The Poison Song / Book 3 of The Winnowing Flame // Book Review

 Book: The Poison Song (The Winnowing Flame 3) by Jen Williams
Release Date: May 16th 2019
Tags: Fantasy / Adult / High Fantasy / War / LGBTQ+ / Lesbian / Gay
Trigger Warnings: Bombings / Eradicating Whole Cities / Disease / Non Graphic Sex
Other books in this series I reviewed
The Ninth Rain / Bitter Twins
Other books by this Author I reviewed
The Copper Cat Trilogy

Jump on board a war beast or two with Vintage, Noon and Tor and return to Sarn for the last installment of this epic series where the trio must gather their forces and make a final stand against the invading Jure’lia.

I struggled to write this review of The Poison Song because there is so much of my heart in this series. In these characters that it is hard to form the words to do this book justice.

Jen Williams is an amazing author who can just completely suck you into the world. Before reading you take one big breath of air and you keep holding it until you need to stop reading or you finish the book. (Yes I went there) Because you are at the edge of the seat. The characterization is so good. You laugh, cry and get angry with the characters. You want to smack some of them good because they are being stupid shits.  Sometimes you want to hold their hand through the hard moments. Other times you need to put a hand in front of your eyes for second-hand embarrassment.

The ending killed me. I knew it was likely coming at some point but I still hoped that it wouldn’t go there. Not because it was bad plotting or anything. But because I just didn’t want anything to happen to my baby’s. In the end the one that always ran away and didn’t want to live, lived. And the other didn’t. And it broke my heart. Completely and utterly devastated me on the inside.

And there were other, smaller moments that were heart breaking. Tor and Hest confronting each other. Hest trying not to confront herself for killing someone. Noon who gets forced to confront her past. Vintage who learns to let go of her past with Nanthema. I could go on for each character we encounter.

This is certainly a series I see myself rereading down the line because I think there are things I’ll discover in the books that I hadn’t seen in this first read. Because you know the ending now and can catch more of the foreshadowing.  Because there is so much packed in these books.

At the end of the day, no review I could write could do justice to The Poison Song or this series. You just need to discover it.

Then you can come and cry with me.