The Unspoken Name by A.K. Larkwood
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
It.
Is.
Done.
Phew. I feel so accomplished having completed this.
Csorwe is a teenage girl who has been raised to be the sacrificial wife of the Unspoken One, an ancient god living within the earth.
Locked into a tomb on what is to be the day of her death, a mage appears and offers to rescue her and provide her with a new life.
She decides to accept his offer and flees with him. Over time she lives with him and trains to be his assassin.
She feels she owes him everything. She owes him her life and thus, is extremely loyal to him and his goals.
The mage, Belthandros Sethennai, is a very powerful man who is also on a mission. His aim is to regain control of the lands from which he was exiled.
In order to do so, he wants Csorwe, along with another young person in his employ, Tal, to seek and return to him the Reliquary of Pentravasse.
This Reliquary is said to hold immeasurable knowledge and the one able to capture that will increase their power to new heights.
…or something like that…
Okay, so, I will admit this was a little hard for me to grasp. I never felt like I truly understood the world. For example, Csorwe, is an Orc, which I never really knew until I read someone else’s blurb about the book.
I knew there was something going on with her, as she is described as having tusks, but I thought maybe she was some sort of elephant human hybrid or something.
But even knowing she was an Orc, didn’t really piece the rest of it together for me. Were they all orcs? Were there humans? Were there all sorts of magical beings living together in harmony like in Middle Earth?
I genuinely don’t know. If you know, comment down below.
I am also of the opinion that this was entirely too long. There were two distinct portions of the book, or quests if you will.
There is a quest for an object. Once that point is resolved, you think, it could be over. This is it.
But no, it is not. Characters are separated, there’s still a baddie out and about, it would have been a great place to leave off prior to a second book.
Then there is a completely new quest to find a particular person.
Again, I feel like that could have made a great second book. If it had been broken up that way, I think the world could have been built out more and perhaps the author would have more time to really focus on that instead of trying to cram it all into one.
Overall, this was a mixed bag for me. I felt the pacing was off.
There were moments when I was really into it and then a few pages later, I would be bored, and back and forth it went until the end.
It did have moments of greatness and I don’t want anyone to think my minor critiques make this a bad book. It’s a good book, I just feel the story could have been better served if formatted differently.
It also isn’t an easy read. I did end up mentally exhausted after reading it for a half hour or so. I could have made it through more quickly if it didn’t take me 8.5-minutes to pronounce each name.
My favorite part of this was the relationship between Csorwe, and a religious adept, Shuthmili. Their friendship-to-more was beautiful. I waited a long time to get to it, but it was worth it.
In short, although this wasn’t perfect for me, it did have some strengths. If you can make it through the weaknesses, it is a pleasant, though entirely too long, read.
Thank you so much to the publisher, Tor, for providing me with a copy of this to read and review. I appreciate the opportunity to provide my opinion.