Due to a sudden, unexpected passing in the family a few years ago and another more recently and my subsequent (mental) health issues stemming from that, I was unable to download this book in time to review it before it was archived as I did not visit this site for several years after the bereavements. This meant I didn't read or venture onto netgalley for years as not only did it remind me of that person as they shared my passion for reading, but I also struggled to maintain interest in anything due to overwhelming depression. I was therefore unable to download this title in time and so I couldn't give a review as it wasn't successfully acquired before it was archived. The second issue that has happened with some of my other books is that I had them downloaded to one particular device and said device is now defunct, so I have no access to those books anymore, sadly.

This means I can't leave an accurate reflection of my feelings towards the book as I am unable to read it now and so I am leaving a message of explanation instead. I am now back to reading and reviewing full time as once considerable time had passed I have found that books have been helping me significantly in terms of my mindset and mental health - this was after having no interest in anything for quite a number of years after the passings. Anything requested and approved will be read and a review written and posted to Amazon (where I am a Hall of Famer & Top Reviewer), Goodreads (where I have several thousand friends and the same amount who follow my reviews) and Waterstones (or Barnes & Noble if the publisher is American based). Thank you for the opportunity and apologies for the inconvenience

Published here on the 6th September, 2019: https://www.grimdarkmagazine.com/review-the-house-of-sacrifice-by-anna-smith-spark/

Anna Smith Spark’s The House of Sacrifice is one of the most emotionally tolling pieces of fiction I’ve ever read. It completes Empires of Dust, one of the best fantasy trilogies in recent memory. I’m equal parts shattered and satisfied. I want a hug. Or a whiskey. Or something. Anything.

The House of Sacrifice wraps up the downright bloody tragic stories of Marith and Thalia, Orhan and Bil and Darath, and Landra and Tobias. We follow the army of Amrath as it smears blood and death and destruction across the land, unstoppable in their march to conquer the world for their god king. Marith is as self destructive and tragic as ever, Thalia is torn between having enough of her addict and the deeply-rooted love she has for just about the worst bloke on earth, and the rest of the cast are either in the way or riding the coattails of the army of Amrath.

Now, let’s get into the best part of Anna’s books: her magnificent characters.

In the brief calm before the storm that is Anna’s writing, we are gifted a brief insight into Thalia’s mind—her questions on why she shouldn’t be happy. Why should she murder Marith for the greater good, when he is the person who makes her happy? Why should she break herself and her happiness to murder the god of death when most won’t even give a copper to a beggar? Why is hers the greater evil?

And just like that, we are thrust back into the butchery, the almost mythological descriptions of Marith as he bleeds the world. The break-neck speed storytelling that somehow manages to be both so beautiful in prose and visceral in its depiction of the land is just magnificent—easily the most unique voice in fantasy at the moment.

Marith’s fear and want for his incoming child is amazing and sickening and terrifying to behold. And his wrestle between his impending fatherhood and the needs of an insatiable army who won’t be dismissed is massive—a roller coaster he one second can’t find a way to get off, and the next second wants to go faster.

And amongst all this, there is a traitor in his ranks, maybe in his inner circle…

Our man Tobias is still with the camp followers of the army of Amrath. Still dirty on himself for not killing Marith when he had the chance to stop this wave of bloodshed before it grew into a tsunami. His inner monologues provide a refreshing bit of humour away from the unbelievable level of grit and horror in this book, and his character development is a thoroughly enjoyable part of the book. (I may have been fist pumping as he comes into his own at then end…)

Landra wanders in the wake of the army of Amrath, watching beauty spring up in the wake of devastation, seeing ruins of once populous cities, almost like a spiritual pilgrimage—or investigation—into the godhood of Marith. Trying to find a crack she can expose, somewhere to drive a killing blade into Marith. Vengeance is what she seeks, at any cost.

Orhan has spent four years in poverty. Servants gone. Wealth gone. Titles gone. All he has left is his wife Bil, who he cannot love, his lover Darath whose spirit clings by the slightest sliver of strength (or desperation), and his son, who isn’t his son, and the ongoing lamentation of all that he has lost. Once the nithique and second most powerful man in all of Sorlost, he is now but a forlorn shadow wandering in a city where all his greatest fears have come true but perhaps aren’t as bad as he feared when he fell from favour.

Smith Spark continues to paint such beautiful and vivid scenes–it’s like watching music. The opening 20% is an absolute fever dream experience with all the above twisting into an experience like no other series in fantasy. Her pace builds and builds throughout and the last hundred pages disappear like you ripped them from the spine and threw them into the wind. It’s visceral and engulfing and I honestly need a mental break after it. Holy shit.

