Dear bookish friends!
I have yet ANOTHER awesome TheWriteReads blog tour book review for you today! I’m glad I found my way back into fantasy lately, because today I tell you about Vultures, a dark fantasy by Luka Tarzian! If you’re a fan of this genre, you shouldn’t miss this!
Big thanks to Dave from TheWriteReads and the author Luke Tarzian for having me on this tour, and for my ecopy which I received in exchange for my honest review.
The Synopsis
An enemy slain is not a conflict won…
After decades of war the demon Te Mirkvahíl is dead. But its progeny endure, spilling from the Heart of Mirkúr, sowing death across the land of Ariath. If the people are to finally know peace, the Heart must be destroyed. Theailys An believes he can do just that with The Keepers’ Wrath, an infamous power focus wrought in Ariath’s yesteryears–but the weapon first must be reforged.
War spares no one…
Serece never intended to get involved in Ariath’s war. But history and demons have a way of pulling strings. When she learns Theailys An, a man whom she abhors, bears striking similarity to the first creator of The Keepers’ Wrath, Serece departs her mountain world for Ariath to ascertain the truth.
From patience, hope…
For millennia Behtréal has walked the world alone. Rewriting history to resurrect his people is easier said than done. But Ariath holds the key–soon The Keepers’ Wrath will be remade.
Truth from madness…
As paths converge and a shadow falls across Ariath, one thing becomes increasingly and horrifyingly clear–these events have played out many times before.
My Review
This was my first book by Luke Tarzian, but I just discovered that he has written more, and that makes me very excited!
Vultures is a dark fantasy story told through three points of view. I usually don’t pick up fantasies that sound this dark and often have a hard time with novels told from different perspectives, but this one was written so eloquently that I didn’t have that many problems following the plot and storyline. Big relief there! I love the TheWriteReads tours for making me read more outside my comfort zone, and I highly urge you to do that too! You might find a new favourite genre – or even book!
One of the main characters in Vultures is Theailys An, a man who is trying everything in his might to get rid of the demons escaping from the ‘Heart of Mirkur.’ Now actually, these demons should be long gone – wiped away in a huge battle that should have killed the great demon lord. Focus is on ‘should have’ here. Fact is, the demons are still there, killing more and more people on their way. Actually, Theailys himself is sort of possessed, but I don’t want to give away too much there. I found him a very interesting a special character.
At the heart of Vultures lies this struggle: demons trying to overtake the world, to possess souls, to kill people wherever they can, while on the other side, the inhabitants of Ariath are trying to stop a war that has been going on forever and a day.
Another main character and point of view we get to experience is Serece, a woman who seems as if she’s thrown into this world without wanting to be there at first, but she, too, is there for a reason. She’s thrown into the events and when she comes across Theailys, she feels both drawn as well as repulsed by him – she hates him, and yet, she finds that their paths are interwoven, so she is still also curious. Serece, too, is a very interesting character, one I liked to observe through her focalisation.
The world-building is very intricate and detailed, and you know it takes a great deal of creativity to come up with this sort of story when you read it. As I said, I don’t usually read dark fantasy books like this one very often, and I have to admit it was almost too dark, too hopeless at times for my taste. I know that this is a niche within fantasy itself, and there are lots of readers who enjoy it, so that’s just a personal factor. While I appreciated all the different poins of view we get, we also get different timelines, and after a while, I started to lose track of what was happening at times. I know that many readers of epic fantasies can deal with this in a much better way, so that might be a personal point for me too, but I still struggled at times.
This isn’t a book you just sit down and read for an hour or two. It demands your full attention and quite some time, but it is also very fulfilling. You feel like you actually go on a journey with these characters. So if you’re willing to dedicate some time (and some brain) and are craving an engaging, dark fantasy, this one is for you. If you’re looking for a fun and quick read, maybe you should keep looking.
4 stars from me, and I am looking forward to see what happens in the second instalment of this series!
Thank you all so much for reading!
xoxo
Noly
