Book Review: The Evergreen Heir by A. K. Milford
Buy The Evergreen Heir here
OFFICIAL AUTHOR BIO: A.K. Mulford is a bestselling fantasy author and former wildlife biologist who swapped rehabilitating monkeys for writing novels.
She/they are inspired to create diverse stories that transport readers to new realms, making them fall in love with fantasy for the first time, or, all over again.
She now lives in New Zealand with her husband and two young human primates, creating lovable fantasy characters and making ridiculous Tiktoks (@akmulfordauthor).
Get the Okrith Novellas FREE at www.akmulford.com
OFFICIAL BOOK BLURB: A court of revelry. A bookish heir. An impending marriage. And a dark new power rising in the world...
If allowed, Neelo Emberspear would never leave the library. Reluctant to take the throne despite their mother's faltering health, the neurodivergent bookworm craves escape from their arranged marriage to charming fae warrior Talhan Catullus. But they know their duty can be put off no longer when their mother, the drug-addled queen, disastrously lights the castle on fire.
Fighting to save their mother's life and keep her on the throne, Neelo is astonished when bonding over the written word brings them closer than ever to their cavalier, soon-to-be husband. But the non-binary heir's growing affections may be cut short with witch uprisings threatening to topple the entire continent.
Can Neelo claim both love and dominion before their court is reduced to ash?
If allowed, Neelo Emberspear would never leave the library. Reluctant to take the throne despite their mother's faltering health, the neurodivergent bookworm craves escape from their arranged marriage to charming fae warrior Talhan Catullus. But they know their duty can be put off no longer when their mother, the drug-addled queen, disastrously lights the castle on fire.
Fighting to save their mother's life and keep her on the throne, Neelo is astonished when bonding over the written word brings them closer than ever to their cavalier, soon-to-be husband. But the non-binary heir's growing affections may be cut short with witch uprisings threatening to topple the entire continent.
Can Neelo claim both love and dominion before their court is reduced to ash?
FORMAT/INFO: The Evergreen Heir is the fourth book in The Five Crowns of Okrith series. It will be published by Harper Voyager on June 13, 2023, in ebook, hardcover, and paperback formats.
OVERVIEW/ANALYSIS: This is the fourth book in The Five Crowns of Okrith, a series of interconnected novels. I haven't read the previous entries, but I hear that the each of them are interconnected but can be read as standalones. That's certainly true for this one, and it contains a very endearing romance.
It features an extensive reader, Neelo Emberspear, who is introverted and has no interested in taking over as king of the Southern Court. Their mother has arranged a match with his charming childhood friend, Talhan Catullus, convinced that they will be a good pair to rule over the kingdom as she retires. But Neelo has no interest heading the court, and neither do they think they should marry Talhan. When Queen Emberspear burns down an entire wing of the castle in a drug-addled haze, they start mentally preparing to step up to rule, and at the same time, set out to remove the brew she abuses from the Southern court.
Perhaps the only benefit in Neelo one day becoming sovereign was that they could create a new library... if they could ever settle on just one design.
Throughout the book, Neelo showcases so many bookish traits that each of us can relate to. They'd rather have their nose buried in a book than socialise with people at a party, the first things they try to save when their mother sets the place on fire is the maximum amount of books they can get their hands on. The description of his library had me seriously consider eventually having something similar designed. Even though he lives in a palace and is the heir to the throne, he has one eternal book-related problem: there isn't enough space for his books. After all, why shouldn't the place have more libraries than ballrooms?
You balance the weight of sorrow with all of your light. You are the most brilliant star, the brightest sun.
The romance between Neelo and Talhan is the biggest undertaking in this book. Neelo doesn't want to wed their childhood friend, and neither do they think the Southern Court is a good place for Talhan. It is clear from the first interaction between them in the book that there's a lot of tension between them, and the author skilfully paces the romance in a way that tension is built right until the breaking point, and peppers everything in between with extremely swoon-worthy dialogue. Somehow, neurodivergent Neelo, who is never at ease with people and cannot read social cues, is completely comfortable with Talhan, and there's a lot of their shared childhood experiences being revisited over their attempt to trace the supplier of the drugs polluting the minds of people in the Southern Court. What's even better than a book with bookish protagonist? One that has the central pair bonding over the written word! And this book completely delivers on that front.
Neelo's non-binary identity is well explored in this book, and what I loved is everyone's acceptance of it. They reminisce on how their mother never questioned them, when faced with the reality that it's not as easy for people in other parts of the world to be themselves, and it was nice to see this acknowledgement of how they weren't failed as a child. There were some descriptions of food that made me ravenous, as well as sufficient of those of the places they travelled to, to make me hungry to see more of this world.
