Potential Spoilers Ahead: The House of Always is the fourth book in the A Chorus of Dragons series. As such, the blurb for this book and the following review will inevitably have some level of spoilers for the previous books. I’ve tried to keep those spoilers to a minimum, but you have been warned.
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.
The House of Always by Jenn Lyons is an ambitious and mostly successful penultimate entry in the Chorus of Dragons series. Lyons capitalises on the readers familiarity with the characters to tell a tighter story that forces them to confront their own mistakes.
Well. Lyons wastes no time with the introductory framing narrative in which Senera outlines her reasons for betraying Relos Var. And then we start in media res with several supporting characters from the previous books all coming together for unknown reasons to fight a giant octopus, an army of the undead and a seperate force driven crazed by a dragon, only to get snapped up and transported to the library at Shadrag Gor, where hundreds of years pass for every second in the real world. It is there we learn that Kihrin’s plot to take over the body of S’arric/the soon to be freed ‘king of demons’ is going badly wrong, and that Senera has enacted a ritual to link his friends, allies and lovers (former and current) up to him mentally to help him fight back.
What follows is a philosophical argument and ongoing battle within the mind of Kihrin and his evil double, punctuated by the recent memories of said linked characters (memories that everyone involved can see). These memories conveniently lead up to the situation concerning the undead/octopus/dragon. The characters are in imminent danger too, as the physical form of S’arric slowly breaks through to the lighthouse.
If this sounds bonkers – it is – but in the best possible way. Each memory causes new secrets to be revealed, characters sink into despair at S’arric dredges up their worst actions, and the duelling personalities must try to reach an understanding with each other or prove S’arric right – that love is meaningless and it’d be better just to destroy everything instead. In many ways, it’s like a deadly group therapy session – confront and heal, or die! Many authors would confine such an event to just several chapters or one part of a longer book, but Lyons makes it almost the entire thing, and it just works, especially as the lead-up to a finale. The opportunity to dig deep into the characters and tear them down at the foundation, with the possibility of building them back up again sets things up really well for a final three way conflict.
It was great seeing Galen and Sheloran together, the gay best friend power couple with big plans. I was also happy to see poor Qown again, and Talon is always a delight. Senera, Thurvishar, Janel and Tereath mostly get time in the framing narrative, which is the strongest part of this book, and thankfully much more substantial than in previous entries. Talea and Xivan had a lot of focus this time, and while it becomes clear why, they’ve never quite managed to get into my favourite characters from the season. Surprisingly, Kalindra, Kihrin and Tereath’s former lover appears as the widow of Earth Milligreest (and I don’t recall that being mentioned in the first book unless I missed it!) and her plotline was harder to get into, since she never got that much characterisation in the first book.
As far as the battle between Kihrin and the remnants of S’arric, it was pretty great, although I would have loved to have seen even more glimpses of S’arric, C’indrol and Rev’arric’s past before the ritual that went wrong. I wonder if we’ll get more of that in the final book. I also liked the return of Senera’s snarky footnotes.
In many ways this more intimate story felt less bombastically twisty than the ones that came before – which I didn’t mind. A small issue with the story taking part in media res is that when the satisfying resolution to the biggest narrative arc in the book comes, we still had to plunge back into that initial conflict, which felt like an addendum to the story, albeit an exciting one with plenty of clear stakes.
While A Memory of Souls was the entry that made me adamantly glued to this series, The House of Always has cemented Lyons as an author I have to follow. The intricacies of how the complex plotting weaves around to give maximum impact to the characters and their development is admirable in its execution, and the plot beats are exciting as ever. If you’re on this crazy ride of a series, don’t stop now! I can’t wait to see what the final book has in store.
Rating: 8.5/10
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