REVIEW: The Song Rising by Samantha Shannon

I just finished The Song Rising by Samantha Shannon, so I had to jump on here to tell everyone about it. If you've not heard about this series, where have you been? To be fair, I only got into this last October after hearing Lauren at FictionTea singing the praises of this series. Now I understand why, so I'm going to go ahead and say you need to read this series ASAP!

The Bone Season, the first installment in this soon-to-be seven book series, follows our protagonist Paige Mahoney, an Irish fire-cracker based in Scion London in 2059 working for the Mime Lord Jaxon Hall in an underground syndicate. If that's not enough, Paige is a dreamwalker, the highest order of clairvoyant in the clairvoyant-forbidden Scion controlled capital. From the first page, we're pulled into this fantastic, action-based world. Don't get me wrong, this is a lot to take on; Samantha Shannon has created her own magic system here, but before you abandon the cause, take a look at these three links as she explains/gives us a crash course on the world of clairvoyance. Dreamscapes. Auras. Spooling & Spirit Combat. Once I had read these, I was 110% onboard with this story. You can see a quick recap on my thoughts on the first two books, here.

Moving onto my thoughts on The Song Rising. I thought this was amazing and I ate it up in a few days whilst I travelled. My initial thoughts whilst I read were that Paige was up a dirty creek without a paddle the whole time which, as a reader, left me anxious throughout. As we followed on from the events from The Mime Order, I wasn't sure what was going to happen, but Samantha Shannon took us in a different direction. I absolutely loved exploring Paige's London in the second book after it was hinted at in the first book, so I was a little sad to be away from it in this one. However, even if we were in Paige's London, all the dynamics of the syndicate have changed so it was refreshing and exciting to see how other clairvoyants lived under the iron fist of Scion. 

It was a bit of a slow start for me as we transitioned time and events from the backend of the second book, so that essentially docked a star off this for me, however I still really loved this installment. Although it was a slow start, Shannon definitely made up for this towards the end as it all kicked off. I couldn't tell half the time if it was going to end well, even if there are a further four books in the series. Honestly, for all I know, it could've ended here, and we started with another set of characters in the next four books! The second half of this was so action packed and I fell right back into the world of clairvoyants and the Rephaim. One of the highlights was the reappearance of Jaxon Hall. He's the embodiment of cunning but sophisticated and downright hate-to-love character. I'd go as far as saying that he's my favourite character of this series! 

Before I round up and give you my star rating, that moment towards the end left me feeling hollow. So if you know what I mean, you'll have felt the feels too. I'm excited to see where the as of yet, untitled fourth book in The Bone Season series, I'm just devastated I'll have to wait at least a year! Overall, I gave The Song Rising ⭐⭐⭐⭐.