The House of Always by Jenn Lyons (A Chorus of Dragons #4)

Reviewed by Sam!

Reviews for Book 1 | Book 2 | Book 3

What I drank prior: I have been having a Week and I went to dinner with one of my coworkers and had two glasses of wine and decided it was a night write a review so i drank a bunch more wine when i got home.

Goodreads Overview:

For fans of Brandon Sanderson and Patrick Rothfuss, The House of Always is the fourth epic fantasy in Jenn Lyons’ Chorus of Dragons series that began with The Ruin of Kings.

What if you were imprisoned for all eternity?

In the aftermath of the Ritual of Night, everything has changed.

The Eight Immortals have catastrophically failed to stop Kihrin’s enemies, who are moving forward with their plans to free Vol Karoth, the King of Demons. Kihrin has his own ideas about how to fight back, but even if he’s willing to sacrifice everything for victory, the cost may prove too high for his allies.

Now they face a choice: can they save the world while saving Kihrin, too? Or will they be forced to watch as he becomes the very evil they have all sworn to destroy.

Drunk Overview: So. This is book 4, so if you haven’t read books 1-3 then what the hell are you doing here?

Basically, our boi Kihrin is like… “imma sacrifice myself and have Talon eat me so I can defeat the Dark One and then she can play me and no one will be the wiser.” LOL Stupid boy. Janel and Tareath are not pleased by this, but anyway, the book starts with us fighting some weird octopus thing, and we’re all confused as to why, but then we end up in that weird tower that time doesn’t exist, but with ALL our baes (Janel, Tareath, Galen, his wife (shaloren?), Qown, Xivan, her bae, Serena, and that other lady… you know… the other lady. They’ve basically attached themselves to the Dark One’s prison and they’r royally effd. The book is explaining how they got there.

Spoiler-free Thoughts: I LOVEMY KIDS

Characters: Wow there are so many… so here they are

• Xivan and her bae: Fine story I suppose, but a little rape-y and I don’t like it. Talea? I think is her name (I left my notebook with the characters names over there…. <—
• Serena: HA, she’s hilarious but also sucks
• Qown: I really do love how this book worked through his fuckin story and how did Jenn just make me love this man who betrayed us all?
• Better yet, how did Jenn make me love ALL the people who betrayed us all…
• Galen and his wife: They are just the perfect partnership, literally. LITERALLY. I want it so bad.
• Wife lady: I honestly can’t even remember why she’s relevant… but she’s basically the grump the whole time.
• OH I FORGOT THURVISHAR WAS THERE: I LOVE HIM SO MUCH
• Janel and Taraeth: Ok but literally… I fucking love them. They face some pretty tough fears and needs and the three of them (including my son) just face them together and it was amazing to see them grow as a thruple
• Kihrin: LISTEN, This was his book, which is wild. Because you think that the other books (particularly book one) are his book, but they’re not. Book 1 is Tareath, Book 2 is Janel, Book 3 is…. I want to say Thurvishar but that’s not true. THIS BOOK is Kihrin’s. Basically the whole plot was him an the Dark One having a temper tantrum and I loved it.

Plot: Ok so like I said, this was basically Kihrin and the Dark One (I honestly can’t spell it… it starts with an S) fighting with memories and it was amazing. The middle was a bit slow, slower than the others, I will say. Which was a bit disappointing. This wasn’t my favorite one, but watching the relationships grow and understanding the nuance made me so so happy.

Writing Style: There’s almost nothing better than these books when it comes to the style. They do such wonderful things with time. It basically gives you whiplash at the beginning of each book but it makes sense in the end. The footnotes are hilarious. I just love these.

World Building: There’s not much more world we can get from these at this point and I’m fine with that.

OK

So biggest thing here is that this wasn’t my favorite of the series, but there are going to be 5 and this one was still 4 stars. This series is GREAT and I can’t stand it. I’m so sad that there’s only one more, but I literally need it now.

What to pair it with: This is a Jell-O shot. Tasty. Fun. And has a delayed reaction of hitting you in the FACE with the booze.

Rating: 4/5

Until next time, we remain forever drunkenly yours,
Sam