A Day of Fallen Night: A Roots of Chaos Novel (The Roots of Chaos)

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How she cared for her daughter, how she cared for her people, her kingdom, was so powerful, and I loved her all the more for it.

Rich in content, with real depth to the human emotion on display and personal passion portrayed through the characters. Wonderful for the tension and mistrust created through the political intrigue and daring in its ambition and depiction of such a vast expanse of worlds. Overall an impressive story of three powerful woman whose lives become entwined as Shannon breathes fire and life into this incredible story of survival, love, and honour. Glorian's story is the story of A Day of Fallen Night for me. As important and entertaining as all the others are, Glorian's story is indomitable. Tunuva Melim is a sister of the Priory. For fifty years, she has trained to slay wyrms – but none have appeared since the Nameless One, and the younger generation is starting to question the Priory's purpose.It's told from four disparate POVs and Shannon moves us skilfully through different corners of her world, managing the enviable feat of making all of her ensemble cast equally compelling. It seems initially as if at least three of these POVs are all on separate trajectories and are unlikely to meet in the main plot and part of the joy of the story is unravelling how these pathways will collide. We know the long line of Berethnet queens from Priory, but there are very few who compare to Glorian. We even know a piece of Glorian's story, from the history of Priory, but there is still much that we do not know. Knowing this piece of her only draws tighter the chains that bind Glorian to her story, she grows evermore imprisoned as we read on and on. The role of queen is not one she desires, the eternal vine of Berethnets is not a destiny she wants to claim. Priory is known as a sapphic fantasy staple, and I wholeheartedly agree with this. But A Day of Fallen Night boasts an even higher count of sapphic relationships, alongside it's other incredible representation. Out of our four main characters, two are sapphic, one is achillean, and one is aroace-spec. There are also several other queer characters as well as trans and genderqueer characters. Samantha Shannon could I possibly love you more? I don’t want this review to sound lukewarm because there were many instances where I was completely hooked and stayed up late to read it. It’s just hard to live up to the expectations set by the first book.

For me, A Day of Fallen Night was carried by three fundamental pillars: The Worldbuilding, The Inweaving of the plotlines and The Women & Diversity. The main story of A Day of Fallen Night concerns the reawakening of an ancient evil and its impact on each of our main protagonists and their respective lands. Through it all, Shannon keeps returning to two main themes: the importance of finding oneself and the power of love in all its forms. The author proves especially adept at depicting relationships among her characters, including several queer relationships. The three lead protagonists represent each major region of the world—East, West, and South—which have very different religions, political structures, and cultures. In the East, the mountain-dwelling Dumai trains as a godsinger, establishing a connection between humankind and the dragons that her society worships. In the West, Glorian is the young heir to the queendom of Inys who struggles with her royal calling. In the South, Tunuva is a warrior from the mysterious Priory of the Orange Tree, a religious organization who follow the Mother and are committed to defeating the Nameless One, an enormous fire-breathing dragon.

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As much as I loved this book to death, I do think the side characters were its weakness. Many of the side characters were very developed, not to discount that, but some named characters didn’t have a huge impact on the plot, so when they died, it felt hard to sympathize with them. Whilst I fell in love with many of these characters there was just too many to fully appreciate them all and quite a few added little to the overall story. To the north, in the Queendom of Inys, Sabran the Ambitious has married the new King of Hróth, narrowly saving both realms from ruin. Their daughter, Glorian, trails in their shadow - exactly where she wants to be.