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Sword of Bronze and Ashes #2
A Sword of Gold and Ruin
Readers of Shauna Lawless and Thilde Kold Holdt will love this Celtic-inflected adventure by critically acclaimed, grimdark epic fantasy novelist, Anna Smith Spark.
The sequel to the masterpiece folk horror high fantasy A Sword of Bronze and Ashes, a lyrical blend of epic myth and daily life.
Kanda and her family are on a quest to rebuild the glory that was Roven. Mother and daughters stand together as a light against the darkness. But mother and daughters both have hands that are stained red with blood. They walk a path that is stranger and more beautiful than even Kanda dared imagine, bright with joy, bitter with grief. Ghosts and monsters dog their footsteps - but the greatest monsters lie in their hearts.
The 2024 Independent Publisher of the Year, FLAME TREE PRESS is the imprint of long-standing independent Flame Tree Publishing, dedicated to full-length original fiction in the horror and suspense, science fiction & fantasy, and crime / mystery / thriller categories. The list brings together fantastic new authors and the more established; the award winners, and exciting, original voices. Learn more about Flame Tree Press at www.flametreepress.com and connect on social media @FlameTreePress
The sequel to the masterpiece folk horror high fantasy A Sword of Bronze and Ashes, a lyrical blend of epic myth and daily life.
Kanda and her family are on a quest to rebuild the glory that was Roven. Mother and daughters stand together as a light against the darkness. But mother and daughters both have hands that are stained red with blood. They walk a path that is stranger and more beautiful than even Kanda dared imagine, bright with joy, bitter with grief. Ghosts and monsters dog their footsteps - but the greatest monsters lie in their hearts.
The 2024 Independent Publisher of the Year, FLAME TREE PRESS is the imprint of long-standing independent Flame Tree Publishing, dedicated to full-length original fiction in the horror and suspense, science fiction & fantasy, and crime / mystery / thriller categories. The list brings together fantastic new authors and the more established; the award winners, and exciting, original voices. Learn more about Flame Tree Press at www.flametreepress.com and connect on social media @FlameTreePress
- GenresFantasyDark Fantasy
352 pages, Hardcover
Published October 21, 2025
2 people are currently reading
122 people want to read
About the author
Anna Smith Spark
29 books954 followers'Game of Literary Thrones ... the next generation hit fantasy fiction' The Sunday Times
Anna Smith Spark lives in London, UK. She loves grimdark and epic fantasy and historical military fiction. Anna has a BA in Classics, an MA in history and a PhD in English Literature. She has previously been published in the Fortean Times and the poetry website www.greatworks.org.uk. Previous jobs include petty bureaucrat, English teacher and fetish model.
Anna's favourite authors and key influences are R. Scott Bakker, Steve Erikson, M. John Harrison, Ursula Le Guin, Mary Stewart and Mary Renault. She spent several years as an obsessive D&D player. She can often be spotted at sff conventions wearing very unusual shoes.
Anna Smith Spark lives in London, UK. She loves grimdark and epic fantasy and historical military fiction. Anna has a BA in Classics, an MA in history and a PhD in English Literature. She has previously been published in the Fortean Times and the poetry website www.greatworks.org.uk. Previous jobs include petty bureaucrat, English teacher and fetish model.
Anna's favourite authors and key influences are R. Scott Bakker, Steve Erikson, M. John Harrison, Ursula Le Guin, Mary Stewart and Mary Renault. She spent several years as an obsessive D&D player. She can often be spotted at sff conventions wearing very unusual shoes.
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
February 1, 2026
A Sword of Gold and Ruin is Anna Smith Spark at her finest, a lyrical dark fantasy that blends folk horror with the oral traditions of Welsh mythology. Like its predecessor, this a timeless epic dedicated to the bonds of family.
Anna Smith Spark reaches new levels of lyricism as she evokes the style of early folk tales recorded from oral tradition. Her characterization and worldbuilding is among the best of her career.
Altogether, this is another emotional masterpiece from the Queen of Grimdark.
Anna Smith Spark reaches new levels of lyricism as she evokes the style of early folk tales recorded from oral tradition. Her characterization and worldbuilding is among the best of her career.
Altogether, this is another emotional masterpiece from the Queen of Grimdark.
