Seven Endless Forests

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My Opinion

(3 / 5) This book started strong, full of adventure, mystery and action. The characters you meet have a strong loyalty and companionship and it’s heart warming to read the trials they endure for each other and the devotion they share.
I then found myself feeling lost in who additional characters were and what part of the story they played? I forgot names and backgrounds and couldn’t figure out relevance. What started as an amazing quest turned disappointing. The story just hummed along with very little going on for a while.
While I didn’t love the story, I can see how others will get lost in it and enjoy what they read. It has the potential to be great, but it just never quite grabbed me.

The content has a lot of drinking and smoking, with some drugs and getting drunk. There is intimacy, but no real details are given. There is some violence with blood and fighting.
This is a retelling of King Arthur legend that I recommend for fantasy lovers and King Arthur fans.

Thank you #netgalley and Farrer, Straus and Giroux for the opportunity to review this book in exchange for an honest opinion.

This book is out April 28, 2020

Seven Endless Forests

April Genevieve Tucholke

In this gorgeous standalone companion to the critically acclaimed fantasy, The Boneless Mercies, April Tucholke spins a bold and blood-hungry retelling of the King Arthur legend that is perfect for fans of Naomi Novik, Garth Nix, and Laini Taylor.

On the heels of a devastating plague, Torvi’s sister, Morgunn, is stolen from the family farm by Uther, a flame-loving Fremish wolf-priest who leads a pack of ragged, starving girls. Torvi leaves the only home she’s ever known, and joins a shaven-skulled druid and a band of roaming Elsh artists known as the Butcher Bards. They set out on a quest to rescue Torvi’s sister, and find a mythical sword.

On their travels, Torvi and her companions will encounter magical night wilds and mystical Drakes who trade in young men. They will sing rowdy Elshland ballads in a tree-town tavern, and find a mysterious black tower in an Endless Forest. They will fight alongside famous Vorseland archers and barter with Fremish wizards. They will feast with rogue Jade Fell children in a Skal Mountain cave, and seek the help of a Pig Witch. They will face wild, dangerous magic that leads to love, joy, tragedy, and death.

Torvi set out to rescue a sister, but she may find it’s merely the first step toward a life that is grander and more glorious than anything she could have imagined.

-Excerpt taken from Goodreads.

Check Goodreads to see the book’s ratings. 

Detailed Content Review

Language 

F***-

H***- 8

S***-

A**-

B****-

D***- 10

Bas****- 2

Religious Cursing-

J****-

Chr***-

G**-

L***-

Derogatory terms etc-

Hel not hell

Alcohol, Drugs, Smoking

A young woman drinks vite.

A young woman (13?) enjoys alcohol and her sister has found her very drunk before. She requested mead during a rainstorm. She says the alcohol calls to her. 

A young woman drinks vite. 

Three young women drink mead. 

A couple sip a bottle of vite. 

A young woman drinks vite. 

Yew berry poison is a drink that makes people high and act aggressively and hallucinate.

A young woman forces another young woman to drink yew berry poison. She hallucinates. 

Three young women drink “too much” vite. One slurs her words. Another smokes a pipe. 

Three smoke pipes. 

A group smokes pipes and share vite. 

A group drinks fermented cider. They buy ale at a festival. A man smokes a pipe. 

A woman lights a pipe and shares it. 

A group smokes a pipe and drinks vite. 

A group orders ale with dinner. They drink many rounds and get drunk. 

Two smoke a pipe. 

A group drink vite with dinner. 

Two women drink vite. Ones worries began to ease. A group play games and drink it too. Two smoke a pipe. 

A group drinks vite.

A group drugs themselves on mushrooms to help them conquer a quest. 

One smokes a pipe. 

A young woman (and a group with her) is high on yew berry poison and forces two young women to drink it too. 

A group drinks ale. 

Ale is served at dinner. 

A group smoke pipes. 

Four “drink their fill” of vite. 

Two young women drink vite. One is high on yew berry poison.

A group drink mead.

Three smoke pipes. 

Intimacy, Sex, Immodesty

A young man kisses his girlfriend from toe to head. She doesn’t have clothes on. No more details. 

At a festival, a group sings while naked, ash covering their bodies. 

A man kisses a young woman. 

Three people take off their clothes and swim. 

A man takes off his shirt, she takes off his belt. Then they lay naked afterward. Sex is implied.

A couple kiss. 

Two young women fight in their under clothes. No details.

A young woman describes her lover and says she sleeps well when her naked skin is pressed to his. 

Violence, Weapons, Crime, Blood

A young woman is tied to a stake to be burned. She escapes when lightning hits. She stabs two others in the escape. 

A young woman holds a knife to a throat. A woman shoots an arrow and nicks a young woman’s ear. Blood drips. The woman shoots again, getting her neck and killing her. Blood pools on the floor. 

Someone holds a knife to a young woman’s throat. 

A young woman is tied up and taken captive.

A man kills a guard and wipes the blood off his knife. A young woman tries to kill a woman with a knife but is hit and knocked out. Another is hit twice in the face, blood gushing down her face. 

A young woman is tied and hung with a noose from a tree. She is aware as this happens. 

A woman is shot with two arrows and kept alive for information with the arrows protruding. She later pulls one out, blood dripping, so she can die.

Two young women fight, punching, kicking, noses bleeding and black eyes. One cuts the others hand off, blood spraying. 

A young woman agrees to slit her friends throat for a spell. She screams as she does it then holds her friends body as blood pours out and light leaves her eyes. 

People are beheaded publicly for selling boneware. 

Potentially Intense Themes

A sickness ravages a village. One woman fall and seizures, when her daughter wakes the next morn, her mother is dead in her arms along with their servants. She burns some bodies then buries two. 

A young woman dreams her dead mother crawls out of her grave and asks her to join her. 

**As an Amazon associate I earn from qualifying purchases.