I was planning to read this book some time ago but decided to wait after the author mentioned on his social media he was planning to change the cover. I enjoy good covers. I buy with my eyes and the cover on the first edition was, to put it mildly, uninspiring. The new one, on the other hand, looks great. I think it would stand a chance in already finished best SPFBO cover contest, had it been released earlier. It seems there was a reason behind the cover choice and change, as you can read in an interesting blog post by M.D. Presley.
Even most stunning cover won’t make up for mediocre content. The Woven Ring has few reviews and I wasn’t sure what to expect. The synopsis sounds interesting – it suggests The Woven Ring will offer something else then gazillion of stories happening in pseudo-medieval Europe settings. Civil War is a tough subject but also the one that gives a lot of space for creativity and drama.
After finishing the book I feel satisfied with the story, plot, and characters. I want more. Waiting for sequels sucks.
The world of Ayr is an interesting place permeated with the Breath of Sol (their God). Literally. The glowing Breaths float in the night and can be caught in a glass and used to illuminate a house (although you really need to free them before Dawn, otherwise you may be sentenced to death). Ayrians’ faith is based on the conviction that Sol split himself into countless pieces of Breath that animate the living world. Humans usually have three breaths but some of them, so called Blessed, have a fourth Breath that gives them all kinds of fancy powers. Here’s an excerpt from the book explaining it and showing book POV discover she’s one of the Blessed:
There were the usual three all humans were born with, one in the center of the chest representing the Body, the second in the middle of the forehead for the Mind, and the third at the crown of the head signifying the Soul. But in that moment of clarity, Marta could feel a fourth Breath nestled deep in her chest next to the Body. Were she not so angry, she might have been surprised to find it, to feel it thrumming with its own frequency. It had a resonance, a musical identity all its own that only she could hear.
Being Blessed is a huge thing. Some people inquire after it, try to breed Blessed but it seems there’s no principle to follow. It’s as if Blessed appear randomly. On the other hand, Childress clan seems more successful in breeding Blessed than other families. The book protagonist – Marta belongs to Childress clan. She is a Shaper – she can fashion Phantom Blade, Rabbit Legs, Armor and other deadly appendages with her Breath. Shapers are quite powerful, but Weavers and Renders are even more dangerous.
The sides of Civil War are divided by religion and politics (not uncommon in the real world).
When we meet Marta she is a ruined, battle hardened beauty who drinks too much and is fueled by anger. The story is told almost exclusively from her POV. It happens in two timelines. One happens after the war and follows Marta’s mission to bring little girl Caddie to her father. Father Marta plans to kill. The other one happens in the past and shows us why Marta has become who she is now. Her story isn’t uplifting and some of the things she went through were devastating. We learn about them as we go and personally I enjoy this type of narration. It keeps me interested and engaged while the answers to questions I have are slowly revealed.
Apart from Marta, characters that count are her brother Carmichael that I’ll allow Marta to characterize: She felt like a chess piece moved against her will. She had thought herself safe as a queen, only to realize too late she was again her brother’s pawn./ You really don’t want to stand in his way unless you want your life turned into a misery.
Marta is helped by two “freebooters” – Luca who’s addicted to to the feel of exquisite torture of teetering between success and failure and Isobell who remains a bit of mystery throughout the book.
There’s also Caddie – a girl that’s escorted by Marta and freebooters. Some things are hinted and we can only guess that Caddie is much more than she appears. I hope we’ll discover this in the sequel.
I think that pacing of the story is excellent as we constantly learn new things about both Marta’s mission and her past in the Traitors Brigade of Shapers. Intertwining story lines keep the plot fresh and make it difficult to put the book down. Apart from malevolent humans, there are all kinds of monsters: Ghouls, Emets, Glassman and the scenes featuring them were remarkably well written. I especially enjoyed a scene with glowing Ghouls on spider legs. It was both creepy as hell and visually suggestive.
World building is meticulous and in-depth but there’s not much of info-dumping. We learn about the world as we follow Marta through it. The plotting is well done and there’s quite a lot of twists.
It’s not an uplifting book and some of the scenes are terrifying. Marta’s story is sad and tragic. There’s not much humor in the book to balance things a bit. And yet I enjoyed it a lot. A rare thing indeed.
I root strongly for Marta. I’m sure some readers won’t enjoy this unlikely protagonist with all her rage, occasional self-loathing and anger management issues but I find her complex and believable. It’s possible some readers will perceive her as one-dimensional as she intends to finish someone (sometimes slowly, sometimes quickly all the time) but there’s much more to her than that. She may have darkness in her, but there is some light as well, no matter how she tries and hides it. I care about her M.D.Presley. Don't you dare kill her in the end of the series or else I’ll find you. And bad things will happen.
I think The Woven Ring is well written, intelligent book with interesting and unusual setting, excellent pacing and just the right amount of drama.
I want a sequel, especially after reading sample chapter that suggests we’ll get more Luca POV in the sequel called The Imbued Blade. I’m not sure when it’ll hit the shelves but once it does I’ll grab a copy.
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Top reviews from the United States
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- Reviewed in the United States on February 12, 2018
Top reviews from other countries
- Amazon CustomerReviewed in the United Kingdom on February 7, 2017
Nice idea for a book - really enjoyed
- jenniferReviewed in Canada on November 9, 2017
and I am pretty sure if you asked the author he could tell ...