Personally, I would've preferred more focus on their travels to find and protect their court from all manner of threats. I found the romance subplot overpowered the rest to a point where my only concern was to see if and how Neelo and Talhan would end up with each other. There were also mentions of events or characters worked into the text that I would love to have been explored more.
CONCLUSION: The Evergreen Heir is a fun, light read that kept me turning the pages with the tension built around the main characters, and touched upon enough of the setting to make me want to pick up the previous entries in The Five Crowns of Okrith. It stumbles a bit in exploring the premise, but A.K. Mulford's reader representation made this adult fantasy romance a satisfying read for me.
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Decorum by Jonathan Hickman and Mike Huddleston review
Book links: Amazon, Goodreads
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Jonathan Hickman (born September 3, 1972, South Carolina) is an American comic book writer and artist. He is known for creating the Image Comics series The Nightly News, The Manhattan Projects and East of West, as well as working on Marvel Comics' Fantastic Four, FF and S.H.I.E.L.D. titles. In 2012, Hickman ended his run on the Fantastic Four titles to write Avengers and New Avengers, as part the "Marvel NOW!" relaunch. In 2013, Hickman wrote a six-part miniseries, Infinity, plus Avengers tie-ins for Marvel Comics. As of 2015, he is writing the crossover event Secret Wars.
Publisher: Image Comics (May 3, 2022) Page count: 408
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Jonathan Hickman (born September 3, 1972, South Carolina) is an American comic book writer and artist. He is known for creating the Image Comics series The Nightly News, The Manhattan Projects and East of West, as well as working on Marvel Comics' Fantastic Four, FF and S.H.I.E.L.D. titles. In 2012, Hickman ended his run on the Fantastic Four titles to write Avengers and New Avengers, as part the "Marvel NOW!" relaunch. In 2013, Hickman wrote a six-part miniseries, Infinity, plus Avengers tie-ins for Marvel Comics. As of 2015, he is writing the crossover event Secret Wars.
Publisher: Image Comics (May 3, 2022) Page count: 408
Miranda by John R. Little
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: John R. Little was born in London, Canada, and started writing short stories at the age of twelve. The stories he wrote at the time are not memorable.
His first novel, The Memory Tree, was published by Nocturne Press in 2007. It was nominated for the Bram Stoker award for best first novel.
Publisher: Bad Moon Press (January 1. 2008) Print length: 109 pages Formats: ebook, paperback
Five
years ago today, Under Ordshaw was
released and the world was exposed to a unique British city with the occasional
magical/horrific twist. The series has now seen two story arcs completed with
The Sunken City Trilogy and The Ikiri Duology; two new arcs started with The City Screams and Dyer Street Punk Witches, and a host of
short stories. To celebrate Ordshaw’s anniversary, here’s a trip down memory
lane – and as a gift of Under Ordshaw for free for the next few days (29th - 31st), available in all
major eBook stores, everywhere.
What is Under Ordshaw?
It all started with poker player Pax Kuranes discovering a secret labyrinth under her otherwise normal (if rough) city. Also, she discovered some very unusual, but mostly horrible, monsters – and a community of rather offensive and violent diminutive fairies. All this in a city otherwise rooted in reality, with distinct, characterful boroughs and a deep, detailed history (inspired variously by some cities I’m most familiar with, such as London, Nottingham, Bristol and Luton (not a city, with spite)). The books mostly explore the seedier, darker side of Ordshaw, involving criminal gangs, shady government organisations and impoverished, rundown neighbourhoods, with some hints at the brighter, cheerier suburbs.
The Journey to the Story
Under Ordshaw was written and released over about 18 months, between 2017 and 2018 (alongside and overlapping my dystopian Estaliabooks). Blue Angel and The Violent Fae followed in 2019 to complete The Sunken City Trilogy (with The City Screams emerging somewhere in between). My plans for it emerged much earlier, though, while frequently riding the metro working in Prague, 2008 (a job that also inspired parts of Dyer Street Punk Witches).
The bare roots of the story came together in a screenplay around 2008. I spent two or three years revising it, taking it to producers and directors. In its earliest form, it resembled something of the final structure of Under Ordshaw, but followed the Barton family with no Pax in sight. At some point this warped, as screenplays do, into an animation involving talking penguins, and there were rumours at one point of Whoopi Goldberg coming on board. That all petered out, until some years later when I’d got a couple of self-published books under my belt, and had a burning desire to revive and combine a slew of older works.
