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

Product Information

The dragons in this universe and especially in this book are more like stand-ins for natural disasters.

If you love detailed world-building, fantasy royalty, politics and dragons, this is definitely the book for you. In the East, Dumai lives on a mountain peak and trains as a godsinger, someone who harbors a human connection to the dragons the East worship as gods. I debated giving 4 or 5 stars for this review, because while I was absolutely enthralled by this book, I do feel like it's not quite as well-written or as strong of a story as The Priory. Rich in content, with real depth to the human emotion on display and personal passion portrayed through the characters.

Perhaps one of the biggest is how we all deal with being helpless and what choices we make when under that kind of pressure. Fantasy fans, rejoice: The beloved Samantha Shannon is bringing readers back to the world of bestseller The Priory of the Orange Tree in this standalone prequel, A Day of Fallen Night.

But if you're in the mood for light, undemanding fare then this is probably not the book for you at this time. Taking place centuries before the events of Priory, it’s an expansive epic that interweaves four connected story lines as the protagonists reckon with both personal conflicts and the cataclysmic resurgence of wyrmkind. Samantha Shannon weaves the three stories together, along with a few additional characters in each perspective, beautifully.Like Priory, ADOFN is a slow-building political novel set against the backdrop of a fantasy dragon war. We frail humans cannot generally stand in the path of an earthquake or a volcanic eruption and expect to emerge the victor, and it is the same with the wyrms or western dragons, and to a lesser extent the hybrid creatures who follow them. 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.

Did we really need whole ass chapters of Siyu running away then brought back then running away then brought back! In A Day of Fallen Night, Shannon avoids this problem by introducing Wulf, a young man from the North who becomes the fourth main protagonist in the second part of the book. Meanwhile, Tunuva Melim, a warrior of the Priory, ventures into the outside world to pursue a runaway postulant whose relationship with an outsider puts their sanctuary at risk.The three main female characters were all equally adorable, admirable, and deserving of a central role. Shannon has created a world rich in intricate mythology, beautifully realised and complex, and placed at its heart bold and vivid characters. You can tell how much her craft has improved, the very structure, the very bones of this story hold firmer as we move towards the end with a pace of perfection.

The engrossing new story promises to deliver more character-driven, emotionally complex adventure and intrigue. 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.This book has it all - a vividly realized world, political intrigue, romance, and an array of incredibly strong female characters, each with their own unique voice and narrative that are seamlessly woven together. There are differences in cultures and beliefs and alliances that will provide fans of Priory a good amount of time to speculate how and when certain changes occur. In a book with such an epic scope it's hard to find a place to start when reviewing, but I will nevertheless attempt explaining how infatuated I am with this book in my mere words. However I would advise any deckchair, beach readers to wait for the paperback edition or read on kindle as it's a very heavy tome, I mean it's great that it's a big book but yeah the hard back version is heavy.