Into the Riverlands
{The Singing Hills Cycle #3}
Nghi Vo
25th October 2022
Okay, I'm taking a moment to gather my thoughts on this, but it's a bit difficult because I keep getting distracted by this gorgeous cover. All the covers for this series are gorgeous, honestly. But just... look at those blues and greens! Wow.
*ahem* I digress.
The Singing Hills Cycle books are a collection of novellas, this being the third one, released by Tordotcom, written by Nghi Vo. That's everything you need to know to read them - go forth! But honestly, I love these books so much. The main character, Chih, is a cleric who travels around collecting stories with the help of their wonderful bird companion, Almost Brilliant. Each book follows Chih and Almost Brilliant to a new area and, thus, a new story.
Into the Riverlands follows the formula as well, but each one is so different that the only connecting thread seems to be Chih themselves, which I adore. It feels like I'm getting to know Chih as well as getting to know new characters with each instalment, and the overarching story of Chih plus the smaller stories interwoven in are all absolute experiences in themselves. I'm having trouble describing the experience of reading these books, because they're so small and yet they explore things like gender, political unrest, race, magic, desire, fear, and even martial arts prowess. I feel like I never know what I'm going to get with each new novella, and I will probably go back and reread these years later and find so much more and wonder how I didn't notice that before.
I firmly believe that readers should go into these books with a curiosity of whether they are for them, without too much knowledge beforehand (and this might possibly be partly because I have trouble explaining what they're about properly). Just give these a go and see. I did, and I feel a little overwhelmed with the experience, but in a good way.
I feel like this review made little sense, but the tl;dr is: this latest instalment in the series is brilliant, I loved it, I would like more please if possible thank you.
10/10 heixins with excellent memories.
{I received a review ecopy of this book from NetGalley/Macmillan-Tor/Forge in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and feelings are my own. Thank you!!}
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