November 1, 2025
Review originally on JamReads
A Sword of Gold and Ruin is the second novel in the epic folk fantasy series The Making of this World Ruined, written by Anna Smith Spark and published by Flame Tree Press. A direct follow up to A Sword of Bronze and Ashes, with Kanda and her family still on their quest to rebuild the former glory of Roven, in this novel that continues blending together the struggles of familiar life with the epicness attached to Kanda's past and how it is coming back to torment her and her family during their quest to find a suitable place for them.
Kanda and her family continue with their quest to rebuild Roven, after experiencing trauma and adventure while learning the truth about her mother; a journey where Smith Spark continues exploring the echoes of Kanda's past and the consequences of the first book's acts, playing with the juxtaposition between the daily, mundane struggles of a family, and the legend, glory and darkness from Kanda's past life. Spark manages to keep a balance between these two distinct realities, weaving together multiple timelines, inviting us to spend time with the characters, getting to know them in an intimate way.
All the members of the family have already been touched by Kanda's past and legacy; the remaining daughters have magic and power to use. However, even if they are on the path of the myths, we will also see how they will have to confront not only those metaphorical ghosts, but also the own difficulties, struggles attached to keeping the familiar nucleus together.
The worldbuilding continues drinking from mythology and folklore, weaving it into the world while also playing with the consequences brought by Ikandera's life; even we could say that the own concept of questing is twisted at some point, putting a more crude intention behind it.
Spark's prose is probably the highlight of the novel, showing the author's versatility in describing from the biggest battles to the small acts, all with a layer of beauty through words, and creating a rhythm that invites the reader to sink into the novel. It might be divisive for some readers, but it worked for me.
A Sword of Gold and Ruin is another excellent entry in Kanda's saga, a perfect read for those looking for an epic but humane proposal that shows a family battling against their inner natures. Anna Smith Spark is one of those voices that I absolutely love reading, and I can't wait to see how their journey continues.
A Sword of Gold and Ruin is the second novel in the epic folk fantasy series The Making of this World Ruined, written by Anna Smith Spark and published by Flame Tree Press. A direct follow up to A Sword of Bronze and Ashes, with Kanda and her family still on their quest to rebuild the former glory of Roven, in this novel that continues blending together the struggles of familiar life with the epicness attached to Kanda's past and how it is coming back to torment her and her family during their quest to find a suitable place for them.
Kanda and her family continue with their quest to rebuild Roven, after experiencing trauma and adventure while learning the truth about her mother; a journey where Smith Spark continues exploring the echoes of Kanda's past and the consequences of the first book's acts, playing with the juxtaposition between the daily, mundane struggles of a family, and the legend, glory and darkness from Kanda's past life. Spark manages to keep a balance between these two distinct realities, weaving together multiple timelines, inviting us to spend time with the characters, getting to know them in an intimate way.
All the members of the family have already been touched by Kanda's past and legacy; the remaining daughters have magic and power to use. However, even if they are on the path of the myths, we will also see how they will have to confront not only those metaphorical ghosts, but also the own difficulties, struggles attached to keeping the familiar nucleus together.
The worldbuilding continues drinking from mythology and folklore, weaving it into the world while also playing with the consequences brought by Ikandera's life; even we could say that the own concept of questing is twisted at some point, putting a more crude intention behind it.
Spark's prose is probably the highlight of the novel, showing the author's versatility in describing from the biggest battles to the small acts, all with a layer of beauty through words, and creating a rhythm that invites the reader to sink into the novel. It might be divisive for some readers, but it worked for me.
A Sword of Gold and Ruin is another excellent entry in Kanda's saga, a perfect read for those looking for an epic but humane proposal that shows a family battling against their inner natures. Anna Smith Spark is one of those voices that I absolutely love reading, and I can't wait to see how their journey continues.
September 23, 2025
The ruins of the past hold a romantic, almost mystical charm. Ancient battlefields seem to whisper to us while charismatic figures, if they could only rise from the grave, would inspire legions of followers. We’d hastily ignore their monstrous actions by our modern standards and probably ride into battle alongside Alexander, Genghis, Attila, Marith…
It is through this lens that Anna Smith Spark writes her characters and sets her stories. In A Sword of Gold and Ruin, she continues as stated in the blurb, her lyrical blend of epic myth and daily life.
Of course for Kanda, daily life can’t stay mundane for long and we continue to be reminded that her past bears more parallels to Smith Spark’s own Marith than it does to Tolkien’s Aragon or Gemmell’s Druss the Legend.
