Song of Blood and Stone

I think this is a reading first for me: the version of the first book in the Earthsinger Chronicles I read is billed as an "expanded edition", adding substantially more text (around 50,000 words) and a secondary storyline to a novel which has previously had both self-published and traditionally published incarnations. Having not read the previous editions, I was slightly apprehensive about what these additions would do to the story structure and how to handle them as a reviewer, but I was rewarded with a book whose dual stories work well together in terms of pacing and complementary worldbuilding, and despite the fairly limited interactions between them, I wouldn't have known this was an "expansion" without the note in the title.

At the heart of the novel is the story of Jasminda, a mixed race woman living near the border between the lands of Elsira and Lagrimar, countries which have been in a magically-induced standoff for decades following open war. Looking Lagrimari and able to use "Earthsong", a kind of magic particular to that land, Jasminda is treated as an outside within her Elsiran community and following the death of her parents she's now struggling to maintain control of her family's land in the face of greedy distant relatives. When a group of Lagrimari soldiers show up, assuming by Jasminda's presence that they're in their own country and bringing a rather handsome and valuable prisoner with them, Jasminda is thrown into unfolding events between the two kingdoms, with epic results.

Song of Blood and Stone took a while to get going for me, and it wasn't until the second half, when Jasminda and Jack arrive at the capital of Elsira and some fairly significant plot shifts (and romance progressions) take place, that I started to wholeheartedly enjoy the reading experience. Once I got there, though, I found this to be a satisfying fantasy romance which leans into its tropes effectively, while still providing a novel worldbuilding backdrop for its protagonists to grapple with. Particularly neat were the opening sections to each chapter, which build an animal-based mythological pantheon for Elsira through snippets of different fables. Best of all, there's already a sequel available for those who enjoy this entry into the world of Elsira and Lagrimar.