Song of Silver, Flame Like Night (Song of the Last Kingdom Book 1)

 My Thoughts:

This beautiful cover is powerful because as the story of Lan and Zen pulled me in, I forgot about this huge clue that is the cover. By the time I got to the clue, I was not only hooked on the story, but it was nearing the end of book 1. 

This is a story of two very broken characters, Lan and Zen. They have lost their families to the Elantian colonizers. They carry scars and power that they either don't know about or that they are struggling to control. They are both very practitioners from long clan lines of practitioners. They are both the last in their line. On their way to try to outrun the winter magician and the large army of Elantian soldiers,  the two young people are directly or indirectly responsible for hundreds of deaths, even some of the innocents that they are supposed to be protecting. Carve out time to finish this book. At 467 pages, you will need more than just a night. 

This story is complicated because the two characters live on to fight another day, but there is no happy ending in sight. Perhaps that is the key to book 1s, which is to crush hope and bring readers back. 

If so, I'm reluctantly in. 

From the Publisher:

Once, Lan had a different name. Now she goes by the one the Elantian colonizers gave her when they invaded her kingdom, killed her mother, and outlawed her people’s magic. She spends her nights as a songgirl in Haak’gong, a city transformed by the conquerors, and her days scavenging for what she can find of the past. Anything to understand the strange mark burned into her arm by her mother in her last act before she died.

The mark is mysterious—an untranslatable Hin character—and no one but Lan can see it. Until the night a boy appears at her teahouse and saves her life.

Zen is a practitioner—one of the fabled magicians of the Last Kingdom. Their magic was rumored to have been drawn from the demons they communed with. Magic believed to be long lost. Now it must be hidden from the Elantians at all costs.

When Zen comes across Lan, he recognizes what she is: a practitioner with a powerful ability hidden in the mark on her arm. He’s never seen anything like it—but he knows that if there are answers, they lie deep in the pine forests and misty mountains of the Last Kingdom, with an order of practitioning masters planning to overthrow the Elantian regime.

Both Lan and Zen have secrets buried deep within—secrets they must hide from others, and secrets that they themselves have yet to discover. Fate has connected them, but their destiny remains unwritten. Both hold the power to liberate their land. And both hold the power to destroy the world. 

Now the battle for the Last Kingdom begins.

Publication information:

Author: Amélie Wen Zao

Publisher: Delacorte Press (January 3, 2023)