Receive Your Copy A Choir Of Lies (The Tales Of The Chants, #2) Conceived By Alexandra Rowland File Format Volume
young storyteller must embrace his own skillsand the power of storiesto save a nation from economic ruin, in the standalone sequel to A Conspiracy of Truths.
Three years ago, Ylfing watched his masterChant tear a nation apart with nothing but the words on his tongue, Now Ylfing is all alone in a new realm, brokenhearted and grievingbut a Chant in his own right, employed as a translator to a wealthy merchant of luxury goods, Sterre de Waeyer.
But Ylfing has been struggling to come to terms with what his master did, with the audiences hes been alienated from, and with the stories he can no longer trust himself to tell.
That is, until Ylfings employer finds out what he is, what he does, and what he knows, At Sterres command, Ylfing begins telling stories once more, fanning the city into a mania for a few shipments of an exotic flower, The prices skyrocket, but when disaster looms, Ylfing must face what he has done and decide who he wants to be: a man who walks away and lets the city shatter, as his master did Or will he embrace the power of story to save ten thousand lives
With a memorable cast of characters, starring a fanfavorite from A Conspiracy of Truths, and a timely message, Choir of Lies reminds us that the words we wield can bring destructionor salvation.
AO/Fanfic tags for this book available here, This was unexpected.
I enjoyed the first book in this duology, although they do stand alone if you don't wanna read both, but this one I loved, We follow a different main character than the first one, and it was one I really already liked, and following him was a joy, In a sense. Ylfing is a really sad guy for a lot of this novel, but for me it was a relatable sort and I really sympathised with him, It's about him really screwing up and owning up to it, But it's also about him figuring out, who he is and what he wants,
There are also a lot of footnotes, A lot. But I loved them. Generally I don't mind them as most people do, but these were amazing, They're from a different person, who is really different from Ylfing, and they point out discrepancies which was a lot of fun, I thought they were a great addition to the story and were funny to read,
And another thing I really loved was all the casual queerness, It makes sense with the author being queer, and I loved it a lot, The story takes place in a Amsterdaminspired city and Ylfing explains differences between multiple culture, for example, how in that city there are six genders that are somewhat explained and I thought that was great.
Anyway, this was an amazing book! Okay, I'll be first to admit that it doesn't take much for a book to make me cry, but I can't remember any that made me tear up with every other chapter.
I wish I was exaggerating, And is this a tragic story No!! It's just a boy and he's young and he doesn't know what to do with his life and I know that as someone who has at least one technically useless, sixyearsofmylifethatseeminglyledtonowhere academic title to their name that I was bound to connect to this quite viscerally, but I also wonder if this isn't the one Story haha get it that is unlike finding true love really universal to all of us Nevermind, I'm tearing up again.
What a good book. What a book. I loved A Conspiracy of Truths, yet I must admit I was a bit skeptical about a sequel where Ylfing was the main character, Though it took me a bit to get over that, get over it I did and I ended up loving A Choir of Lies even more than I did the first book.
This book is far more personal, I think, Though I know nothing of the author or the author's personal life, this story feels like a personal story the author needed to tell, But the author did what any good Chant would do: wrapped it in enough layers of fiction that it somehow becomes more true, It's a tale of discovering who you are and finding your own way in the world, and that's something almost everyone can relate to on some level, Really great.
I love the tone of these books and their sense of humor,
This one was just magnificent, even better than the first one,
I want more from the author! Though this is billed as a standalone sequel to sitelinkA Conspiracy of Truths, I can't imagine reading this without knowing one of the pivotal moments of Ylfing's life.
A Conspiracy of Truths was more as an intriguefocused story of stories, whereas the nominal plot of a fantasy version of "tulip mania" in A Choir of Lies takes the backseat to a characterfocused look at Ylfling, mixed in with some creative structure there are overfootnotes and some unreliable narration.
I'm honestly left a bit perplexed at the end, though knowing I read something great, Whereas the first book had a fantastic beginning and a mediocre ending, this book had a mediocre beginning and absolutely fantastic ending!! I can't say which I liked best, but I'm
glad I stuck it out to the end.
I have so many little theories about Ylfing! This was fun and entertaining, and I enjoyed the worldbuilding, although I wish there'd been a bit more plot to hook the beginning.
Those first couple of chapters were rough, and it took a bit to get into the meat and potatoes of what was going on, Still, if you can handle a shaky start, I think the ending is worth the read,starsI really liked it.
Poor Ylfing.
A more useful review: I enjoyed this followup, semistandalone novel by Alexandra Rowland, She's excellent with characterization I especially love her strong middleaged women, It was nice to see some of the emotional fallout damage from the first bookit would have been easy to gloss over that, WOW. There are so many layers of story in this story about storytelling! It's presented as a diary or journal by Ylfing, the sweet cinnamon roll apprentice from A Conspiracy of Truths.
The diary is full of footnotes, which turn out to be reactions, commentary, counterarguments, and speculation by a different character, Both writers tell you they're unreliable narrators, but also that they think storytelling is a type of truthtelling,
The core story is about something like Tulip Mania in a city something like Amsterdambut it's also about things like True Love does it exist we just don't know, gods who probably exist but you don't want to give them ideas, the nature of society, and the importance of cooking.
