Hall of Smoke

By: H. M. Long

Narrated by: Samara Naeymi

Epic fantasy featuring warrior priestesses and fickle gods at war, for fans of Brian Staveley's Chronicles of the Unhewn Throne.

Hessa is an Eangi: a warrior priestess of the Goddess of War, with the power to turn an enemy's bones to dust with a scream. Banished for disobeying her goddess's command to murder a traveller, she prays for forgiveness alone on a mountainside.

While she is gone, raiders raze her village and obliterate the Eangi priesthood. Grieving and alone, Hessa - the last Eangi - must find the traveller and atone for her weakness and secure her place with her loved ones in the High Halls. As clans from the north and legionnaires from the south tear through her homeland, slaughtering everyone in their path, Hessa strives to win back her goddess' favour.

Beset by zealot soldiers, deceitful gods, and newly-awakened demons at every turn, Hessa burns her path towards redemption and revenge. But her journey reveals a harrowing truth: the gods are dying and the High Halls of the afterlife are fading. Soon Hessa's trust in her goddess weakens with every unheeded prayer.

Thrust into a battle between the gods of the Old World and the New, Hessa realizes there is far more on the line than securing a life beyond her own death. Bigger, older powers slumber beneath the surface of her world. And they're about to wake up.

©2021 H. M. Long (P)2021 Recorded Books

great world building book!

this was a great book, amazing descriptive world building and character development. can't wait to start book 2

Excellent tale!

This was a fantastic story, Rich with detail about the
characters and the lands it occupies. It made it easy to imagine each scene, and feel the emotional twists that the authors intended.

While I love the narrator, there are too many characters for a single person. This would have been made better with a couple of people doing the voices.

The story line was very enthralling!

The world building and character development was done at a great pace. Great diversity of characters that you actually end up careing about by the end.

Excited for the Following Books

It was a good book, but it was a little hard to follow in an audio setting. The names are too similar. It was great, though, and I look forward to the following books in the series.

Enjoyable heroine

There is no humor or romance in this sober tale. The premise of layered gods is nothing new but I loved the heroine’s journey to her truth. She was never put herself in “too stupid to live” situations. Narrator did an excellent job.