Photo credits: prettysleepy1 (pixabay) Edited by Vaishali Title: A Promise of Return Series: Outlands Pentalogy Author: Rebecca Crunden Publisher: Self Published Year of Publication: 2017 ISBN: ISBN-10: 1978487142 ISBN-13: 978-1978487147 Format: Paperback copy kindly provided by the author Genre/Themes: Dystopian Fantasy, Rebellion, Post-apocalypse, M/M romance, LGBT relationships R E V I E W ... Before getting into all things that promise to return I must drop a confessional reading quirk. Since my earliest reading days I confronted an inability to habituate to multiple or shifting POV changes. Generally speaking, I love and am a desperate devotee to a hero/heroine dual POV, but where each character claims a solitary book in a wider series, derailed becomes my interest, stymied becomes my enthusiasm and I find myself discreetly shifting towards the one-and-done world of standalones. Besides disrupting the flux and flow of building a territorial relationship with a character I feel comfortable with, who I then must let go of in exchange for another to light the way? Having to re-adapt all over again with a fresh new instalment featuring a fresh new character gives me the coldest of cold feet. Positively icy. It speaks to my history of attachment as much as a phobia for change. I easily took to Nate’s POV because firstly, I love him and secondly he emulated the hero part of the hero/heroine narrative, even if his and Kitty's POVs stay strict to their separate books. My cold feet froze but my trepidation quickly broke with the ice of befriending a new book. My aversion aside, my reservations swiftly scattered to the winds as Rebecca Crunden opens up the narrative to the farer ranges of the Kingdom and to the darker economies of organised slavery. Thom’s character study is an equally ruinous addition to the series, gives readers a chance to know him intimately, sympathise with his ghastly undoing and grim remaking, follow his evolving profile and reflects off of what became of Nate’s cool-headed, eagle-eyed brother in the time synchronous to Nate and Kitty’s escape. Thom Anteros has a story as compelling, as traumatic, as disaster-worthy and action-prostrate as the books that come before him. It didn't take long to find my footing at all. As with the page-turning quality of the previous books, this follows in the exact same vain: irresistible reading, character-driven intensity, an impelling narrative and a menacing, miasmic misadventure that calls to the morbid provocateur within me. I surmised long ago that disaster does think fit to become me. You can't stop a steady downpour, you can't stop adrenaline mid-strike and I've realised that despite my reading foibles and nurtured peculiarities, you also can't railroad a series that has already laid a claim to your deference. Ms. Crunden, you enchantress you. We were lured into the man Thom was by way of Nate and Kitty's fond memories and gritted bereavement in the books preceding. Their grief tells a story of how much Thom was loved by them. To spin this third on its heel, we get to see how much Nate and Kitty mean to him, what he'll be forced to do to keep a promise to his brother as he falls into his own living bane. We get the unabridged tale of what happened to him after he was separated from his lover and his brother, after a detour in choice expedites a finale to life as he loved it. I enjoyed reading from Kitty in A Touch of Death. I relished reading from Nate in A History of Madness and I delighted in Thom's touch to this series in A Promise of Return. We knew Thom as Kitty's betrothed, her love that she grieved. We knew him as Nate's blood brother, the other half to his soul. While Thom has a short presence in the first book, it’s only then that this threesome are seen to share the same space indefinitely. The deeper you fall into a series, the trickier it becomes to tackle a review without letting those pesky spoilers seep through the rifts so I aim to keep this a surface-surfing ordeal… Instead of picking up from the events that end book two, the author rewinds and back-pedals two entire books and picks up Thom's story where we last see him in A Touch of Death. Where Nate is the most feared, Thom is the Kingdom's favoured Anteros brother, esteemed and adored, loved and charmed, but he's also a man of powerful sway, who has bought and bargained for Nate's life over and over again with practiced leverage and a masterful mind. He's sharp. He's shrewd. He's serpentine. But he's about to find out there are situations where even his mind can't save him. It's when he gets caught trying to break into a forbidden building, in a desperate effort to save his brother and Complement, that commences Thom's own brand of mutation, an existential flux, a beginning to an end, the demise of his refined, civilised life, the ruin of his soul, the rebirth of a fighter and a battle royale that haunts his becoming, shreds his composure and lights a match to his developing rage and blooming bloodthirst. While Nate is a