A character-driven journey
Kanda and family continue their poignant and heartbreaking adventure, though one less focused on the literal and more of a focus on the psychological and emotional journey the characters go on. This is particularly relevant to Kanda, who we see battle with her past and attempt to continue navigating motherhood amongst trauma and devastation and the echoes of a painful and blood splattered past.
This may be the most character driven fantasy I’ve read so far.
Regular Grimdark readers as a result will find something different here, though you do need to read the first book to begin with; A Sword of Bronze and Ashes. Despite the obvious quality within these books, they won’t be easily accessible entry points to the fantasy genre for new readers and there’ll probably be plenty of traditional and contemporary fantasy readers alike who just won’t click with either of them. The author is used to these mixed responses; often adoration will be bestowed on those special things (books) that not everybody can learn to appreciate and I’m so glad Smith Spark continues to be that defiantly unique voice, a voice and literary style that will stand the test of time.
I did find this sequel to be a little slower and more reflective than it’s predecessor, which to me was neither better nor worse. Although I wouldn’t describe it as a page turner where you have to rush home to read one more chapter, it was deeply meaningful, thought provoking and emotional. I don’t believe it was ever intended to be a furious skim-readable page turner in any case.
Lyrical Craft
Regardless of the intended pace, Smith Spark’s prose is not something to fly through at breakneck speed whether you want to or not. Its lyrical beauty must be lived in and savoured. Like lingering beneath a beautiful painting or feeling the magic of an old place. She writes poetry within these pages. Has a smitten lover ever written anything so exquisite as Anna’s description of the Lady of Roven?
In the wind in the trees in summer when the leaves are just beginning to turn toward their autumn colors ; in the music of the stars on a clear winter night when the frost lies thick and the air is like cold wine; in the circling of birds at twilight, a great cloud of birds gathering so that the sky is made dark and they call to each other and the beating of their wings sounds like rain; in the light on the sea on the first day of the year when the sun is returning…
Spending time with the characters becomes more rewarding as the story progresses, becoming deeply personal with themes of legacy and the manifestations of a mother’s love. Of wanting better for our children than the lives we choose for ourselves or the mistakes we make. And perhaps realising we have less control over that than we like to think…
Echoes of Legend
Something rewarding that continues here from Bronze and Ashes are the flashbacks to the six of Roven and the stories Kanda tells of that time. This is where the book reads almost like a fairy story, like old sagas and myths filled with glory, magic and achievements. Part of the main plot is an underlying desire to rebuild Roven and as a reader you sense trying to recreate this mythical hall might eventually become a bittersweet endeavour.
Being fed tidbits and isolated stories really helps paint a picture of these mythical times whilst leaving enough to make you constantly wanting more; more knowledge, more stories, more Roven. In this respect, Smith Spark captures what is so special about the old tales and casts our imagination to the wonder of these legendary figures. Despite the slower pace of the book overall, the epic myths of these warriors were always alluring chapters to devour in contrast to Kanda’s more deliberate chapters that often require more pondering.
Kanda had led the Six Swords of Roven against four huge dragons. Beasts so huge they had filled the sky. One gold, one silver, one black, one white. Six Swords of Roven, tiny, set against them.
There is of course action in the book in places and the meeting with the dragons was a real highlight. I particularly liked the characters’ reactions to the outcome of this battle and the concluding event, which I found really beautiful to read. It was a familiar feeling through so much of this book; you’re not simply reading a story (as fun as that so often is!) but you’re really experiencing something. You’re immersed in the waters of Anna Smith Spark’s wondrous and unique writing style, in her delightful use of language and combination of words and phrases and sentences.
She captures the nuance of human thought with care, love, empathy and at times brutal honesty and transparency. She captures the beauty in the world whilst accepting that it is always very often more tempting and satisfying and natural to destroy rather than create.
*Final Thoughts*
Once again, Anna Smith Spark has delivered a book distinctly her and invited us to share in the wonders of her imagination.
Read this book when you have the time to appreciate it. Read it slowly and allow it to take hold of you. Remind yourself that books can also be art. And in this changing world of AI, cherish the beauty of human emotion, language and imagination.
It is through this lens that Anna Smith Spark writes her characters and sets her stories. In A Sword of Gold and Ruin, she continues as stated in the blurb, her lyrical blend of epic myth and daily life.
