Epic fantasy featuring warrior priestesses, and fickle gods at war, for readers of Brian Staveley’s Chronicles of the Unhewn Throne.Epic fantasy featuring warrior priestesses and fickle gods at war, for readers 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 … 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 legionaries 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.
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I used to read a lot of fantasy but since the pandemic I haven’t been able to get past the first few chapters in a lot of fantasy novels that I had been anticipating. I don’t know why – you would think I could have used the escape. Not until I picked up H.M. Long’s, Hall of Smoke, was I able to break the drought and what a book to punch through that dam!
This book! Our heroine, Hessa, is perfectly imperfect, badass yet vulnerable and totally relatable – even when she’s wielding a sword and a battle cry that can kill you. (Totally relatable in a metaphorical way – I retired my swords a long time ago although my kids will have something to say about my battle cries.)
Long does a fabulous job in her world building, her succeeding revelations about the Gods in this world are carefully placed to keep the plot moving and the tension high. At the same time, she is remarkably adept at creating fully dimensional and memorable characters who live on in your brain weeks after you’ve finished the book.
I loved that from the beginning of this book it is apparent that the heroine’s journey is not just existential, it is also internal. I am eagerly anticipating book two in the series, not just because the plot was addictive, but because I am looking forward to seeing how Hessa continues to evolve as both a heroine of a saga but also as a woman who has known betrayal and loss. Does she continue to grow in confidence, or will cynicism overtake her?
Highly recommend this book for anyone in a reading slump or anyone who loves really thoughtful and well-written fantasy with complex heroines.
Hall of Smoke is the debut novel of H.M. Long, and what a great debut it is. It’s stand-alone fantasy that starts deceptively small and grows into epic proportions. I received an early review copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
The book is set in a pre-industrial, almost tribal world that doesn’t instantly or obviously refer to ours, though the largest warrior culture reminded me of Rome and the smaller ones of both North American native cultures and Asian cultures. It’s a good mixture where nothing is so directly borrowed that it would jar and everything blends together to form something unique and new. The mythologies and habits are rich and they are brought up organically as the story flows. Countries and cultures have formed around different gods and though languages and habits remain fairly similar, the gods’ dislike of one another has transferred to humans too. Wars and raids are regular.
The main character is Hessa, a warrior priestess of Eang, the goddess of war. The country and people are called Eang too and the priests Eangi, which was confusing at times. She’s the only point of view character and the narrative is in deep first person, which works very well. She’s young (nineteen, maybe), but thanks to the constant wars, an experienced warrior. The priests and priestesses of Eang aren’t chosen; they are born with a special gift from the goddess, a fire that both makes them superior soldiers and heals them too. Other gods haven’t gifted their followers with anything similar.
The story begins at a low point in Hessa’s life. She has failed to perform a task from her goddess to kill a visitor to her town, and as a consequence has been stripped from her position as a priestess. While she’s in a remote shrine to pray for forgiveness from Eang who refuses to answer to her, her entire town is butchered by followers of a different god—an unprecedented occurrence. She’s the only priestess of Eang left in the whole country and she’s in disfavour. But her goddess finally appears and promises her that all will be forgiven if she finishes the task given to her. From that point on, throughout the book, she’s carried by one goal: finding the man she was meant to kill so that she can have a place in the hall of death with her loved-ones.
But things aren’t easy or straightforward when one is alone and facing several enemies. While she tries to locate her prey, Hessa learns that the entire world is in upheaval, and not just among humans, among the gods too. As her goddess increasingly fails to come to her aid, she starts to question her devotion and the task given to her. Little by little, as her faith unravels, the stakes become higher, until Hessa finds herself as a pivotal player in gods’ war against each other.
This was a very satisfying story. The plot flows organically from one event to another, with Hessa learning and growing along it. The pacing isn’t fast, but the chapters are fairly short and there is constantly something going on that makes you want to keep reading. Because of the first person POV, the side characters remain slightly vague, and none of them become more important to Hessa than her task, but I liked most of them. And I especially liked Hessa. She’s resilient and determined, and capable of adjusting her worldview when the old one becomes untenable. And in a true manner of epic fantasy, the person who has lost all becomes the most important person in the world. Since this is a stand-alone, the ending is satisfying and doesn’t leave you with a need to read more.
The book is well-written and the language is beautiful. However, there was a glaring, recurring grammar mistake that became so irritating that I have to mention it, just in case there’s time to fix it before the final version is published: the first person singular objective case pronoun is me, not I. It was so seldom in correct form that the mistake had to be deliberate. Other than that, the book was a joy to read.
Hall of Smoke is an entrancing read! The pantheon of gods that Long has created feels as rich and vibrant as that of any real-world culture, and the religions just as grounded. The mysticism of rituals, the beauty and power of the deities’ descriptions, whether based on seasons or archetypes, are so creative and invigoratingly original.
Hessa is a driven protagonist who struggles with her faith in a way that feels deeply and thoroughly explored as the novel progresses. The friendships she forges on the road, never knowing who to trust, drew me to experience both the longing and constant unease that she felt among foreign entities, both human and inhuman. And when gods are as fallible and petty as humankind, any trust at all might be misplaced.
Overall, Hall of Smoke’s adventurous plot had me in constant suspense, and the ending simply glowed. The characters felt like fully-formed individuals, and the world itself felt real and immersive. Hall of Smoke is a wonderfully executed fantasy adventure.
Fascinating. “To err is divine.”