I cannot recommend this series enough. Pick up it. Love it; don’t love it; just experience it.

If you haven’t started the series, check out The Court of Broken Knives, and The Tower of Living and Dying.

A fast-paced, bloody, fitting ending to this fascinating but underrated trilogy. I look forward to what more Anna Smith Spark has to offer us readers, especially after such an accomplished debut series.

The House Of Sacrifice is the conclusion of the Empires of Dust trilogy. And not to give the game away, but Anna Smith Spark can write a bloody good ending. This volume contains all the things I loved about the first two books. It has lyrical, soaring prose which manages to create poetry out of blood spatter. It has characters who do monstrous things, but also live and laugh and love within their own insecurities as much as anyone else. It has a world that sweeps from wet, cold islands and weed-raddled coastlines, through deserts drawn still with a merciless heat, to great cities, whose decay is matched only by their vitality. It has all these things, and from them is woven the sort of story which takes your hand and doesn’t let go – possibly because it just drove a knife into your chest.

So what makes it so good then?

Well, for one thing, the characterisation. Marith has been one of the core figures in this story from the beginning. Demon king, lover, conqueror, he mixes casual brutality and a penchant for offhand murder with a sense of fragility, a need for connection and compassion, and a deep love for his wife. In some ways, this story is as much a close study of Marith’s psyche as it is anything else. Reacting with or against his own demons is what drives him forward, is what moves him to the battles edged with slaughter in which he partakes, with the reader over his shoulder. As each friendship carries within it a betrayal, as each decision steps further into a self-referential whirl of recrimination and retaliation, Marith is never quite willing to let go. Of course it helps that he’s leading a host of killers, themselves driven by his imprecations and charisma. The armies of the demon king won’t let go, won’t back down. Have found freedom and release in carmine and carnage. As reflections of his will, they are a marvel. From moment to moment, they seem no better or worse than any of us – thinking about sending money home to their families, grousing about terrible food. But they’re also unrelenting professional killers. The text invites comparison, and lets us wonder, not if we can be anything more, but if we are already something less. Monsters are people too, yes. But also, people are monsters too.

And Marith isn’t alone. What can we say about Thalia, about a character whose appearance on the page can wrench the heart (and guts) on quite so many directions at once? Thalia is a survivor. Pulled away from horror, from a life of blindness and ritual sacrifice and death, she seems to love Marith deeply. But Thalia is also not a stupid person. She knows what he is, and what he’s done. But then, she’s done a fair few things herself. In her struggle for self determination and self actualisation, Thalia is quite willing to set the world on fire. I can’t blame her really. And for all that, she’s a joy to read. Driven, thoughtful, self-aware and complicated. Thalia thinks ahead when Marith is immersed in his own id. She knows her position, of wealth and luxury, of a life without fear, is built on the backs and blood of others. But she’s also not willing to give it up, to be hunted down and broken by vengeance, or by history. Thalia is inspirational, in some ways – someone who saw a way to take what they wanted, and seized it. Someone who genuinely lives within their own great love story. It’s a shame she also has a history of doing terrible things.

These two are at the heart of the story, but they’re not all of it. Orhan still sits in the decaying remains of Sorlost, nominally the greatest city in the world. His plans in disarray, Orhan is discovering both that everything can be lost, and what he may wbe willing to sacrifice to prevent it. And Sorlost – ah, alright, I always want to talk about Sorlost. This is a city with walls that are one winding ribbon of bronze, feet high. A city that nominally runs the greatest empire known to humanity – at least on paper. A city that has rested on its own laurels for so long that they’re starting to stink. But oh, when you see the energy behind it, in the soaring spires and in the dusty statue in the Court of Broken Knives…it feels like a living, breathing place. Riddled with corruption, of course. Ossified, yes. But still a humming metropolitan engine, which may surprise us all and shake of its torpor.As Marith marches on, laying waste to everything around him (sometimes more than once), Sorlost is always there – a jewelled band laced with thorns, waiting for a conqueror to seize it. Orhan embodies Sorlost, strives to save it, and in that struggle, gives room to let the reader feel both hope and tragedy.

Thankfully, there’s always Tobias. In a story which does give us a lot of grand themes, of armies on the march, of regal politics – even when those things are brought into the realm of the personal through blood and sex and death - , Tobias is the voice of the everyman. He’s feeling old, and tired, and not really willing to put up with anyone’s crap, What Tobias is, is good at staying alive. But he’s also a great mix of blunt and incisive, a professional who knows his work, and isn’t wiolling to take any guff from management, even when his work is killing people. Tobias grounds the story for me, helps keep it real, between the soaring dragons, the explosive, watercolour magic, and the death-metal romance of Marith and Thalia. Between all those things is Tobias, asking where the next meal is going to come from, and trying to avoid getting stabbed in the gut.