Of course for Kanda, daily life can’t stay mundane for long and we continue to be reminded that her past bears more parallels to Smith Spark’s own Marith than it does to Tolkien’s Aragon or Gemmell’s Druss the Legend.
A character-driven journey
Kanda and family continue their poignant and heartbreaking adventure, though one less focused on the literal and more of a focus on the psychological and emotional journey the characters go on. This is particularly relevant to Kanda, who we see battle with her past and attempt to continue navigating motherhood amongst trauma and devastation and the echoes of a painful and blood splattered past.
This may be the most character driven fantasy I’ve read so far.
Regular Grimdark readers as a result will find something different here, though you do need to read the first book to begin with; A Sword of Bronze and Ashes. Despite the obvious quality within these books, they won’t be easily accessible entry points to the fantasy genre for new readers and there’ll probably be plenty of traditional and contemporary fantasy readers alike who just won’t click with either of them. The author is used to these mixed responses; often adoration will be bestowed on those special things (books) that not everybody can learn to appreciate and I’m so glad Smith Spark continues to be that defiantly unique voice, a voice and literary style that will stand the test of time.
I did find this sequel to be a little slower and more reflective than it’s predecessor, which to me was neither better nor worse. Although I wouldn’t describe it as a page turner where you have to rush home to read one more chapter, it was deeply meaningful, thought provoking and emotional. I don’t believe it was ever intended to be a furious skim-readable page turner in any case.
Lyrical Craft
Regardless of the intended pace, Smith Spark’s prose is not something to fly through at breakneck speed whether you want to or not. Its lyrical beauty must be lived in and savoured. Like lingering beneath a beautiful painting or feeling the magic of an old place. She writes poetry within these pages. Has a smitten lover ever written anything so exquisite as Anna’s description of the Lady of Roven?
In the wind in the trees in summer when the leaves are just beginning to turn toward their autumn colors ; in the music of the stars on a clear winter night when the frost lies thick and the air is like cold wine; in the circling of birds at twilight, a great cloud of birds gathering so that the sky is made dark and they call to each other and the beating of their wings sounds like rain; in the light on the sea on the first day of the year when the sun is returning…
Spending time with the characters becomes more rewarding as the story progresses, becoming deeply personal with themes of legacy and the manifestations of a mother’s love. Of wanting better for our children than the lives we choose for ourselves or the mistakes we make. And perhaps realising we have less control over that than we like to think…
Echoes of Legend
Something rewarding that continues here from Bronze and Ashes are the flashbacks to the six of Roven and the stories Kanda tells of that time. This is where the book reads almost like a fairy story, like old sagas and myths filled with glory, magic and achievements. Part of the main plot is an underlying desire to rebuild Roven and as a reader you sense trying to recreate this mythical hall might eventually become a bittersweet endeavour.
Being fed tidbits and isolated stories really helps paint a picture of these mythical times whilst leaving enough to make you constantly wanting more; more knowledge, more stories, more Roven. In this respect, Smith Spark captures what is so special about the old tales and casts our imagination to the wonder of these legendary figures. Despite the slower pace of the book overall, the epic myths of these warriors were always alluring chapters to devour in contrast to Kanda’s more deliberate chapters that often require more pondering.
Kanda had led the Six Swords of Roven against four huge dragons. Beasts so huge they had filled the sky. One gold, one silver, one black, one white. Six Swords of Roven, tiny, set against them.
There is of course action in the book in places and the meeting with the dragons was a real highlight. I particularly liked the characters’ reactions to the outcome of this battle and the concluding event, which I found really beautiful to read. It was a familiar feeling through so much of this book; you’re not simply reading a story (as fun as that so often is!) but you’re really experiencing something. You’re immersed in the waters of Anna Smith Spark’s wondrous and unique writing style, in her delightful use of language and combination of words and phrases and sentences.
She captures the nuance of human thought with care, love, empathy and at times brutal honesty and transparency. She captures the beauty in the world whilst accepting that it is always very often more tempting and satisfying and natural to destroy rather than create.
*Final Thoughts*
Once again, Anna Smith Spark has delivered a book distinctly her and invited us to share in the wonders of her imagination.
Read this book when you have the time to appreciate it. Read it slowly and allow it to take hold of you. Remind yourself that books can also be art. And in this changing world of AI, cherish the beauty of human emotion, language and imagination.
