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Welcome to Read This Book, the newsletter where I recommend one book for your TBR that I think you’re going to love! Genre fiction is my wheelhouse, and about 90% of my personal TBR, so if if you’re looking for recommendations in horror, fantasy, or romance, I’ve got you covered!
This week I humbly confess that I did not have time to finish my current read which I meant to share with you today – it was one of those reading weeks you know? So while I am very excited to get to write about that book next week, this week I want to share with you a recent release from earlier this year that I was absolutely loved
Hall of Smoke by H.M. Long
So during lockdown I played a lot of Dragon Age: Inquisition. I mean a LOT. And if you’ve ever marathoned any kind of media, a book series, a show, a movie series, a video game – and I know most of you probably have – you know you get into a kind of headspace where all you crave is more of the same kind of content.
Then along came Hall of Smoke, which was everything I could possibly have asked for in a fantasy book at that exact moment. It hit me right in the DA:I sweet spot with it’s massive, mythic feel, it’s vivid landscapes, and it’s warrior heroine stuck right in the middle of a divine war. But what is divinity, really? Who gets to be considered divine? Are divine entities simply brought into being, as they might have us believe, and always divine – or are divine beings made? Do they rise to divinity? And is divinity bestowed upon them? Or is it a prize for a victor to seize?
These are the questions at the heart of Hall of Smoke as Hessa, an Eangi – a battle priestess of the Goddess of War – whose whole town and temple are slaughtered and whose Goddess has forsaken her, struggles to find justice for her people and redemption for herself in a world torn apart by war and fear. When the gods fight amongst themselves, mortals are inevitably trampled underfoot – and something far older, and long asleep, threatens to wake and throw all that Hessa thinks she knows about the gods, the nature of divinity, and herself, into chaos.
There is so much to love about this book, and since we still have something like 9 months until the sequel comes out next January I highly encourage you all to read Hall of Smoke and come join me in the book version of hiatus hell!
Happy Reading!
Jessica