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MY ⭐️ RATING: 4.5/5
Format: eARC
BOOK DESCRIPTION
In the wild frontier town of Fell Falls, there dwells only dust, death, and secrets.
When Prime Lord Hark is murdered, his orphaned son Merion finds his opulent world stripped away. His father’s final wishes force Merion west across the Iron Ocean to live with an aunt he never knew existed, to the Endless Lands and the very brink of the known world. To a place they call Fell Falls, Wyoming.
As Merion struggles with his new life with Aunt Lilain, the town’s undertaker, he vows to find a way home to London and catch his father’s killer. Merion has one ally to help him stay alive and unravel the mystery: the faerie warrior Rhin. A hunted outcast of the Fae realm, Rhin’s dark past can finally be forgotten in the Endless Lands. Or so he thinks.
Revenge and redemption are never easy. There are dark forces at work in Fell Falls, and not merely the railwraiths or the encroaching wilderness. The arrival of fellow Empire heir Calidae Serped threatens to lead him astray, and Lilain is hiding a secret that lurks in the Hark bloodline.
A secret that will open up a world of magic buried by empire and industry.
MY REVIEW
I received an advanced reader copy, provided by the author for an honest review.
This did not impact my rating in any way.
Ben Galley is such a great author, and one of my earliest reads was his Chasing Graves trilogy, that I think is massively underrated and not talked about enough, and I may give a re-read pretty soon. Now I have the pleasure to ARC read Bloodrush, part of the Scarlet Star trilogy that was originally written 10 years ago and was a finalist in the SPFBO-2 in 2015. This trilogy is now getting a re-release on October 15, 2024 with more editing, an updated cover by Claymore Covers, interior art by Denis Kornev, and a new bigger, more extensive map! I loved the way the old cover looked, but the new cover fits with the Weird Western story much better.
Bloodrush is a weird, gritty and enthralling mixture of the untamed and rugged American Wild West and the mythical world of fantasy, that takes place in Fell Falls, Wyoming, in 1867, where a murder/mystery sets the underlying tone of the story. I really loved the mashup of these along with the politics that were involved, you really got a sense of the type of world this alternate Unifed States is. Merion is a sixteen year old teen, that acts like a typical rebellious sixteen year old teen would, and I thought Galley did a great job of making Merion a believable teen with all the typical idiosyncrasies that you’d expect but with an added vengeful edge. Some may classify that under YA, though I don’t think I would exactly do that, though I can see why some would.
“Well, the olden days aren’t all that olden here, not in the west. Magic is spelt with a k here, Nephew, don’t forget that. This is the sort of place where the stuff of faetales breaks down your door at night and skins you from tip to toe. It’s the sort of place where monsters really do have a penchant for sleeping under the bed, and where wives’ tales always end with the wives being eaten alive.”
One of the things I noticed is that I was expecting this to be a bit more faster paced than it was, it wasn’t necessarily slow or even a bad thing, because it does pick up a little more in the second half, once the world and the main characters have been well established and some character development has been done. As I stated earlier, Merion can be tough to like for some, because he does come off a certain way, which honestly, isn’t bad, just a teen. Rhin, who is Merion’s faerie sidekick, his aunt Lilain, the town undertaker and The Lurker were great additions to play off of Merion’s attitude and helped with his growth. Lurker is by far my favorite, just because he has that rugged outlaw feel to him. The Shohari indigenous tribe, which I believe is based on the Shoshone tribe, was a very important part of this story, and I hope to see more of them in the next two books.
The world building is done really well and Galley paints such a great picture that exudes the Wild West, from swinging doors of the saloon, to the building of the railway, the old west was brought to incredible life with a very clear picture that felt straight out of a movie… or real life. The blood based magic system is such a cool feature though it doesn’t get much play until the later parts of the book, but once I got to see it in action, I was amazed by it, there is some detail that is explained through the story and Ben goes into further detail after the epilogue. The action doesn’t really get going until the second half of the book, like a good ol fashioned saloon brawl, a hair-raising face-off with a railwraith and the epic ending that spans over the last 20% of the book and is just absolutely incredible, the books to follow are going to be a lot of fun.
The only down side I had while reading this, was that I was hoping to see a cameo or two from some famous faces of the Wild West, but after speaking with Ben, you lucky dogs may just get exactly that! You’re welcome! Lol.
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