August 10, 2025
Read this review and more on my Medium page: Distorted Visions
Score: 3.25/5 (rounded to 3/5)
Since this is an ARC, the review aims to be as Spoiler-free as possible.
The Queen of GrimDark is back, tearing heads and hearts in the quietest, folkiest way possible with her latest offering, A Sword of Gold and Ruin. A heart-wrenching tale of the perils of guilt, power, pride, and regret, everything that is being a mother, in this grim and dark world. Along with A Sword of Bronze and Ashes, and A Woman of the Sword, Anna Smith Spark may have fused polar opposite genres - grimdark and cozy fantasy. If cozydark ever became a thing, let Anna Smith Spark be named its creator.
A Sword of Gold and Ruin is the sequel to Spark’s A Sword of Bronze and Ashes, and continues the trials and tribulations of Lady Kanda, the infamous Ikandera Thegythen, most powerful of the Six Swords of Rowen. Ridden with guilt of her monstrous past, Kanda endeavors to make amends for the ruin she has wrought upon the lands of Rowen. She wishes now to be merely Kanda, loving mother and dutiful wife.
But this is Anna Smith Spark, and the Queen of Grimdark is not so lightly named.
Kanda’s journeys from the village she inhabits with her family at the end of Bronze and Ashes to the renowned Hall of Rowen. Kanda’s wish to rebuild what she destroyed in her previous life forms the central plot of these novels. Although this is merely an overarching direction to orient readers to move forward. The real gut of this story is Kanda’s internal and external struggle while managing her very uniquely dysfunctional family.
Her all-too-normal farmhand husband Dellet is the anchor around which Kanda wishes to lead her new life of normalcy and rural bliss (or as close as she can achieve it after all she has done). He serves as the grounding every-man of the group, anchoring the family to the harsh practicalities of their journey, while the rest careen off their mental cliffs. In contrast, her daughter, Callian is wistful, restless, fiery, and all too competent with a sharp blade and a sharper tongue. In Callian, Kanda sees her younger self, and the dangers that face her daughter if she continues on the warrior’s path that Kanda herself is so bent on leaving behind. Her older daughter Sal, is far older now, an old lady, far older than Kanda herself, owing to her being trapped in the darkness following events of the first book. In stark contrast to Callian, Sal is a healer, slow to react, full of dutiful regret, yet eager to bolster her mother, Kanda’s efforts to rebuild what was lost. Sal hopes to bring some joy back to her life after years spent in the dark, and forms the cornerstone of regret in Kanda’s entourage. In addition, the heavy weight of losing their youngest, Morna weighs heavily on everyone; most of all to her mother, Kanda.
Anna Smith Spark brings her classic brand of poetic misery and miserable poetry with her unique prose. Her prose relies heavily on repetition, repetition, and repetition to give her work a lyrical quality that is unique to the dark fantasy genre. This approach will be an acquired taste to most, while it shines in some portions of the story, making a scene more evocative and intense, while in others, it feels like a stretched-out burden. Spark’s writing also relies on streams of consciousness from her characters, with internal monologues, narration, and dialogue melding together into a mush of prosaic psychedelia. A Sword of Gold and Ruin also features many flashbacks to Kanda’s previous life as the famous Ikandera, told in the style of mythical stories. The juxtaposition of these mythical stories of violence, bravery, and magic, showing the greatness of Ikandera and her fellow Swords with the more mundane familial trials, serves to make both elements more jarring and persuasive to the readers.
A Sword of Gold and Ruin, and the previous entry, A Sword of Bronze and Ashes hammer down to the core of motherhood. Spark takes a deep and dark look at what it means to be a parent , in particular, a mother to unique children. In Kanda’s trials, she inspects the burden of guilt, regret, pride, grief, joy, and frustration in raising children. Our very real fears of raising our children to be better versions of us, to not repeat the mistakes we made in our lives, protecting them from the harms and evils of the world, while also giving them space to become their own people, form a moral thread that weaves through this tale. While this reviewer is neither married nor has children, at the time of reading this tale, the messaging is clear.
Although some may argue that Spark veers on the side of being overly heavy-handed with her messaging, further exacerbated with her style of jarring prose, A Sword of Gold and Ruin may become a bit of a chore to those who wish for something more linear, mainstream, that is, usual dark fantasy fare. Admittedly, her prose style was far more grating in her Empires of Sand trilogy, the style there primarily aimed at increasing the visceral nature of that grimdark trilogy.
