FORMAT/INFO: A Song of Legends Lost was published in the UK on April 8th, 2025, and will be published in the US on June 3rd, 2025. It is 592 pages long and available in paperback, ebook, and audiobook.

OVERVIEW/ANALYSIS: Everyone knows that only those of noble blood can invoke the ancestors, can call their spirits back to the mortal plane to fight in the wars against the greybloods. Or at least, that's what everyone thinks. But when a young woman in the slums summons a spirit, it sets off a chain reaction of events that will shift the Nine Lands forever. As families fight to determine the fate of the kingdom, one little detail slips through the cracks: not every spirit summoned is an ancestor.

A Song of Legends Lost is a truly unique science-fantasy story that will engross you as it keeps you guessing. It will be tempting for many of you to start this story and within a few chapters proclaim, "I know what's going on!" I certainly did that and I'm here to assure you that, like me, you will be wrong. This blend of magic and technology still has me (pleasantly) confused as to how it all ties together, as we only get a peek behind the curtain by the end of this first book.

The story immediately jumps into some bad situations with multiple characters, plunging you into the middle of things as you meet them. While a few POV characters stay the length of the book, some only stick around for chunks at a time, with the cast of POV characters changing as the story switches from Part 2 to Part 3, etc. This gives us a fairly wide view of the events that are playing out across the kingdom. The author does a good job overall of investing you in the characters, but given how much you jump around, I did occasionally find myself emotionally distanced from some characters more than others.

This is also a story that is working on two levels. On the surface you have the very real, sometimes deadly, political posturing between the monarchy, the powerful religious monks, and the noble families. But there is also a whole second layer of characters pulling strings for completely different reasons. To most, this is about protecting their power and protecting the Nine Lands from the dangerous graybloods. But to others, these power struggles are masking a completely different game. We don't know fully what's going on by the end of things, just that we are still in the dark about quite a lot.

That's where this story may be a bit frustrating for some. We only have a tantalizing glimpse of what's truly going on, with much mystery still to be unpacked in the subsequent sequels. Personally, there is plenty of adventure and growth to be found just in this book alone, but I did plead a little bit at the end to please give me just a liiiittle more detail of what's really going on? Please?

CONCLUSION: But in the end, that's while I'll be back for the sequel to A Song of Legends Lost. The author is clearly just getting started and I am ready to go along for the ride (especially after one especially juicy POV in the epilogue). If you're looking for something fresh and original to dive into, I wholly recommend checking out this story.