A Time of Courage (Blood and Bone, #3)

Heroes shall rise and fall, the earth shall be stained red, and the fate of the Banished Lands will be decided once and for all in A Time of Courage, the final book in acclaimed fantasy author John Gwynne's Of Blood and Bone trilogy.
The demon king Asroth has been freed from his iron prison. Now, alongside his dark bride Fritha, he plans to conquer the whole of the Banished Lands.
In the shadows of Forn Forest, Riv and the surviving Ben-Elim desperately search for a way to unite those who remain against Asroth's vast army.
Far in the west, Drem is with the Order of the Bright Star, besieged by a demon horde. Their fragile defenses are on the brink of shattering, but they know that it is better to fight and die than to live without hope.
And across the Banished Lands, armies are heading south, to settle ancient grudges and decide the fate of humanity.

Many thanks to Orbit for a review copy in exchange for an honest, unbiased review. This review may contain spoilers for the first two books.

I spent something like 1,500 pages fretting over these characters, and let me tell you … phew, my nerves are frayed.

I’ve lived a thousand years in the two weeks it’s taken me to read this series. I’m pretty sure I’ve grayed equivalent to at least half that time. I’ve been beaten down and broken and considered wearing black for the next two weeks in honor of the lives lost.

A Time of Courage is the third book in the series, culminating in a large, all-out war for survival. No punches are pulled, and no one is sacred. But the battles are epic.

In the end, I was blown away by this series, and I will for sure be going back and reading the preceding series now. I went back and forth about whether this was four stars or five stars, but I confess that I heavily skimmed parts of this book. I loved the characters, the strategy, the plots, but when all is said and done, I wasn’t 100% the audience for this, because a book that is solely about war just isn’t my thing. I found myself getting bored at times with the constant battles, but that’s just me. I still very much enjoyed the journey.

❧ As far as books go, this is the epic, “Avengers unite,” “Return of the King,” all-out, no-holds-barred culminating war the series has been promising.

And boy did it deliver. There’s nothing quite like the rush of seeing all the characters you’ve followed for so long finally come together in one giant battle, each bringing their own invaluable skills to bear. That’s why it’s such a popular plot device. It’s exciting. It’s expected. It’s just so freaking cool and makes for some nice emotional payoff.

The culminating battle (or technically, battles) in this didn’t disappoint.

There was cunning. There was strategy. There were things I didn’t see coming (and neither did the enemy, thankfully). There was retribution and revenge and oh so many feels that I just didn’t know what to do with myself.

❧ I particularly enjoyed the battle strategies and the little twists and surprises this allowed, as our protagonists try to outsmart their enemies.

I’ve never been one for big displays of might. I prefer the more subtle, cunning strategies, especially since that can sometimes make all the difference to turn the tides of war. It’s not just one character, either. They all have different strengths, and I especially appreciated how that was highlighted. It’s been a long journey for these kids, especially, so to see it come full circle and have them able to outwit, if not outmatch, their enemies was just *chef’s kiss*.

❧ I loved these characters so much that I spent the entire 700-ish pages concerned about their welfare.

In case the earlier books didn’t make it clear: no character is sacred. This book doubles down on that premise. I’m pretty sure I’ve successfully shaved about five years off of my life, swooning, clutching my chest, and having a heart attack every time it seemed like THE END for a character I held dear. Which, let’s face it, is most of them.

I both love and hate this aspect, because on the other hand, who wants to have to mourn their favorite character?! But on the other, the stakes felt real, which meant each loss was a punch to the gut.

❧ This book is so full of camaraderie and growth, and it was just so lovely and rife with emotions.

It made for a really nice offset of all the blood and war and death. I loved how many emotions were snuck in among the fear and anger and grief, because it really pulled the whole thing together. The growth between characters felt tangible and vivid. Riv, Drem, and Bleda, in particular, have all come so far from the confused children they were when the series started to the confident, young adults who have found a sense of belonging in a chaotic and unpredictable world. These were for sure my favorite parts of the book, because it’s the genuine friendships that make the losses hurt that much more.

❧ While the ending wraps the series nicely, it also leaves things open enough for Gwynne to return to this world at some point, if he so chooses, and while the author’s note says he has no intention of it, I’ve enjoyed speculating what would come next.

Can you say fanfiction, anyone? This series could spawn a whole host of different fanfiction, but there are definitely things left open by the ending that can have major implications on our happy heroes down the line. What those implications are, I have no idea, but it’s fun to speculate and imagine. Will John Gwynne ever return to the series? Eh. It seems unlikely at this point in time, and I have no idea where he’d take the world after this. I appreciate that he didn’t wrap things neatly, after 150 years (and two series) of fighting, though, like everything was cleanly laid to rest.

❧ This book is basically all battles, from one skirmish to another, and I’m just not the right reader for that.

While I loved reading all the tactics and strategies and twists and turns … I need something more in a book for me. The camaraderie and character growth was great, but in the end, I got really burnt out on reading battle scenes. John Gwynne is an amazing author and writes battle scenes really well, but I just get tired of them after a while. This is obviously me and not the book, but I heavily skimmed a lot of the skirmishes.

❧ I wanted something … more from the antagonists and hoped I would find it in this book, but I just didn’t.

I like when my villains have a purpose. I want to be able to say, okay, you’re a terrible person, but at least I know why at this point. I figured that since two of the antagonists were point of view characters in this, I might get that, but it never happened. Fritha gets a bit of it, especially in A Time of Blood, since we learn her motive for fighting the Ben-Elim (and it’s a pretty darn good one, in my opinion). But the choices she makes

Where this became the most apparent, I thought, was with Jin, who is an obvious (and pretty effective) foil for Bleda. Unfortunately, that’s all she really gets. She’s Obviously Bad™ for reasons, but whereas Bleda’s scenes are filled with camaraderie and learning to lead and draw his clan together, Jin’s are painfully bare of much of anything except anger and revenge. Which, okay, fair, given her character, but I refuse to believe there was nothing more than that, from her point of view, as she led her people to war.

If you could ride to battle on any creature, what would you choose as your mount?