It’s this humanity, from everyone involved, that beats behind the ribs of the story. The sense that even awful, awful people are people, that they do what they can (or sometimes what they must), as much as anyone else. This is a story of terrible decisions, for sure, as much as it’s a story of shining spears, and blood painted on walls. But it’s also a story which is unflinching in letting you into who its characters are, and into the world they inhabit. That isn’t a comforting experience, but one which can sear the soul. Which may sound a bit dramatic. But this is a dramatic book, too. It’s prepared to let you revel in the chaos, the destruction, the nihilist drives that it dishes out – and then quietly points out the horrors that sit behind them. I was thinking about the end of The House Of Sacrifice for days afterwards, trying to decide what it had persuaded me to feel, and what I thought of it all. It’s a triumph of layered narrative – and if a lot of those layers are trauma, death, struggle, death, defeat, death , victory and, er, death…not all of them are. There’s hope among the embers, maybe, and if not
that, then a sense of commonality, a sense of community – even if it is that of an army on the march, willing and eager to burn everything down.

So yeah. This is a great book. It will, as said previously, grab you and refuse to let go until it’s done. It has heart, and soul, and it has rather a lot of blood. It’s an unforgettable story, and one which ends on its own terms, and ends very well indeed.

4 of 5 stars
https://lynns-books.com/2019/08/23/the-house-of-sacrifice-empires-of-dust-3-by-anna-smith-spark/
And so comes to an end Anna Smith Spark’s brilliantly brutal Empires of Dust. And what a very fitting end to the series it is. This series is not for the faint of heart, it’s downright grim, it’s unapologetically bloody and it’s written in the most unique, almost poetic, prose I’ve ever come across.

I think this is possibly one of the hardest reviews I’ve had to write. A combination of not wanting to give anything away coupled with arguing with myself about my own feelings. To be clear, this is a great ending to this series, it’s perhaps not my favourite book of the series (that still remains The Tower of Living and Dying) but it’s so true to itself that it’s positively perfect. There’s a loss of hope here, a weary sort of recognition that nothing will ever be enough and a perfect telling of one man’s descent into madness.

So, what can I tell you about this book. It went in directions that I didn’t expect at all. It contains the same starkly beautiful prose as the first two instalments and it has definitely left me gagging to find out what this author will come up with next. Will this book be for everyone? Definitely not. This is a story that almost sucks the life and soul out of you when reading, the despair, the madness, the fear, the hysteria. It’s just so bloody dark, it’s like a black hole – no light, no reflection just all consuming. Lets just be frank, the laughs are few and far between and any sense of hope almost non-existent, I think the only hope that you really hanker after is retribution and whilst there’s an element of that there’s also the realisation that the same thing happening over and over again is kind of inevitable – the only difference being the ruthless conqueror. History has shown us this very thing and this series is a perfect embodiment of that blood thirsty ambition to dominate that has repeated itself throughout the ages. I can’t deny that it took me a while to read this one, which isn’t a reflection on how good the book is but more that things are definitely bleak and sometimes I had to escape to something a bit more fluffy and fun loving with unicorns and rainbows.

Marith and Thalia. Wow, what a journey they take us on. The two of them together though. You’d hope that somehow they’d become more human, more sympathetic, more anything really. But no. They’re both a bit (aka a lot) monstrous, Marith more so than Thalia although she doesn’t exactly break a sweat out trying to curb him. They both have their own crosses to bear and sadness to deal with, they’ve both come so far together that in some respects they don’t like each other at all and yet in others they can’t bear to be apart. They’re a riddle indeed. I can’t help thinking about Alexander the Great when reading about Marith. The ambition, the charisma and the ruthless desire to conquer. Marith thinks himself godlike in fact that’s probably the only thing left that he could strive for after conquering all else and his belief of his own invincibility is his only weakness.

I recall in a previous review describing this author’s style as hypnotic and that still stands. I’ve also mentioned that her style has a poetic feel – and yet I don’t really read poetry so there’s a conundrum right there. The best way to describe this, for me, is that the prose is wonderfully descriptive whilst being distinctly brief. It’s the very opposite of, say, Tolkien or Dickens (both authors that I like btw). And, to be honest, f you can use simply 5 words to describe a field, a tower, a battle and yet still conjure a vivid picture then why not – although I will say that I imagine this takes a hell of a lot more skill than you would imagine and this is an author who makes it look deceptively easy.