man of radical action, Thom is a man of engineered influence, of frightening composure. And it's with an air of controlled finesse that has even the King spare his life from death, if not from a fate that holds its weight in dread and horror. Far from the wealth end of Anais, Thom finds himself in the outlying north, sold to the slave markets of Muntenia. There is no mercy. No escape. No mindfully manoeuvring his way out of the fray. And he's just been purchased like a prized mare to participate in, what the synopsis accurately describes as a ‘gladiator-type' tournament, where it's slaughter or be slaughtered. Marble-faced by necessity and meticulous by design, he's about to hone his body, by force and fear and fury and violence, with a poise and precision he had only ever whittled his mind. I had pictured Thom as this supremely cool and cautious, acutely measured and perspicacious member of their circle who I was intrigued by even if I was removed from him (hence worried about how I’d adapt to him). We know him second hand through Nate and Kitty’s perspectives, both holding him in such high opinion, lauding him as their all-knowing problem solver, the smoothest operator, the silent strategiser. Probably why I was taken aback to see Thom crown Nate as the stronger brother when it’s Nate who always echoed (having me believe) the same sentiment about Thom. Fooled I was but these brothers are steadfast fools for each other. I’m realising that while they underpin each other like mountain rock, their strength originates within the life of the other. Their bloodied bond is a fantastically fated one. I thought Thom would perhaps be the most put together and wily of them, and he is, but it humanised him (for me) to see him as fallible and flawed and as disposed to losing himself as Nate and Kitty were. The author writes him just as reactionary and fraught with feeling in spite of his cunning. Since both his brother and his Complement got their reckoning, poor Thom was bound to have met his harrow scathed too. The Red Arena is a literal death trial where every slave purchased has to scrimmage for their life or die trying. They gain their freedom after twenty wins. But twenty wins means twenty deaths felled by their own hand. It means twenty striped scores to a soul and Thom has been relegated to human livestock, his undamaged hide sold to the underworld economy. What troubles Thom profoundly is his conflict between what he has been forced to do and how good he is at what he’s been forced to do. A Promise of Return, third in succession, is a thrilling, atmospheric and soul-shredding campaign for repossession that appraises Thom’s exemption from a bestial tournament known as The Red Arena. This book is no less intense or gravelly, no less fierce or bare than its earlier born siblings. This story takes us to the mountain ranges of the north where Thom is at the mercy of criminal persecution and sanctioned slave trading. The darker themes continue to lace this instalment and while we have the re-emergence of the Plague that’s escalating through the Kingdom, we’re also reacquainted with the reaches of victimisation, suffering communities and the exploitative maltreatment this society sows without clemency. Just like Nate’s loyalty to Thom is unparalleled, we’re in no way fooled into thinking that Thom’s loyalty to his brother isn’t beyond compare. Having been reduced to little more than a killer, an expendable body, a money-making captive with twenty innocent slaves to level before reuniting with his brother, that level of loyalty is more that heavily priced when he has to leave behind a line of bodies. I also really wanted to touch on this. This is a society where same-sex relationships aren’t legitimised which is why I especially appreciated the orientation diversity with the characters. If you harbour the insights allotted via the first two books, you'll know that this society operates through heterosexual arranged partnerships (partners assigned from childhood for the purpose of procreation called Complementation). Another example of how all citizens are beholden to dictated law really. Where you can't quite love who you want, unless like it's alluded to in every book, true love affairs happen in the dark, in secret, and even for heterosexual couples, 'in the closet' so to speak. The character intimacies are strong and Rebecca Crunden cares to maintain the realism, the serrated atmosphere, the sharp bites and blunt attitudes broken up with the comforts of incidental humour. Also in cahoots with continuity is the autocratic leadership and the dark angst borne from the grinding and callous severity. Also, very over the moon that I got my Nate and Kitty fix in this one! Although I keep true to my word and hope that I haven’t been the bringer of seedy spoilers, I’m downright excited to see how this varied group of mixables and unmixables functions as a dynamic. The final chapter already sports some rifts and disagreements within the group and can I just say how I