This series is one of my absolute favourite fantasy series of all time. I’ve reviewed the rest of the series here: book one, The Ruin of Kings; book two, The Name of All Things; book three, The Memory of Souls.

This was one of my most anticipated releases of 2021, so when Tor sent me a copy early, I threw my entire TBR away to reread the series and jump into the next instalment.

Rating: 5 stars!

Thanks to Tor UK for sending me a finished copy of this book. It has not affected my honest review.

Content Warnings: misogyny, murder, mentions of slavery, gore, cannibalism, violence, mentions of sexual assault.

About the book:

What if you were imprisoned for all eternity?

In the aftermath of the Ritual of Night, everything has changed.

The Eight Immortals have catastrophically failed to stop Kihrin’s enemies, who are moving forward with their plans to free Vol Karoth, the King of Demons. Kihrin has his own ideas about how to fight back, but even if he’s willing to sacrifice everything for victory, the cost may prove too high for his allies.

Now they face a choice: can they save the world while saving Kihrin, too? Or will they be forced to watch as he becomes the very evil they have all sworn to destroy.

What did I think?

With every new book in this series, I wonder how the format can be sustained throughout the developing story, and they keep getting more creative every time. I loved the way this book was set up, with our characters caught in close confinement and magic causing them to delve into their memories. I really liked the way the memories worked. It made sense within the narrative itself, allowed the characters and the readers to dive into embarrassing secrets that the characters would be unlikely to share, and I loved getting to see the characters react to each other’s memories. The close quarters also let us explore more than just the usual main three characters. I loved seeing Senera have more page time, espeeeecially getting to see her stuck up close and personal with Thurvishar. The footnotes are one of my favourite parts of this entire series, and they’re still incredible. I absolutely love them. This series it was Senera writing the footnotes, and I kind of hope that THE DISCORD OF GODS has both of them.

One of my notes for this review was just ‘TERAETH, JANEL AND KIHRINNNNN’, and I totally stand by that. I love the three of them, and their burgeoning polyamorous relationship from The Memory of Souls got explored in more depth in this series entry. I loved it. I love them. Their interactions are perfect in every way, and I am going to be absolutely devastated when I reach the end of this series and I don’t have anymore content from my favourite throuple. Speaking of the next book…. Tor please give me THE DISCORD OF GODS immediately. I am absolutely terrified by that title and I literally cannot wait a second longer for the last part of this series. I couldn’t have predicted anything that happened in this book. It was a spectacular build on the rest of the over-arching story, and the ending as solid as all of the rest of the books. Jenn Lyons has made explosive endings into an art form and THE HOUSE OF ALWAYS is no exception. When it’s all over, I think I’ll still keep up my yearly reread of the whole series because I simply refuse to be without my fantastical disaster queers.

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Release Date: 11th May 2021

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