stage for any future story Abraham should choose to tell. Another thing I love is the deep character immersion that only happens when an author isn’t self-conscious about taking his time to really immerse you with his characters. Abraham spends a considerable amount of time fleshing out the main characters and setting up the plot.This review is going to end up toeing the line of damning with faint praise, because Age of Ash is just solidly okay. The opening to this book reminded me of The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch, another fantasy book set in a single city, revolving around a band of thieves. And finally, despite wanting to know more about the magic and the lore since it was kept at arms length, I will say I thought it was a very cool idea that I hadn't seen in a lot of fantasy books. Content warnings: violence, injury, murder and death; death of children and siblings (grieving family members is a major theme); fire/arson; mentions of plague. As she uncovers more about her brother and his secrets, she inadvertenly peels back the layers of a conspiracy that threatens the entire city.