Blurb: ‘All that has gone before is woven into the Song; joy, sorrow; kind acts and cruel acts; creation and destruction. Past, present, and what has yet to come, make themselves known — if you know how to listen.’
For three hundred years, the people of the Five Realms have lived in relative peace, protected by their great leader, the Archon. Yet, far to the north, in the frozen lands beyond the Draegalen Trench, the Ruuk stir, driven by a rising evil, long believed banished from the world. But rumors questioning the Archon’s ability to defend the realms once more, persist.
Elodi, the Lady Harlyn, uneasy in her new role following the death of her father, and Toryn, a farmworker and outsider in his village, must discover a way to fight an enemy that all but defeated their ancestors.
Song of Echoes is the first book in this epic fantasy series.
My thoughts: Songs of Echoes is the first epic fantasy novel written by R.E.Palmer. It follows a teenage boy called Toryn who became an orphan when he was a baby. He does not know who his real parents are and has only heard stories of them, mainly his father. This concept is not original to me. I feel like this is a common back story for the main protagonist and the fact that Toryn is a young, naive, weak farmer boy from a small, run down village, who is longing for adventure cements this.
For the most part, the chapters switch between Toryn and the main female protagonist, Elodi. After her fathers demise, Elodi takes his place as ruler of one of the five realms, She has been trained from a young age in order to be able to carry out this duty. From reading this, I felt that this was not the case. She constantly seems unsure, needs advice or telling what to do in simple ceremonies and meetings. For around 60% of this book, she does not seem to be a strong leader or female lead in this story which made it difficult to connect with the character. However, Elodi then grows and becomes a very interesting and more confident leader and fighter which in turn makes her more likeable – something that is important to me.
At around a quarter of the way through the book, I felt like nothing of real importance had happened. The chapters with Toryn were filled with unimportant dialogue that didn’t really add to the story. Not only that, the dialogue just seemed to be a different way of world building but with so much thrown in that the world was actually more difficult to imagine. This continued throughout the book but some of the world building became more relevant. I suspect that the author has gone so in-depth with the world building to set the stage for the next novel.
Yes, I said next novel. It seems that after a very impressive last quarter of the book, that there is a cliff hanger with the words ‘TO BE CONTINUED’ written on the page. There are a LOT of unanswered questions here and I want to know the answers to all of them. Therefore, I do want to read the next book. I really hope that the writing in the next novel continues to be as good as the latter part of this book as I feel like I may have added this story to the Did Not Finish pile had I not been reviewing it. Saying that, I am glad I continued as this does really have the potential to be a fantastic series, I just think that perhaps world building in a less dragged out way may be helpful so that the reader can focus more on the story at hand.
As a side note, I feel this review comes across as a little harsh and this is never my intention. I always want to give my own, honest opinion which not everybody will agree with and I am okay with that and I respect the opinion of others.
Song of Echoes is available on Kindle Unlimited or for £2.10 on kindle here: – Song of Echoes Amazon UK Kindle
and is also available on Paper back here for £10.95 – Song of Echoes Amazon UK Paperback
For the US, this book is available on Kindle for $2.99 here : – Song of Echoes Amazon US Kindle
and is also available on paperback here for $23.90 – Song of Echoes Amazon US Paperback
As always, thanks again for reading.
Gee Liz Reads ❤
geelizreads.wordpress.com 