Overall, this has been a remarkable series. I have so much respect for this author not only for her vision and writing chops but also for having the guts to take this series to the bitter end and give it the fitting conclusion it deserves without shirking or trying to wrap everything up too nicely.

As mentioned above, be aware that this series definitely falls into the grimdark category, it isn’t a YA read and there are elements to these stories that would not be everyone’s cup of tea so take heed. I’m not going to tell you to read or to not read this – you know your own selves better than I do so hopefully you’ll make the right choice for you. I would just say that this is a fine series, groundbreaking in style of writing, fascinating in it’s reflection of history and on point in terms of today’s modern fantasy reader.

I received a copy courtesy of the publisher, through Netgalley, for which my thanks. The above is my own opinion.

* I received an advance copy of this book from the publishers and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review *

Anna Smith Spark broke onto the scene with The Court of Broken Knives (which always annoyed me because the place in the book is named the Court of the Broken Knife), a truly dark and gritty fantasy tale mixing magic, ambition, political intrigue and good old fashion hacking limbs off with blunted swords. Her narrative tone made her debut stand out, being much more lyrical and poetic than the rest of the genre. While this took time to get used to, it added to the immersion of the story and made the reader feel like they were experiencing the conflict themselves. The lyrical prose added to the underlying story. This continued into the second book, where Marith's journey to taking over/destroying the world continued, as did the turmoil in the heart of the empire.

Here, however, the story seems to have been put on the back-burner in favour of more literary prose. A whole lot of not a lot happens. While a large chunk of this is in favour of some character development, it is laboured and a real slog. I hated the first quarter of the book, and while I could see that what little was happening would be important in telling Marith's story, it really did take forever and was so utterly rammed home that I found it frustrating. So much so that I had to put the book aside so that my mood didn't ruin my family holiday.

The book serves as something of a conclusion to the trilogy with a lot of wrongs righted and paths ended. However, so much of it is simply gratuitous war for the sake of war (which I get as part of Marith's character but I grasped that after the first couple of unnecessary towns were razed).

However, with less of import happening, the reader starts to focus on the world-building, and I certainly started to realise how little of the "magic" in the world was explained or even described. So many instances of "shadowbeasts" just appearing and I cannot remember them being introduced in any detail at all. I really couldn't remember what was so special about Marith after all.

And the ending was so much of a damp squib I just had to laugh. After everything Marith had been through, for that to be the ending was ludicrous. While I appreciated the circularity of it, I didn't like it.

A disappointing case of style over substance in this dragged out ending to a series that could easily have squeezed into two books.

It's time for the Empires of Dust trilogy to come to an end. And it comes with a bang.

Marith Altrersyr has his victory at last. But all victories come with a price. And his price to pay is the nothingness that awaits him after he's conquered all. Marith's mind is on the verge of breaking. How long will it take before his whole kingdom collapses under his fragile mind?

For anyone familiar with the Empires of Dust trilogy, there is not much that can be said to describe the brilliance of the book's plot. Here's a story that shows you that the good one doesn't always win, victory is not everything, and not everything's good in the world. And it all comes through carefully built characters, madness, and the construction (and destruction) of a whole empire. Great storytelling, amazing character construction, and beautiful narrative accompany this wonderful story. Strongly recommended to read the first two books of the trilogy before starting this one.

Anna Smith Spark’s finale in the Empire of Dust series is a powerhouse. A tour de force of grimdark fantasy told in lush, beautiful prose. At the time of his greatest triumph, Marith teeters on the edge of mental instability whilst Thalia begins to think more about the future. There will definitely be blood. This is excellent – brutal poetry in a story that pulls no punches. Highly recommended for fans of darker fantasy.

I was fascinated by how powerful and beautiful this book is.
The style of writing, the characters and developments in the plots are part of a coral work that you have to read slowly to enjoy at last and, at same time, makes you wish to turn the pages as fast as you can.
It's grim, dark and enchanting at the same time.
I'm happy I discovered a new great fantasy author and a new amazing series.
Highly recommended!
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine

Let’s start with the cover, because I am shallow like that. It is stunning. I love the pops of red against the grey background. So beautiful.

The thing I like most about Anna Smith Spark is her writing. It is just as beautiful as the cover. She’s a writer who can make the violence of war seem beautiful with her words and she uses them effectively to create a vivid world marred by constant and very bloody violence. That’s a remarkable skill.