long lovingly for that drama? The disharmony looks like it might spread something fierce and their ambitions look to cleave their fragile unit apart. Peachy. Here’s what you’re shaping yourself up for with Thom’s saga: A bisexual hero who must reap death to save his life to avow a promise, a slow-burning M/M romance, overwhelming odds, an expanded assortment to the disaster cast, orientation diversity, a gamut of angst, desperate friendships and the Anteros brotherly fidelity that swears fealty through any distance. While Nate remains my favourite Anteros brother, I considered it a privilege to follow his brother through the thick of barbarity. He’s written with individualism and contorted humanity and his story is one to cave, care for and imagine as the horror comes to life. But now? If it isn’t time to dance with some lies... 'I could find you even in death, brother.' I gave this book 4.5 stars -*A big thank you to the author for sending over a copy of this book in exchange for a review!* C O N T E N T W A R N I N G: Violence, beatings, blood, abuse and torture throughout. Descriptions of bodily harm and injury. Beheadings. Killings. Profanity. Self harm and alludes to cutting wrists. Mentions child abuse. Rape. Also mentions attempted suicide. There are also scenes that display anxiety, PTSD and panic attacks. A few fade to black bedroom scenes. --------------------------------------- M Y R A T I N G S Y S T E M: ★ - 1 star: I did not like the book ★★ - 2 stars: The book was okay ★★★ - 3 stars: It was a good, solid read ★★★★ - 4 stars: A great book ★★★★★ - 5: A phenomenal read --------------------------------------- __________________________________________________________ R E L A T E D P O S T S: ● Book Review: A Touch of Death by Rebecca Crunden ● Book Review: A History of Madness by Rebecca Crunden ● Book Review: A Dance of Lies by Rebecca Crunden ● Book Review: A Time of Prophecy by Rebecca Crunden __________________________________________________________ E X T R A T H O U G H T S ( C O N T A I N S S P O I L E R S! ) 1) Within any society you'll get the deeply unsavoury and within the Radiant clans they're called the Outcasts. Great for our little family to have made it to the Outlands but the dangers are still everywhere apparently. Loved seeing Thom reunited with Kitty and Nate in the Outlands but after what happens it’s clear that his suffering isn’t going to stop there after being tortured. Poor guy has a lot of fear and healing ahead of him. Seems like there are going to be potential complications within the group too with all the arguments that are already brewing discord, and I say bring on the drama!! :D 2) While we get to know more about Thom and what kind of person he is, there is still quite a bit of mystery surrounding him (he’s not really an open book) so I’m hoping the author goes into whatever questionable things he might’ve done? Also, really curious here about Kitty’s dad and why Thom is so frightened of him… 3) Riddle and Thom!? What is going on there I imagine. While Charles and Thom, we know, are very much together I have a suspicious instinct that they may not last. I don’t mean to be a fatalist but I don’t think things are going to work out well between them. You know that age old sentiment where one person loves more than the other? I think Charles’s affections may outmatch Thom’s. I’m also thinking that the two strands of humanity (human and Radiant) may form a love match in Thom and Riddle - I could be completely off the mark here but if this is the case, this should be interesting considering they can’t physically touch each other. Even if whatever connection they share is platonic, I think there’s definitely a story there. 4) So we know that Thom never loved Kitty the way she loved him, though this book definitely does express how much she means to him, how much of a part of his life she is but there was a conversation between Blaise and Thom that twitched my morality meter: 'He told me something similar,' said Thom. 'He never told me not to see others, but he said that if I was going to, under no uncertain terms was I to let Cat find out. He never wanted her to be hurt.' - Nate knew that Thom wasn’t in love with Kitty and apparently had this discussion with Thom knowing that one day he might secretly fall in love with someone else. And if he did, he was to keep it secret so Kitty wouldn’t find out. Now, we know that love matches aren’t acceptable in this society as this world functions via arranged marriages. Even still, whether Thom has cheated on Kitty I’m not sure (and you could argue that he had every right to as he wasn't in love with her and didn't get to choose her) but I’m really hoping that he hadn’t while they were together. This is a really besides the point mention but I’m really strong on the betrayal factor and relationship correctness (I saw the way Kitty grieved for him so I'm territorial over her) so I’m hoping that while she was in love with Thom, there was loyalty between them in that sense. You just don't know with Thom but pretty please? 