(Title: Sin and Sorrow / Author: Michael R. Fletcher / Publisher: Self-Published / Publication Date: December 4, 2023 / Total Pages: 400)
Back Cover Blurb
Cloud Serpent spoke in death and venom.
Half Bastion's pantheon are dead, and more gods fall with every passing day. The underworld is ash, seared clean of souls by the Staff of the Fifth Sun. The nahual war among themselves, each sect battling to bring their deity to dominance. The veil is torn, the ghost of dead gods, demons, and banished sorcerers clawing their way back into the city. Eternal Bastion is divided, her ancient stone crumbling.
Review
I have been waiting for three years to write this review. The City of Sacrifice series is my absolute favorite of anything written by mega-talented fantasy author Michael R. Fletcher. And that is really saying something because Michael truly has one heck of an extensive catalog of highly entertaining fantasy books. They also tend to lean toward the darker end of the theme, tone and violence spectrum - which in all honesty I enjoy in my reads. So when I caught wind that the third and final book titled SIN AND SORROW was being released at the end of this year, I could barely contain my excitement and knew that I had to get my hands on an early copy if possible. Thankfully author Michael R. Fletcher was gracious enough to provide just that, and I immediately set everything aside to immerse myself in what I hoped would be a brilliant finale.
As this is the third and final book in the series I will avoid getting too specific and straying into spoiler territory, but will nonetheless attempt to convey just how satisfying and thrilling this concluding volume was for me. The story is told through alternating chapters of the two main players in this war among gods, those being Nuru and Akachi. Both continue to be equally zealous in their beliefs and their absolute determination to see their side win out in this titanic struggle for the future of the ringed city of Bastion. Each also has their own companions or those akin to friends who are helping them as they hurtle toward what looks like an unavoidably catastrophic war that could destroy Bastion for good. But are they really friends or do their motivations run much deeper?
I really didn't think that this series could get any more intense and action-packed as it already was up to this point but this book just proved me wrong big time. Not only that but the dark sorcery somehow inexplicably got way darker while these characters turned the insanity level up to 11 on the old Marshall stack. But I guess that's going to happen when you are trying to murder gods who have ruled for hundreds if not thousands of years. The magic system in this series is just so spectacular and I've loved it from the opening scenes of book one. The whole methodology of ingesting different narcotics that each yield a particular benefit, while also teetering on the edge of potentially destroying your mind in the process is simply phenomenal.
As far as the pacing goes I found it to be damn near perfect as emotional stretches of dialogue are counterbalanced beautifully with intense battles and fight scenes throughout. This was a huge reason why I flew through this book in about a week. There was never a moment when I wanted to put it down except to maybe finally get some sleep after countless hours of being engrossed in what was taking place.
Suffice to say SIN AND SORROW met and greatly exceeded all of the lofty expectations I had for it. You can't ask for a better finish to a series in my opinion. I knew going in that the stakes would be incredibly high but I still wasn't fully prepared for just how electrifying the last few chapters were. That payoff alone was well worth the time I spent in eager anticipation of this book. And it's essentially the reason why we read books in the first place, for that unmatched feeling when all is said and done when you realize that you've experienced something immensely special.
If you are looking for an out of the box fantasy read that has unbelievably cool sorcery, vengeful and insane gods that war with and against mortals, a highly inventive and fully realized world, and some of the most skillful writing/dialogue around, well then you should read everything by Michael R. Fletcher but especially his City of Sacrifice trilogy. SIN AND SORROW is a masterful end to a series that will stay with me for a long long time. I'm sad to see it come to an end but I know that whatever Michael cooks up next will find itself right at the very top of my reading list, and I cannot wait.
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You can preorder SIN AND SORROW right now on Amazon.
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