It's very Pratchettian, though without most of the funny bits and more plausible, less loopy,
An extremely good book I'll be thinking about a lot, The early parts are somewhat frustrating because the older, wiser character doesn't appear to recognize depression, bipolar disorder, OR the effects of trauma amp abusebut part of the point of the book is, why are you looking for an older, wiser character to take care of everything And what's a reliable narrator, anyway So I rated the first book/and this one/but this one is an EVEN BETTER/!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I had a really, really hard time getting into this one.
Likepages hard. Rowland created a lead character in a funk and it put me into a funk as a reader in large part why I've never finished sitelinkCrime and Punishment or sitelinkThe Magic Mountain.
Those are good books to be compared to, except that I found them all fairly dismal trudges, I was this close to doing a DNF on this one as well, but I'm glad I hung in,
Eventually the footnotes got a little more informative and a little less snarky, Ylfing / Brother Chant grew something resembling a spine and there was a point to whole thing.
If you find Ylfing to be a notentirelyannoying character you will undoubtedly enjoy the book more, Unfortunately, I mostly wanted Sister Chant to dopeslap him the way she kept threatening to in the footnotes,
Otherwise, once I had figured out who was the voice behind the footnotes, I mostly found them annoying, too, When Sister Chant finally got a voice of her own was the first time in two books that I really enjoyed one of the main characters, . . which might temper my enthusiasm for reading a third book by this author,
So wildly uneven but ultimately worth the read, Can't imagine who I would recommend it to, If you liked the first one but thought you wanted a lot more of the hopelessly romantic, naive, and fairly dense sidekick, this book is for you,stars. This is a book about mistakes, Not just individual mistakes, but the mistakes of others, and the butterfly effect of errors that compound upon each other to create a storm, Rowland could have stopped it there and had the compelling bones of a story, but they chose to go even further, and create a story that is even moreso about the power of healing and forgiveness.
Despite the fact that our protagonist, the Chant formerly known as Ylfing, spends much of the story in a dark place, the final message of the story is remarkably uplifting as Ylfing learns to turn his insecurities into badges of strength.
Choir of Lies speaks to the power of hope, and presents an optimistic perceptive on the human ability to come together and put the good of the community over individual needs.
Similar to its predecessor, Choir of Lies is also a lovely homage to the tradition of storytelling, Not only does Rowland continue to weave their own original folktales into the narrative like little gems, they also brilliantly experiment with narrative structurethe whole novel reads as a conversation between the narrator and a reader in the footnotes.
The whole time I was reading this, I was also reminded of a line from my favorite TV show, Black Sails "A story is true, A story is untrue. As time extends it matters less and less, The stories we want to believe those are the ones that survive, ". This is what the story gets at, above all else, Our lives do not always unfold beautifully or poetically, There is rage, and cruelty, and heartbreak, We love people who disappoint us .
While we cannot always choose the experiences we have, we can choose what we take from them, and how they shape our own personal stories moving forward, Holy shit, that was so good! Like so good, you do not understand: the first book was phenomenal, highly recommend it on audiobook but this baby made me tear up so many times!!!
Pleas, please, pleas, read this book for my soft boy Yfling, he deserves all the love! it seems so trivial to say that its about the power of stories but it is about that and its about so much more than that.
it hurts like fucking hell to read but it also feels right to have finished it,
changed my mind. i cannot be serious, its just not ME, so for gods sake can we give ylfing a nice bf, he's had enough of trash men in his life thank you, I am upset because I wanted to love this book and instead I am conflicted, confused, and slightly annoyed, I LOVED Alexandra Rowland's first book and I was super excited to read a companion novel feature Ylfing that is about a FANTASY TULIP MANIA aka the coolest idea for a book ever.
And this definitely did deliver with the tulip mania premise although I really can't under why people would buy plants that smell like rotting meat no matter how pretty they are, footnotes, cool epistolary format, stories within stories, and the message of hope, overcoming a bad history, and communities coming together to help each other in a time of need.
But man, I feel like this book was retroactively trying to make me hate the main character of the first book and it was a really weird experience.
Like, yes, Chant in the first book is objectively kind of a selfcentered jerk who does selfish and bad things over the course of A Conspiracy of Truths, but you as the reader are supposed to root for him because he's fun to read about, unfairly being put on trial by a bizarre bureaucracyobsessed country, and not as grouchy as he pretends to be! And now this book turns around and is like "actually Chant was an emotionally abusive asshole who hated Ylfing and made him a Chant just to get rid of him and fuck you for enjoying reading about him in the first book.
" Which is just A very baffling narrative shift that I CANNOT wrap my head around Also, while I do normally love books with footnotes I feel like the ones in this book were used only so a Mistress Chant could yell at Ylfing for being depressed, which was not a fun experience to read about, b Mistress Chant refusing to acknowledge that oral storytelling means that history and traditions can get remembered differently by different people, or c beating me over the head with messages like "this is foreshadowing!!!" and "this character is bad news actually!!!" which I found exasperating because I am perfectly capable of picking up on narrative clues on my own.
Basically: I came out of this book frankly questioning if I was remembering the events of the first book in this series correctly and honestly kind of confused by some of the writing choices.
Possibly I am just being ridiculous, maybe it's been too long since I read Conspiracy, or maybe I just don't understand the author's intentions, but the whole setup for this book kind of baffled me.
I think this may be the first book I've ever encountered where I think I might have enjoyed it more if I had only read it as a standalone.
Oh well. I'm not saying I'm never reading another book by Alexandra Rowland, it's just that this one really wasn't what I was expecting and not in a good way.
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