5) Right, about this prophecy. The prophecy states that someone who shares human and Radiant blood will bring their two peoples together. The natural jump would be to assume that it’s Nate. But what if he’s not? It could easily be Kitty and even thought there’s no logic supporting this, it could also be Thom. S O M E F A V O U R I T E Q U O T E S !! 'Never forget that a person with something to kill for is a lot more dangerous than a person without. We have someone to fight for. They fight only for themselves.' Nate has always refused to have his scars removed and Thom had never understood why. To him, scars were ruinous and ugly. He had never seen a reason not to get rid of them. Now he saw the stories they told, and he was unsure if he would remove his. The fallen deserved to be remembered. Thom enjoyed manipulating his dreams as much as he did reality. And what he realised by morning was that he had let himself be powerless too long; something he had sworn never to let happen. Something that had never happened until the Hangman returned. The feeling of helplessness shamed him, and he resolved to remember who he was. His wrath had always been more powerful than his fear.' At the same time, strangely, Thom found that he felt closer to his friends than he ever had with anyone from his old life save his brother and Cat. The bonds of captives were uncertain ones, fragile and held together with desperation and need, but made of blood and iron. Whilst some amongst them turned to suicide, brutality in the training paddock, or bullying to deal with their horrible fate, Thom, Charles, Elara, Thea, Shantos and Anara became closer than ever. How cruel a world it was where the dying bet on enslaved simply to live.' 'I know,' said Charles, drawing him close. 'Just don't bite my head off, I'm trying to help. You're meant to be the rational one in this relationship, you know?' 'It's hard to be rational when it comes to Nate.' 'I've gathered that.' Charles intertwined their fingers and kisses Thom's hand. 'I can always tell what you're thinking or what you'll do until it concerns your brother. The way you are about him frightens me at times.' 'Why?' 'I don't think even you know the extent of what you would do for him.' 'I know exactly what I would do for him.,'... 'Nate deserved so much better and got nothing. I got everything.' Tears fell like rain from his eyes and he slammed his head back against the wall. 'He has you.' 'I'm a monster.' Thom's throat started to close. 'I know now that's why my father loved me. I'm so scared of what I'm becoming - of how much I like the quiet that comes to my mind when I hold a blade. I'm damned already.' The silence that followed rocked him to his core. He wondered if he'd frightened her. If she'd leave him. But then she cleared her throat and said, 'These days I feel like I'm a monster, too. I like knowing that I'm good enough to win. It makes me think one day I'll be strong enough to burn this Kingdom down. But they made us into monsters, Thom. We weren't born monsters. They enslaved us. They put us in an arena and told us it was kill or die. If we fight back and take them down, if we win and become better than them, then we don't deserve to die. Do you hear me? In this world, the only ones who live do so with bloody hands. But we didn't start this, and we're not going to be them once we're free. Monsters until we're safe, and then we'll be the people we should have been from the start. 'At least now we won't smell,' said Thom, spitting water at him..Nate splashed him. 'Speak for yourself, I shit roses, little brother.' The sounds of the arena had long felt as familiar to Thom as the whistle of mountain wind and the rushing of water. It was hard to remember a time when bone against bone, metal against metal, body against earth, sounded strange and frightening. 'I think I was the only one who knew Nate was in love with your girl. He didn't seem to know it himself at the time. You know Nate - he has to figure out everything through great error and with all the grace of a thundering rhinoceros.' There was something very disconcerting about being alone in such a place. Thom had always needed someone beside him. Someone around. The silence would ruin him if he was alone too long without something to press him forwards. As he walked, his thoughts wandered, and each day the faces of those he had killed flashed through his mind. It made him walk faster, as if he could outrun the guilt and the desolation which somehow grew larger with each day of peace. Without the fear and the constant need to run and be on alert, Thom's mind was free to reflect, and with that came waves of anguish he had not known he carried. Riddle was the only person there - including Nate - who looked at Thom as if he were still the man he had been before. The man whose cunning and charm got him favours from Viktor Rhys, the Head of the Council; the man who had mastered and then excelled at fighting, becoming a new version of what was needed. What was necessary. 