My dear bookish friends!
Today I have for you a review of the winner of last year’s (and first ever) BBNYA – Book Bloggers’ Novel of the Year Award! Woohoo!
I didn’t get to read this book during the competition itself and naturally, I was super excited to finally get my chance to find out why everyone who did read it thought it deserved to be number one!
Now, you’re probably wondering, do I think the same? You will have to read on to find out! But first, here’s a bit of info on what BBNYA is, how you can participate and more!
BBNYA
BBNYA is a yearly competition where book bloggers from all over the world read and score books written by indie authors.
If you are an author and wish to learn more about the 2021 BBNYA competition, you can visit the official website or our Twitter account, @BBNYA_Official.
If you would like to sign-up and enter your book, you can find all the info on there!
If you are a book blogger or reviewer, you can apply to be part of BBNYA in the future! I highly recommend it, it is great fun and you get to discover some awesome books by indie authors!
BBNYA is brought to you in association with the Folio Society (If you love beautiful books you NEED to check out their website!) and the book blogger support group TheWriteReads.
The Syopsis
John Carver has three rules: Don’t drink in the daytime, don’t gamble when the luck has gone, and don’t talk to the dead people who come to visit.
It has been almost five years since the incident in Kabul. Since the magic stirred within him and the stories began. Fleeing the army, running from the whispers, the guilt, and the fear he was losing his mind, Carver fell into addiction, dragging himself through life one day at a time.
Desperation has pulled him back to Afghanistan, back to the heat, the dust, and the truth he worked so hard to avoid. But there are others, obsessed with power and forbidden magics, who will stop at nothing to learn the truth of his gifts. Abducted and chained, Carver must break more than his own rules if he is to harness this power and survive.
My Review
I was super excited to finally get to read the winner of the first ever BBNYA, and even though I was kind of expecting a totally different story (from looking at the cover and hearing the title), The Lore of Prometheus did not disappoint!
The story starts off in a casino (a setting I totally wasn’t expecting either), and John Carver, an ex-military man, is trying to make some money tom pay off his debt. He still hasn’t recovered from what has happened years ago in Kabul, and still suffers from bad trauma and depression. He can’t unsee what he saw, what happened to his fellow squad members, and he can’t get rid of the bad feeling of guilt that has burnt itself into every fibre of his being. When he leaves the building, he runs into some people you don’t want to meet in a dark alley on your own. By this point I thought I knew where this story was going, but nope. Not at all.
From the blurb I knew that somehow magic must get involved in this book, but I had no idea how, where, or when. How could magic fit into such a realistic story? It didn’t seem to fit, but I have to admit that I was wrong! Or well, I just couldn’t figure it out until it happened. After a while we find out that Carver is called ‘The Miracle of Kabul’ ever since an incident from year’s ago that he cannot forget.
What I also wasn’t expecting was that the point of view would shift to that of a woman. Mackenzie, who wakes up in a dark room, chained and alone, reflects the reader’s shock. Why is she there? I loved that the two voices seemed like polar opposites, but both were realistic and believable in their own way. Where Carver seems professional and a bit detached, Mackenzie acts like you and me. She screams for help, and I wanted to scream with her.
From page one, Carver reminded me of Jason Statham in a new thrilling action movie. The pacing is great, you are hooked from the start and want to find out what, when, who, and why. How will magic get involved? How will Carver and Mackenzie’s stories cross? Or will they at all?
I loved how believable, how real both main characters seemed. And even though some of the action scenes were sometimes quite brutal and hard to digest, the author managed to add an underlying sense of humour to some of them so that they lightened up. Don’t get me wrong though, there is a lot of drama, violence, trauma happening here; Carver’s memories are badbadbad – this isn’t a fluffy sunshine happy rainbow book.
But it is powerful, deep, unites two genres that I didn’t expect would connect so well (action-thriller and fantasy) and it has a great cast of characters. The author managed to write about delicate subject matters with a sensitivity that made it clear that a lot of research must have gone into creating this story. Not only that, also the language that was used made it seem absolutely real. It made me think that either the author himself must have served in the military or something like that, or his research must really have been extensive.
If you, like me, were expecting a fantasy story from the start, think again. The Lore of Prometheus lets you wait for that aspect for a bit, but it is a special and unique story that makes up for the waiting. At some points, mainly at the collision points of the two ‘worlds’ and where genres moved into each other I sometimes got a slight feeling of disconnection, as if the flow of the story itself was a little bit bumpy, so to say. However, then again it kind of fit the character of Carver and his story, so maybe that was intentional.
All in all I can say that The Lore of Prometheus will take you on a rollercoaster ride of thoughts and emotions, and you won’t be able to get a grip on your brain thinking, ‘What will happen next?!’. The plot will surprise you, the characters will grab hold of you, the story will grip you. Let me promise you this – you won’t want to put the book down before you haven’t reached the ending.
And why wait? This is the winner of the 2020 Book Bloggers’ Novel of the Year Awards!!! 4 stars from me for this exciting, fast-paced thriller slash fantasy that will keep you on the edge of your seat, even for long after you have finished it!
Thank you all so much for reading, and a big thank you to the Dave @TheWriteReads and the author for having me on this tour!
xoxo
Noly
