On a Reddit post five years ago in a reply to a review on Kings of the Wyld author Nicholas Eames compared Kings of the Wyld to touring with “...A free-wheeling Led Zeppelin.” and Bloody Rose as “...touring with an ego-driven Guns'N'Roses…” and that’s the best way to describe his novels. The Band series is about adventuring bands, but it looks at them through the lens of ‘bands’ of the musical variety and the stardom they accrue. It’s an extremely fun way to set the tone for the fantastical adventures that the books provide and to build the personalities of the various casts of misfits.
Kings of the Wyld follows Clay Cooper a retired member of a famous mercenary/adventuring band is talked into joining up for one last tour suicide mission when his former bandmate shows up at his door asking him to help save his daughter from a deadly siege. What follows is a dad rock adventure of fantastical proportions and funny grim humor as they attempt to get the band back together to relive their former glory one last time. Bloody Rose meanwhile is a more serious look at the daughter of a famous adventurer. Rose lives in the shadow of her father and her spiral pushing her band to further and further risk and danger in an attempt to break free of the comparisons that have haunted her throughout her career. Shown through the lens of their new up and coming bard Tam Hashford(the group has a penchant for losing theirs constantly, usually to death of some variety). Tam learns why people say to never meet your heroes as she learns more about the group and their self destructive leader.
Nicholas Eames has a penchant for great character writing, making characters feel alive both in personality and importantly in motive. Everyone from the main heroes to the roadbump side villains all have palpable reasons for what they do which makes the characters compelling and leaves you wanting to dive deeper into who they are. Throw that into an interesting world with fun groups of various allegiances and messy politicking and you’ve got the basis for great character driven narratives.
I read Bloody Rose first despite being the second book without realizing that it was a series at the time and while the books do add context to each other it was fantastic as a stand alone. Maybe even better since my coworker said they had more trouble getting into Bloody Rose because of how Kings of the Wyld had pre-shifted their views on one of the characters. Either way you read them they work as stand alone adventures in the same world that are enriched by reading each other. Or don’t, if you prefer the more serious of Fantasy novels then you can just read Bloody Rose. If you just want a humorous (though dark humour I must advise) then you can just read Kings of the Wyld. From there it’s up to you if you enjoyed the author’s voice you can keep going or leave it as is.
If you’re still not sold, the author has made some unofficial Spotify playlists which you can peruse on his website for vibes based purposes. here https://nicholaseames.com/soundtrack/
Grab your copies anytime during the month of May for 20% off our regular price. If we sell out feel free to ask at a til or phone in to have a copy ordered. Any copies ordered during the month of may will still have the discount applied whenever they arrive!
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