Lan has always had a strange mark burned into her arm by her dying mother - a mark that only she can see, until one night, a boy who saves her, can see it; Zen. Zen’s a practitioner - one of the fabled magicians of the Last Kingdom. Their magic is rumored to have been drawn from the demons they communed with and now must be hidden from the Elantians at all costs.

Both Lan and Zen have secrets buried deep - ones they must hide from others and ones they must still discover themselves. Both hold the power to liberate their land - or to destroy the world.

I originally tried reading this a while ago and couldn’t get into it right then - it's a heavy fantasy, with an a-mazing world building. When I first read it, I couldn’t place myself in the world. Quite a few months later, I was able to get ahold of the audiobook from my library and listen to it. That’s where I fell into the world fast.

This book reads, to me, like an epic movie. I could see all the fight scenes perfectly, the mood was easily set and understandable. But, again, this may be a series where I listen to the audiobooks of them because there was so much info dump to get you set into the world and the scenes that, to me, I was able to visualize a little better when I heard it, rather than when I saw it.

This is the first book of a series though, so it gets to have the info dumps. I’m still excited to read the second book in the series and have already put a hold of it at the library.

Overall, this is a wonderful fantasy book based in Chinese Folklore and Mythology that I can see a great deal of readers enjoying - especially those who really like to get dropped into a world totally unlike ours currently. ( )

The story of this book is bubbling along like a brook. Steady and pretty to look at. but also somewhat unexciting. It never really picks up strength, every time you think there is a rapid coming, it ends up being only short lived..
Where the book tries to tell a story about bravery, the writing style shy away from it and makes you yearning for something that is fleetingly mentioned but never comes out into the open.
I mean, why write a story with an invading army with an ancient Chinese inspired background only to totally cop out when it comes to the actual fighting?
Why come up with a resistance that is obviously training in the art of Wuxia but then not tapping into it besides to let the protagonists run through air and have them cast seals - which feel like a very cheap cop out of when there is trouble, to avoid writing fighting scenes. Considered that Wuxia has such a long tradition in Chinese story telling I found that pretty baffling.

Other than that it was a solid read, the characters were set up in a way which gives them enough room to grow. The world itself had the right amount of description for me that I could imagine the surrounding myself without being buried under tons of details. And the story itself is interesting enough that I will most likely will read the following book(s).

In the end though, it is a brook that never managed it to make its way into a fast and exciting stream. ( )

A possibly overlong YA heroic fantasy set in an East Asian inspired world. It’s basically colonial China which has been completely conquered by the West; the Imperial family is dead, and the conquerers are seeking out the last vestiges of the magical schools and clans. I found it mildly confusing to keep the cast straight, and would have welcomed a glossary for the Chinese terms used.

The hero and heroine were OK; the love blooming between them was handled rather well. There were elements of wuxia cinema in the martial arts described; I was also reminded of the role-playing game, Qin. The East Asian-inpired setting was reasonably well drawn.

An OK read but probably not something I would have purchased. I got my copy from NetGalley.

Thank you, Turn The Page Tours, for the chance to read Song of Silver, Flame Like Night by Amélie Wen Zhao
Song of Silver, Flame Like Night is the first book in the Song of the Last Kingdom duology by Amélie Wen Zhao. This isn't the author's first series; she's better known for her debut, Blood Heir, which has been reviewed 12,744 times on Goodreads! Like Blood Heir, Song of Silver, Flame Like Night is also published by Delacorte Press, a Random House imprint. It's 467 pages long and falls broadly under the category of fantasy (but more specifically under YA fantasy), mythology, and Chinese folklore.

Lan is a song girl in a colonized kingdom. By day, she alternatively flirts and avoids patrons of the teahouse to make ends meet, and by night sneaks out to try to understand the scar on her arm that no one but her can see. When she accidentally kills an Elantian soldier, she draws the attention of an Elantian magician who killed her mother and really wants her gone too. Lan escapes with Zen, the boy who can see she too is a practitioner (even if she doesn't know it), to go to a place the Elantians can't reach, a school of masters who can train her too. Once there, Lan discovers the truth about her mother's death and takes control to try and protect the ones she loves.

There are some really great things in this book! For one, I loved the magic system the author set up and the world she built. By making Zen Lan's teacher, Zhao could include a lot of information without it being out of place. The Zen and Lan chemistry was also done well; they're instantly attracted to each other. The author keeps going with that instead of randomly sliding it in somewhere. There are some really touching moments, such as when Lan talks about how Zen gives her information so freely when she used to have to beg for it before meeting him. The book also depicted colonialism fairly well, from how resources are extracted to how history is being re-written to suit the victor. The side characters have interesting stories and I'm looking forward to seeing more of them in the next book!

Some things did bug me. The language would sometimes go from being very pretty and slightly old-fashioned to being hyper-modern in the same sentence, which is occasionally jarring. I also noted this in the Iron Widow, and I wonder if this is a style that authors are now experimenting with. Lan also felt very stupid and childish; things like the dancing in the woods scene and when she bathes in the sacred spring just rubbed me the wrong way. The dramatic parent reveal was also a bit blegh.

I am intrigued by the ending with what both Lan and Zen chose, and I'm looking forward to the next book. ( )