Blood Song

How it reads

Blood Song is fantasy (epic fantasy, specifically), and its dominant mood is dark. It goes to difficult places and doesn't look away. It moves fast: plot-driven and hard to put down, the kind of book that carries you along even when you're tired.

It's set in an invented world, in no single period, told in the first person by a single narrator. Its central concerns are coming of age, war and power and politics. In weight it sits in the middle: substantial without being heavy going.

It opens a series. It ends on a cliffhanger, so have the next book ready. At 591 pages it's a real commitment. It's well known, the kind of book most keen readers have heard of.