As for the plot, The House of Sacrifice is a solid book but it just didn’t blow me away enough for it to rise above books one and two and become a five star read for me. It is just as beautifully written as the first two books and it is just as violent and dark, both of those things I absolutely loved but there was no “OH MY GOD” moment to push it further than just liking it. I did like where the story went and how it almost came full circle from the beginning of book one. I also like that there was a very high body count because it’s war and people die in war. Lots and lots of people die.

The House of Sacrifice is absolutely brutal.

Marith continues to be a wonderfully written character with a nice dose of self pity to add to the tyranny. He’s fascinated me from the beginning and The House of Sacrifice is no exception. I hated and loved him in equal measure throughout the story.

The House of Sacrifice is a good book but it just doesn’t quite hit great book status. I liked reading the characters, the plot is solid and ends the series off and the writing is stunningly beautiful. It just needed a little something extra to make it excellent.

A book which understands that the world is built on suffering and horror, that we're all quite literally full of shit, and yet beauty somehow exists and persists. Which says early on of the trilogy's key location, a city whose faith is founded on the sacrifice of innocents, "The people of Sorlost are wise. They merely make visible what all the world is based on". Its central figure: Marith, King Ruin, King Death – a fucked-up little boy become destroyer of nations. Which reads increasingly familiar, doesn't it? Though at least Marith, unlike analogous figures on our world, has a certain sick grandeur to him, a grubbed-up, bloodstained, early Moorcock fascination, rather than looking like a distended bladder in a wig. In one delightful moment of self parody, we're told of a brief fad in Sorlost for scented books, including a three-volume history of Marith's exploits said to smell alternately of blood, semen and human excrement. Which would be an understandable summary of the Empires of Dust trilogy, but also an incomplete one. A single chapter will move seamlessly from poetry ("Magnolia trees and lilac trees and jasmine, all in flower; women in silk dresses, bells tingling at their wrists and ankles; in the warm dusk the poets sing of fading beauty and the women dance with grief on their crimson lips"), to earthiness ("Pregnancy seemed to leave her insatiable. It made her flatulent, also. Slept and ate and farted and wanted to fuck. All the good things"), to the sheer horror of parasites and vomit and rot (which I shan't quote, because you might be eating). I was reminded at times of Tony Harrison's version of the Oresteia, the way that unlike the pseudo-elevated flim-flam of whichever other version it was I'd suffered through, he'd move without apology from the primal and hieratic to the chatty and domestic, and neither of them would feel out of place. And over and over in this, I was impressed at the way Anna can yoke apparent opposites together and reveal their hidden, horrific harmony. The grandeur of empire, against the blood and mud and despair on which it's founded; the mighty leader paradoxically incapable of stopping the juggernaut he's set in motion (and part of this is mystical, but part is just how people become once they've got in the habit of destruction, and part is the plain economics of mediaeval warfare, which may not loom as large here as in a Daniel Abraham book, but have not been forgotten). The way that the army, especially Marith's immediate circle, still agog at their success, often recall the #bantz of #ladsontour – but then the imperceptible line between that, and the horror unleashed once the chief lad starts having a bad night of it. Sometimes the great battles and sieges you'd expect to be centrepieces in an epic fantasy are skipped over, treated as background entertainment, or glimpsed only in flashbacks - but, as is observed, when you have a death god and two dragons in the army, they tend to be one-sided anyway, in a fashion which even the watching members of that army find faintly anticlimactic, so why not concentrate instead on something a little more substantial? Like the torments of the other point-of-view characters, each of whom has at some point tried and failed to destroy Marith, and each of whom must now find some accommodation with the world as he's remade it. Of course, in a sense he's tried to kill himself too, over and over, and so has his queen, Thalia, formerly high priestess of Sorlost, and now pregnant. The emotions of parents-to-be are always going to be both intense and complex, but how much more so when he's a monster who killed his own father, and her old vocation was sacrificing children? As disastrous relationships go, they are the couple from whom the couple in the Mountain Goats' No Children back quietly away, knowing themselves comprehensively outclassed. And yet, even here we're not let off so lightly as to see them as the Other, but are reminded that really, they're just that irrational parental urge to rebuild the world around the treasured child writ on a continent-sized canvas. Still, around them gilded cities and beautiful forests are torn down or burning - not even for the sake of conquest, just slaughter, the endpoint of the human urge to grab and take and smash. A book I raced through because I wanted to know what happened next, but also because I wanted to get it done so I could wash my hands; horrible, but deliberately and impressively so.

(Netgalley ARC. Also, by a mate. But really, while one might read a first book out of politeness, that wouldn't be enough to carry one through a trilogy, would it now?)