I have received this review copy for free. My opinions are my own.
This book genuinely surprised me. In the email I got from the publisher, they marked H.M. Long as one of 2021’s most compelling new talents. I normally don’t pay much attention to such claims unless they come from bloggers and reviewers, but now having read the book, I think they were right? In all seriousness, this book was really good and I look forward to read more by H.M. Long’s hand.
Hall of Smoke is a standalone adult epic fantasy with a whole bunch gods with a god-complex. It tells the story of a warrior priestess who devoted her whole life to the Goddess of War, only to have everything she knew about the world, her goddess, and all the gods in the world be crumbled to dust. The storytelling is compelling, almost poetic in some ways, and weaves the intricate and extensive worldbuilding right in with the plot without being overwhelming. At some points in the plot, if you think about the event on it’s own, it almost sounds ridiculous, but the way this book is narrated makes you just go along with what is told and believe it. It fits in the story, in the world and there is no need to question it.
I spend several weeks reading this book, which is much slower than usual but external circumstances just didn’t let me read as much as usual. Other times, if a book takes me that long, I grow bored of it or end up in big slump reading wise, affecting my overall enjoyment. But with Hall of Smoke, each time I picked it up I was right back into the world and every day I was excited to hop back in, even for just a few pages. The fact that this book kept me hooked, even though my neurodivergent brain usually just moves on, if not forget, if something takes too long, shows to me that this book is written by a talented writer that knows how to keep a reader engaged.
I have been thinking hard about how to describe this book, as it’s so unique and I don’t think I can properly tell you anyway as this is a book to experience. I think you will love Hall of Smoke if you enjoy stories with a big pantheon of gods and the general vibe of Norse mythology and Vikings. I also really think fans of Samantha Shannon and her Priory of the Orange Tree might love this, which has also been said by both the publisher and reviewers of this book.
The world Hall of Smoke is set in is enormous and rich with lore and stories and people. It felt like Hall of Smoke only scratched the surface, even though Hessa’s story is now finished. With this in my mind I was extremely happy to hear there will be another standalone book set in this world coming early 2022, wondering where in the past, present or future of this world I will travel to when it comes out.
Some books you start knowing you will love them. And sometimes you are taken by surprise. Hall of Smoke for me ticked the box of the latter. I genuinely hope that you, the reader of this review, might give Hall of Smoke a chance and enjoy Hessa’s story from start to finish and be enchanted by this beautiful debut, like me.
Content warnings: Child labour (not detailed and MC is only briefly present), death, gore, grief, self-harm (blood sacrifice, only small amounts/small wounds), violence.
I really enjoyed this. I feel like the options for finding an adult fantasy novel written by a woman is a bit harder to come by in a genre so traditionally dominated by men, but Hall of Smoke by H.M. Long is a FANTASTIC debut read—one worth a reread or few. If you want to learn more, I did a non-spoilery video review on my channel to add some color, but in short, this was a wild, fun ride, and I very much enjoyed the author’s style of writing.
If you dig Viking influence and stories that feature strong women at their helm, give this one a shot. It’s similar to Sky in the Deep (which I found lacking), only way more grown-up. Better writing, more immersive world-building and lore, captivating storytelling and plot, and an epic cast of characters, which includes monsteresque creatures, zealot priests and legionaries, and brutal, brutal gods.
The lore, the stakes, the fight scenes, battles—they were all superb in Hall of Smoke. I got major Skyrim vibes reading this book (the shouts, the setting, the weapons). I’ve put an embarrassing number of hours into that game LOL.
Though it took roughly a quarter to one-third of the way into the book for it to really get going for me, once I passed that 25–33% mark, it had my undivided attention. If you’re looking for a romance sub-plot, you won’t find it here. HoS is not that kind of story. This is about one woman’s struggle as she examines her beliefs and, ultimately, avenges all she’s lost.
H.M. Long is an author I’ll have my eye on for her forthcoming work. Can’t wait for more books set in this world. Very respectable debut!
Hall of Smoke by H.M. Long is an excellent fantasy novel that has it all: a strong female main character, historical fiction, mythology, action, complex characters, and an epic, gripping, and suspenseful narrative that kept me turning pages to find out more.
I loved Hessa. She is an excellent main character. She is complex, she is strong, intelligent, and has a strong moral compass despite her flaws and faults. When she attempts to atone for her mistakes, she discovers that a lot of what she was brought up to believe in regards to the multitude of gods and goddesses is not as it appears, she starts to question everything she thought she ever knew. The internal vs external struggles, battles, and obstacles were presented in with an excellent balance. I love how Hessa was able to self-reflect, reassess, and alter her beliefs and actions as the story unfolds. I also love the complexity of the relationships that are presented throughout the novel. The full character cast (including the presentation of the multitude of “old vs newer” deities) was described appropriately and with a wonderful literary descriptiveness that allowed the reader to feel as if it was all a part of their own upbringing and belief system as well. I felt I was on a quest right along with Hessa at times.
I also loved the feel of the novel. A very Norse/Roman-esque presentation was given and it really added another layer to a jam-packed novel.
This is an excellent epic fantasy that really checks all of the boxes for me. I loved every minute of it!
5/5 stars
Thank you NetGalley and Titan Books for this ARC and in return I am submitting my unbiased and voluntary review and opinion.
I am posting this review to my GR, Instagram, and Bookbub accounts immediately and will post it to my Amazon, Instagram, and B&N accounts upon publication on 1/19/21.