A Day of Fallen Night: A Roots of Chaos Novel (The Roots of Chaos)

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I loved the first book so I was so excited to finally get my hands on this, sad to see it arrived with a tear in the beautiful cover sleeve! Having to put this book down was so hard, especially as it’s better in large chunks, so you can get fully into it! If anything, Shannon uses this story to develop those themes even further, exploring the ways that religion influences the lives of every character in her world. Also, it reads a bit like sitting over Samantha Shannon’s shoulder and watching her play tall in Crusader Kings 3 for hours on end. Her fourth novel, The Priory of the Orange Tree , was her first outside of The Bone Season series and was a New York Times bestseller.

As in Priory, Shannon excels at creating a strong cast of female characters with excellent queer representation. Of course there are little moments here and there you don't necessarily know will happen until they do, but the overall arc of the story is pretty classic for fantasy.I’m less present here nowadays, as I’ve realised I only have the concentration and willpower for one social media platform.

I've never seen the way I feel about pregnancy, birth, and motherhood represented so well, and in fact I used a specific passage from this book to explain it to my own mother (who fully accepts and respects my position but struggles sometimes to really understand it) and it shocked her to hear it and made her understand my position in a way she hadn't before. Samantha Shannon has mentioned that she has tentative plans for 5 in the Roots of Chaos series (one of which would be a direct sequel to priory tying all the prequels together) and I had a lot of fun speculating what other time periods we might get from this world. I’m intending to answer a small number of questions after A Day of Fallen Night comes out, then permanently close my inbox.The main story of A Day of Fallen Night concerns the reawakening of an ancient evil and its impact on each of our main protagonists and their respective lands. Even mothers who mean well can do harm and on the opposite end of the scale, motherhood can also be used in toxic ways to 'own' a child. The biggest pull comes from the humanity displayed by the central characters, whose hearts ache for their children and their futures in a world fraught with turmoil. Overall an impressive story of three powerful woman whose lives become entwined as Shannon breathes fire and life into this incredible story of survival, love, and honour. The chapters are short enough to keep the story moving for the most part, but there were sections which dragged out the inevitable for too long.