Book #9 and #10 of 2024: A Season of Rend | Of Dark Things Waking (The Redemption Chronicle 2, 3)

A Season of Rendings by Adam J Nicolai.
Of Dark Things Waking by Adam J Nicolai.

Quick synopsis: The trilogy starts with a bunch of teens taking on the Church and then it becomes a Game of Thrones-esque epic battle of nation vs nation and good vs the darkest evil. (I kept thinking of this series as "like Game of Thrones but without all the bad parts".)

Plot: [I'm a bad reviewer. I didn't stop after book 2 to write a review on it, so now the plots of 2 and 3 are merged in my head.]

In book 1 (Children of a Broken Sky, reviewed by me here) we meet the five teenagers and get to know them as they set out from home and gain magical powers. (The story is set on a fantasy world, magic exists.)

In books 2 and 3 we gain more POV characters so we can see how the battle the teens started expanded to a whole nation and even further.

The Church of this world is Bad-with-a-capital-B. Through books 2 and 3 we learn this is at least partially because a being of undying evil is living within the Fatherlord (the leader of the Church), but also partially because power corrupts even normal people.

Through these two books we see the return of a different church (one lost ten generations ago, a much kinder one) and the spread of magic by "normal" people (where previously it was only the Church and "Witches" who could cast magic).

We see the rise of a new nation, and how that nation fights the Church-backed one.

We meet a "nation" (not a good word for it, but there's no better one) based on nature, run by animals and the trees, a "nation" that is older than any created by man.

The last 20% or so of book 3 was a battle that happened across a land: Taking place in multiple cities and in the capital of the Church, all at the same time.

This might sound odd, but this series sort of reminded me of Animorphs. The teenage characters got tortured so often, they were so often in pain and injured, and by the end they clearly had PTSD. And, like Tobias in Animorphs, one of the characters was able to turn into a hawk (and other animals), but would get stuck as a hawk if he stayed that way too long.

Writing/editing: My review of book 1 is so blah! I barely liked the book at all, which is surprising since I LOVED LOVED LOVED books 2 and 3. The writing in each is outstanding. The editing in both of the final two books (650 and 552 pages) was nearly perfect (I spotted a grand total of one small error in the two books).

The world building is just *chef's kiss*. I had complained about there being too many POV characters in book 1, but in 2 and 3 even though there were even more, it worked out really well.

The last 20% or so of book 3 was battle, and usually my eyes would glaze over during action scenes, but I never got bored once.

The author is a professional editor and that shows.

In my first review I said "I'd like to read the second book, but it's $6 on Amazon. $6 is more than I like to pay for a self-published book. I think I'll wait for now." but I was happy to pay that much for these two.

These two books are some of the best self-published books I've ever read.

What I Liked/What I Didn’t Like: I really, really liked how dark and realistic these two books were. The characters had realistic consequences for their actions. Their pain was real -- both realistic and honestly earned. The war and battles felt so real.

I didn't like one of the characters, but she was a realistic teenager and that's what I didn't like about her. That doesn't count as a "What I didn't like about the book" though, because teenager characters should act like teenagers.

Amazon lists this as a trilogy, but happily this has become a series! Unfortunately the next book, Where Gods Lie Silent, looks like it's barely into its first draft. But at least the series isn't over!

Rating: 1-Hated / 2-Disliked / 3-Okay / 4-Liked / 5-Loved: 5+++++++++++