'The things that happen to you don't change who you are as a person,' she said, nudging him affectionately. 'I mean, whether you're scarred or traumatised or a bit broken, you're still going to be the cunning, watchful, taciturn man I have loved since I was a little girl. You've never done anything by half. And where Nate runs headlong at something with all the grace of a wounded rhinoceros, you think and wait and learn untill you're more than good enough. Trust yourself more. Somehow I doubt you'll go off and slaughter people at random.' 'Oh, my love' he said, laughing with fondness. 'I care little what side of this war we end up on. Survive. Live. Reach the end no matter what. I have never doubted how much you love me. Know that I will love you, and I will kill for you, and I will die for you. There is no limit, my love.' 'I don't know why I thought things would be simpler out here.' 'The wilderness fools you.' "it fools all,' said Riddle. Perhaps it should have been a warning of the bloodlust he now felt inside his veins. Perhaps he should have known then, as he watched from behind the trees, that even without bloodying his hands, they were bloodier than most. How horrible and strange it was to think that one human being could own another . 'We'd be identical if it weren't for our hair and height,' said Thom, feeling better for talking about Nate. 'He's shorter than I am; stronger in a thousand ways. I've no doubt that he could kill someone. He almost has before. He took every beating, every fight, every knock for me so that I wouldn't have to.' Thom leaned back against the fence, completely drained. 'I should've listened to my brother.' 'Hes a smart one, your brother?' 'He knows who not to trust,' said Thom wearily. 'I believed I knew enough to circumvent danger.' 'Arrogance is the downfall of even the best man.' Thom snorted. 'I never thought of myself as arrogant.' 'The arrogant never do.' Kayta winked at him... Markas pursed his lips. He did not confirm or deny it. He said, 'Try as we might to control human nature and prevent it from destroying what we have endeavoured so ardently to preserve, there is always one thing that cannot be contained. I suppose we're lucky it's love of a brother that consumes you, rather than love of freedom or power. Yet I am the King. You are nothing.' Thom took another sip and shrugged. 'Your father was nothing until he became something. The son of a seamstress and janitor, I believe. Birth is of no consequence to anyone who knows how to win.' Rather than appearing Insulted, Markas looked impressed. 'How do you know that?' Thom had to fight down his smirk of satisfaction. He greatly enjoyed surprising those who underestimated him.... 'Thom did not have to ask. He knew already what they'd done to his brother. And he'd known, just as he knew now, that he would do anything he could to protect Nate. No one else ever had. 'Spared did not mean saved, however. Not in Cutta. 'His words were bold, his confidence notable, but internally he was ready to drop to his knees and beg for his life. He wished Nate were with him. Nate, who always knew what to do; Nate, who gave him strength when it was nowhere to be found. But it was for Nate he was here, and Thom found strength in that. There was no one to protect, no future to concern himself with. His crimes had given him a strange sort of allowance to do what he wished, and he wished for Hamish to know what Nate had felt all those years. The fear he had felt. Thom sat down in his father's chair, watching the door. He was so certain of his own ability to kill that he knew he did not need a weapon for intimidation. The arena, the mountain, the months of bloodshed, had gifted him a coat of armour his father would never expect. For all Nate's strengths, all his fights in the school yard, all the ways he proved himself to be the stronger of the two brothers, Nate had never been able to stand against their father. A childhood of being abused had done irreversible damage. His powerful, rash, wild brother crumpled like paper before their father's wrath. I love interacting with fellow readers, reviewers, bloggers and writers. Hearing about reader opinion is the fuel to my reader appetite, so get in touch and comment below! SHARE ON FACEBOOK Leave a comment and let's talk about |
VaishaliBorn in the UK Archives
February 2024
Categories
All
2019 Reading Challenge
Vaishali • [Vicarious Living] has
read 15 books toward
her goal of
30 books.
hide
2020 Reading Challenge
Vaishali • [Vicarious Living] has
read 1 book toward
her goal of
20 books.
hide
2021 Reading Challenge
Vaishali • [V.L. Book Reviews] has
read 1 book toward
her goal of
10 books.
hide
2022 Reading Challenge
Vaishali • [V.L. Book Reviews] has
read 0 books toward
her goal of
5 books.
hide
2023 Reading Challenge
Vaishali • [V.L. Book Reviews] has
read 0 books toward
her goal of
5 books.
hide
DisclaimerAll images of book covers on this site belong to the authors and publishers of the books.
|