Happy weekend everyone, hopefully you’ve all got some good reading time planned!
It’s hard to talk about book three in a series without giving anything away, so I just want to make a few general comments about the conclusion of The Dreadbound Ode trilogy.
The Skald’s Black Verse was decent, I loved The Weeping Sigil, and found Travels in the Dark to be the weakest of the three but still a great read and satisfying conclusion.
Bookish Quick Facts:
- Title: Travels in the Dark
- Series: The Dreadbound Ode #3
- Author: Jordan Loyal Short
- Publisher & Release: Self Published, March 2022
- Length: 342 pages
- Rate & Recommend: ⭐⭐⭐✨ yes for dark fantasy fans!
Here’s the synopsis from GoodReads:
Lyssa is going to the Dead Place and everyone she killed will be waiting.
As the Hidden One’s twisted plan to resurrect the Deep Gods unfolds, the only way to stop him is a secret buried in the land of death.
But Lyssa has not given up. If the Deep Gods can return, so can she.
Can Lyssa find a way back? Can she delve into hell’s darkest corners and emerge with the lore to stop the Deep Gods’ rise? Or will she become a lost soul, like so many of those she loved in life?
Ancient horrors will wake. Skalds will sing. And a blind seer will see the shadows gather.
Lyssa Pedersten has tasted poison, and hell had best beware.
Whew… Overall this series was very, very good. It’s rare for me to sit down and binge a series like this but it was hard not to know what happens next. If you TL:DR this review, just know that I recommend it for dark fantasy fans that like equal parts character and action driven content with tons of world building.
Brohr, aka mister “this dark and no darker”, is trying to figure out how far into the void of corruption he is willing to go. Can he regain his own agency? He is willing to travel to Hell, the outer void, or straight into a clash of monsters to get Lyssa’s soul back. That’s great for Lyssa because fuck being dead, she’s not done with life and has a long road through the underworld to travel. Then you have Henrik who is balancing by the hair of his little toe over a pit of political vipers while witnessing the aforementioned clash of gods. I think, for all that I didn’t like Henrik at first, that he ended up being my favorite character. All three have pretty amazing arcs.
Each characters storyline will break your heart in this book as they finally come to their fates.
The mood and setting just keep getting darker. Lyssa’s trip through The Dead Place was probably my favorite part even if I never cared for her as a character. The terrors and obstacles she navigated were cool, sad, and added a lot to the world building. Talk about letting hell loose 😅
Is it bad that my favorite character was a talking severed head, and a minor side character in the form of an 8 year old girl? This, if nothing else, to me showed that everyone retains a choice despite their situation.
A smile found its way to his lips, despite everything, as he spied Greta bobbing down the hallway with Sascha’s head tucked under her arm.
The world building continues to grow too and once again, only adds to the story. There’s more lore, we see The Dead Place, encounter more magic, and see all the terrible choices that people end up making as the end of the world closes in. Ooh I loved seeing how these people grew and adapted to overcoming challenges, and seeing who still had hope at the end.
That all said, this was the hardest for me to read. Compared to the first two books, the ebook was challenged with editing and formatting (KU version) where the other two were near flawless. I also had some minor questions at the end. Then there were just silly things like ok if this creature is totally alien, it probably doesn’t have human arms and legs (even if there are hundreds of them) …. It was just overall harder for me to get through, was a tad repetitive for it’s length, and really needed a final proofread. Don’t let that deter you though please!
Don’t get me wrong, I love this series and recommend it fully for dark fantasy fans. It’s both character and action driven, full of lore and world building, and wrecked me a little bit. Overall the series gets a strong ⭐⭐⭐⭐ from me and I can’t wait to see what he does next!
OneReadingNurse.com 