A Sword of Gold and Ruin offers a raw, poetic, subtle, and hard-hitting examination of its characters, with an ethereal backdrop filled with the quiet joy of a folk tale with the quiet suffering of grimdark fantasy. A poignant tale, simultaneously loud and violent, and soft and graceful; a story of the joys and sorrows, light and darkness — a dark inspection of what it is to be a mother.
Advanced Review Copy provided in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to Flame Tree Press and NetGalley.
Score: 3.25/5 (rounded to 3/5)
Since this is an ARC, the review aims to be as Spoiler-free as possible.
The Queen of GrimDark is back, tearing heads and hearts in the quietest, folkiest way possible with her latest offering, A Sword of Gold and Ruin. A heart-wrenching tale of the perils of guilt, power, pride, and regret, everything that is being a mother, in this grim and dark world. Along with A Sword of Bronze and Ashes, and A Woman of the Sword, Anna Smith Spark may have fused polar opposite genres - grimdark and cozy fantasy. If cozydark ever became a thing, let Anna Smith Spark be named its creator.
A Sword of Gold and Ruin is the sequel to Spark’s A Sword of Bronze and Ashes, and continues the trials and tribulations of Lady Kanda, the infamous Ikandera Thegythen, most powerful of the Six Swords of Rowen. Ridden with guilt of her monstrous past, Kanda endeavors to make amends for the ruin she has wrought upon the lands of Rowen. She wishes now to be merely Kanda, loving mother and dutiful wife.
But this is Anna Smith Spark, and the Queen of Grimdark is not so lightly named.
Kanda’s journeys from the village she inhabits with her family at the end of Bronze and Ashes to the renowned Hall of Rowen. Kanda’s wish to rebuild what she destroyed in her previous life forms the central plot of these novels. Although this is merely an overarching direction to orient readers to move forward. The real gut of this story is Kanda’s internal and external struggle while managing her very uniquely dysfunctional family.
Her all-too-normal farmhand husband Dellet is the anchor around which Kanda wishes to lead her new life of normalcy and rural bliss (or as close as she can achieve it after all she has done). He serves as the grounding every-man of the group, anchoring the family to the harsh practicalities of their journey, while the rest careen off their mental cliffs. In contrast, her daughter, Callian is wistful, restless, fiery, and all too competent with a sharp blade and a sharper tongue. In Callian, Kanda sees her younger self, and the dangers that face her daughter if she continues on the warrior’s path that Kanda herself is so bent on leaving behind. Her older daughter Sal, is far older now, an old lady, far older than Kanda herself, owing to her being trapped in the darkness following events of the first book. In stark contrast to Callian, Sal is a healer, slow to react, full of dutiful regret, yet eager to bolster her mother, Kanda’s efforts to rebuild what was lost. Sal hopes to bring some joy back to her life after years spent in the dark, and forms the cornerstone of regret in Kanda’s entourage. In addition, the heavy weight of losing their youngest, Morna weighs heavily on everyone; most of all to her mother, Kanda.
Anna Smith Spark brings her classic brand of poetic misery and miserable poetry with her unique prose. Her prose relies heavily on repetition, repetition, and repetition to give her work a lyrical quality that is unique to the dark fantasy genre. This approach will be an acquired taste to most, while it shines in some portions of the story, making a scene more evocative and intense, while in others, it feels like a stretched-out burden. Spark’s writing also relies on streams of consciousness from her characters, with internal monologues, narration, and dialogue melding together into a mush of prosaic psychedelia. A Sword of Gold and Ruin also features many flashbacks to Kanda’s previous life as the famous Ikandera, told in the style of mythical stories. The juxtaposition of these mythical stories of violence, bravery, and magic, showing the greatness of Ikandera and her fellow Swords with the more mundane familial trials, serves to make both elements more jarring and persuasive to the readers.
A Sword of Gold and Ruin, and the previous entry, A Sword of Bronze and Ashes hammer down to the core of motherhood. Spark takes a deep and dark look at what it means to be a parent , in particular, a mother to unique children. In Kanda’s trials, she inspects the burden of guilt, regret, pride, grief, joy, and frustration in raising children. Our very real fears of raising our children to be better versions of us, to not repeat the mistakes we made in our lives, protecting them from the harms and evils of the world, while also giving them space to become their own people, form a moral thread that weaves through this tale. While this reviewer is neither married nor has children, at the time of reading this tale, the messaging is clear.
