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Book: “A Song of Ash and Moonlight” by Claire Legrand
Publishing Info: Sourcebooks Casablanca, September 2024
Where Did I Get this Book: ARC from the publisher!
Where Can You Get this Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon | IndieBound
Book Description: The curse plaguing the Ashbourne and Bask families has finally been broken, but Farrin, the eldest Ashbourne daughter, still struggles to find peace. Unflappable and tireless, her composure masks a seething sorrow. Since her mother abandoned the family, Farrin has been their rock—managing her father’s temper, running the estate, keeping tight control over her dangerous musical power, and ignoring her own need for rest, distraction, and most of all, love.
In Ryder Bask, Farrin’s stubborn strength has met its match. The man infuriates her. He’s coarse, arrogant, annoyingly handsome. He’s as tired of their feuding parents as she is, and he brims with some secret anger that mirrors Farrin’s frustrated rage.
But Farrin must work with every ally she can—even the man she has been raised to hate. With every rising dawn, the Middlemist weakens further. Anointed magicians are disappearing. A fiery Olden creature is stalking Farrin. Strange visions haunt the High Queen Yvaine. And as Farrin and Ryder race to find stolen loved ones, they begin to realize a horrifying thing:
The gods are not dead. They’re waking up. And someone is hunting them.
Previously Reviewed: “A Crown of Ivy and Glass”
Review: While I ran into a few stumbling blocks in my read through of the first book in this series, there was still plenty to recommend the series as a whole and to specifically recommend the second book in particular. I struggled with Gemma, but even the few glances we were given were enough to convince me that Farrin sounded like a fantastic main character. With this in mind, I went into this book with high hopes!
I’ll say on the top that this book wasn’t a perfect read either, but it is also a definite step up from the first one. Let’s start, as usual, with the most positives aspects of the story. First of all, the more time I spend in this fantasy world, the more intrigued I am by it! The first book was promoted as a sort of “fantasy/Bridgerton” mash-up. And while that did fit that book in a sort of round-about way, the “Bridgerton” aspects of it all were lacking (if you count having ball scenes as “Bridgerton” and not just any old fantasy book that deals with courts, lords and ladies, etc. ) So I was pleased to see that this second book leaned even more fully into the fantasy aspects of it all, and left out the “Bridgerton” comparison altogether.
As the summary hints at, this book massively expands the scope of the world and the brewing conflict. It’s no longer one demon and a mysterious arch villain; now we have gods reborn, complicated linages explored, and long-suppressed secrets revealed. All of these new layers to the world and story were fascinating and used in creative ways. There were a few twists that genuinely took me by surprise. On top of the magical elements of the world, I enjoyed the further exploration of Farrin’s musical magic. In the first book, hers was the sort of magic that felt least approachable and the most foreign. So I enjoyed the deeper dive into how exactly her magic worked and the potential ways in which she could manipulate this particular ability. What seemed like a magical ability that could seem weak in comparison to the other two sisters, by the end of this book, readers will truly appreciate what Farrin brings to this team.
As for Farrin herself, this is where my feelings became a bit more complicated. Something very strange happened as I was reading this book. As I read, I kept having the thought “Gemma? Is that you?” In that, somehow Farrin seemed to have morphed into Gemma between the first book and this, with all of the same character flaws that I found so tiresome the first go around. And on the other hand, Gemma, now a background character, began to read like a fantastic character whom I’d love to read an entire book about!
Now, I’m all for complicated and flawed characters who have to explore challenging inner struggles over the course of a book. The problem here was that Farrin’s voice, Farrin’s personality, and, most notably, Farrin’s inner struggles all seemed to be so, so similar to Gemma’s. It almost began to feel as if Legrand is incapable of writing a main character in a different voice, or to explore a different inner life/inner struggle in her lead heroine. Somehow background characters suddenly morph into the interesting ones, while the main character is dragged under by such a mire of anxiety, indecision, and self-loathing as to become tiresome.
I noted in the first book that while Gemma’s struggles were of the sort that often made her a bit unlikable, that didn’t make them not worth exploring. What I definitely DIDN’T want was to explore many of those exact same themes again with Farrin. Farrin is an entirely different character! Why didn’t we lean more into her crippling sense of responsibility? Her inability to trust or rely on others to get things done? Perhaps an unwillingness to work as a team? (To be fair, we do get bits of this, but it falls to the way side with other issues). All of these would be grounded in not only her personal story and history, but would fit by the personality of the character we were originally introduced to. The Farrin of the first book was secretive, but confident. Distant, but sure-footed. There was so much potential here, and to find myself reading another story where our heroine is almost frozen by her own self-loathing and anxiety…it was incredibly frustrating. And, again, made me start to question the author’s ability to write a variety of main characters. Further, I remain very interested in reading the third book in this series, but I’m increasingly worried that I’ll pick it up and find the warrior woman sister I’ve been reading about now in three books has somehow magically turned into yet another self-loathing ball of anxiety.
On another positive note, however, I definitely enjoyed the romance and the romantic lead in this book more. Ryder was a fantastic hero and, if a complaint is to be found, almost too perfect. But as romance readers are not known for whining about perfect leading men, I won’t even bother. That said, I do think this book might have been served better to have strayed further from the structure of the classic romance novel. In that set-up, there’s always the late third act conflict between the hero and the heroine that must then be resolved before the HEA. And this one was just ridiculous.
I don’t want to spoil it (though it’s obvious not only from the beginning of this book but probably even the first, to the astute reader), but Farrin’s reaction to being told one of Ryder’s secrets is so overblown for the actual situation as to be not only ridiculous but to paint in her an unlikable light (again, this is not helped by Ryder’s perfection throughout this book). Yes, she quickly realizes her mistake, but then the final quarter of the story is spent with her waxing on about her fears that he won’t forgive her for this reaction. Again, “tiresome” is the only word that comes to mind. And, frankly, it was totally unnecessary. This book is action packed and built to an excellent climax of magical fighting and wonder; there was no reason to waste page time on a frivolous fight between love interests (seemingly only included to meet this romance novel standard of structure).
This is already an incredibly long review, but I do want to end on one other positive. For all of my complaints about Farrin’s inner life, I did appreciate the way that Legrand explored her discomfort with her body. This isn’t the sort of struggle you often find in romances, and I think it was generally well done. I do wish more time had been devoted to exploring how Farrin developed this particular anxiety, as it was crippling at times and not something one would imagine to pop up with out an instigating event. That said, I still appreciated its inclusion.
So, all my ranting aside, I actually enjoyed this book quite a lot! While I struggled with her more than I anticipated, I still liked Farrin’s story overall. The romance was better than the first, and this book took massive strides as far as the world-building goes and in setting up the third book and its conflict. I’ll definitely be checking out the third (please, PLEASE, don’t let Mara turn into another cut-out of this same character), and fans of the series will likely enjoy this one!
Rating 8: Not without flaws, but an improvement on the first and laying the groundwork for what could be an excellent final entry!
Reader’s Advisory:
“A Song of Ash and Moonlight” can be found on this Goodreads list (not my list, for the record): My favorite Fairytale Fantasy novels.
The Library Ladies 