A Shared Universe
I wrote Under Ordshaw with big plans in mind from the offset. There was to be an opening trilogy, but also a series of independent or loosely connected tales. Blue Angel hints at a character in The City Screams; The City Screams introduces a character from The Ikiri Duology; and Under Ordshaw itself references criminals discussed in Dyer Street Punk Witches.
My goal was to explore different tropes and story arcs framed in one particular Ordshaw lens: gritter action thrillers (in a vein of the emergent cinema of the 90s) with the propensity for wild fantasy twists and turns. There would be a witches saga, a haunted house tale, a Faustian story, secular crime stories and more. Then, there was also the opportunity for absolutely off-the-wall adventures, as Kept From Cages introduced.
Five Years in the Open
For all my lofty goals, Under Ordshaw got off to a fairly inauspicious start, and really owes the spark of life it found to Mark Lawrence’s SPFBO and the many wonderful contacts I’ve made following that. The book was a semi-finalist for Lynn’s Books in 2018 and Lynn kindly put me in touch with other bloggers who helped review and promote the series. It picked up momentum through the attention of a lot of great reviewers, which in turn has always encouraged me to keep hammering at my greater scheme. Never mind that sales have always been an uphill struggle, and Ordshaw doesn’t neatly fit the existing markets – the rewards are there in seeing readers’ responses to the series.
I have slowed down in recent years to split my focus over other projects, but little by little, Ordshaw has spread further into the world. We’re now up to seven novels in the series. Dyer Street has opened up a whole new venture, while Kept From Cages also reached the SPFBO semi-finals and went on to give Mark Lawrence himself a paper cut. And the books themselves are only improving as they go: I’ll forever love Under Ordshaw, but it is a particular starting point, with a certain roughness to it. Each entry that follows aims to expand and improve on that.
The Next Five Years
My plans for the future vary between the simple (add more books to the series) and elaborate (design Ordshaw animations and games; Ordshaw theme park?). What’s on the more immediate horizon are a sequel to The City Screams, with the long-overdue return of Pax and Letty, and the sequel to Dyer Street Punk Witches. There’s also an interactive story I’ve been itching to write forever. Then there will eventually be more from the Cutjaw Kids and Katiya and a couple of other standalone tales, and I’d like to go back to where this started and produce fresh screenplays from the books. Because the world needs more foul-mouthed fairies, criminal jazz musicians, weird monsters and punk witches, in every format.
For now, though, my most heartfelt thanks to everyone who’s come along for the ride, and everyone who’s yet to step into Ordshaw (don’t forget to grab your copy for free while you can!). I couldn’t have got anywhere near as far as I have without the support of a wonderful community of readers and writers, and I look forward to sharing more with you.
About The Author: Phil Williams is an author of contemporary fantasy and dystopian
fiction, including the Ordshaw urban fantasy thrillers and the post-apocalyptic
Estalia series. He also writes reference books to help foreign learners master
the nuances of English, two of which are regular best-sellers on Kindle. As a
long-term teacher and tutor of advanced English, he runs the popular website
“English Lessons Brighton”.
Phil lives with his wife by the coast in Sussex, UK, and spends a great deal of time walking his impossibly fluffy dog, Herbert.
Book Review: The Fairy Bargains of Prospect Hill by Rowenna Miller
Buy The Blighted Stars HERE
OFFICIAL AUTHOR BIO: Megan E. O'Keefe was raised amongst journalists, and as soon as she was able joined them by crafting a newsletter which chronicled the daily adventures of the local cat population. She lives in the Bay Area of California, and spends her free time tinkering with anything she can get her hands on.
Her fantasy debut, Steal the Sky, won the Gemmell Morningstar Award and her space opera debut, Velocity Weapon was nominated for the Philip K. Dick Award.
Her fantasy debut, Steal the Sky, won the Gemmell Morningstar Award and her space opera debut, Velocity Weapon was nominated for the Philip K. Dick Award.
Wednesday, May 24, 2023
A Cup of Tea at the Mouth of Hell by Luke Tarzian (Reviewed by Matthew Higgins)
Book Review: A Cup of Tea at the Mouth of Hell by Luke Tarzian
Karmen by Guillem March review
Book links: Amazon, Goodreads
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Guillem March is a Mallorca based artist who is best known for his cover work on DC titles such as Catwoman and Batman.
Publisher: Image Comics (May 17, 2022) Pages: 160 Art: Guillem March
Official Author Website
Order The Will Of The Many over HERE
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