Although some may argue that Spark veers on the side of being overly heavy-handed with her messaging, further exacerbated with her style of jarring prose, A Sword of Gold and Ruin may become a bit of a chore to those who wish for something more linear, mainstream, that is, usual dark fantasy fare. Admittedly, her prose style was far more grating in her Empires of Sand trilogy, the style there primarily aimed at increasing the visceral nature of that grimdark trilogy.
A Sword of Gold and Ruin offers a raw, poetic, subtle, and hard-hitting examination of its characters, with an ethereal backdrop filled with the quiet joy of a folk tale with the quiet suffering of grimdark fantasy. A poignant tale, simultaneously loud and violent, and soft and graceful; a story of the joys and sorrows, light and darkness — a dark inspection of what it is to be a mother.
Advanced Review Copy provided in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to Flame Tree Press and NetGalley.
August 24, 2025
Finishing A Sword of Gold and Ruin left me stunned just like the first novel. I had to sit with it for a while, because this isn’t the kind of book you close and forget it just crawls under your skin.
As a reader, I felt pulled into Kanda’s struggle to rebuild Roven with her daughters, and I kept asking myself: What would it feel like to try to create something new when all you can taste is ashes? Some moments made me ache and times when the grief in the story hit so close to home it felt personal. But then there were these fragile sparks of hope.
The prose is something else. Raw, jagged, lyrical sometimes I had to stop and reread because the words were so sharp they made me catch my breath. Other times, it felt like poetry poured straight into my bloodstream. It wasn’t always comfortable reading, but it was honest, and that honesty made it beautiful.
This book reminded me why I love grim dark fantasy not because of the battles or the monsters (though they’re there, and they’re terrifying), but because it can hold up a mirror to our own grief, resilience, and humanity. I finished it feeling moved, and strangely grateful.
For me, A Sword of Gold and Ruin wasn’t just a story it was an experience. One I’ll be carrying around in my head and heart for a long time. My thanks to both NetGalley and Flame Tree Press for an ebook and an honest opinion
As a reader, I felt pulled into Kanda’s struggle to rebuild Roven with her daughters, and I kept asking myself: What would it feel like to try to create something new when all you can taste is ashes? Some moments made me ache and times when the grief in the story hit so close to home it felt personal. But then there were these fragile sparks of hope.
The prose is something else. Raw, jagged, lyrical sometimes I had to stop and reread because the words were so sharp they made me catch my breath. Other times, it felt like poetry poured straight into my bloodstream. It wasn’t always comfortable reading, but it was honest, and that honesty made it beautiful.
This book reminded me why I love grim dark fantasy not because of the battles or the monsters (though they’re there, and they’re terrifying), but because it can hold up a mirror to our own grief, resilience, and humanity. I finished it feeling moved, and strangely grateful.
For me, A Sword of Gold and Ruin wasn’t just a story it was an experience. One I’ll be carrying around in my head and heart for a long time. My thanks to both NetGalley and Flame Tree Press for an ebook and an honest opinion
April 28, 2026
★★★★★
Not sure how the fuck she does it - truly another great read. There are writers I have said summon worlds in my last review - but with those worlds come those who tell stories, and then there are writers who go so hard in resurrecting the bones of old myths and make them breathe again and sometimes I find the fear so real that it is no longer Fiction. Anna Smith Spark—our QueenGrimmy, the poet-sorceress of modern fantasy—once more proves in "A Sword of Gold and Ruin" that she does not merely write books. She opens a door. And behind that door is a world that feels older than our own, but just as real, sorrowful, (maybe) more beautiful, but as in all her created worlds, equally cruel. A world that whispers to something ancestral in the reader—something we had forgotten, maybe on purpose. Where "A Sword of Bronze and Ashes" was a hymn of blood, motherhood, and first awakenings, "A Sword of Gold and Ruin" is the echo of that hymn carried through time, cracked and changed, resonant with regret and longing. It is a story not just of what happened to Kanda, but of what happens after—after the battles, after the sacrifices, after the impossible choices are made. After the hero becomes a mother, and the mother becomes a stranger to herself. After the world turns, and the myth gets old, and the children you once carried become the ones who must now carry you.
And gods… how our Queen of Grimdark captures this transformation. How she makes it hurt. Twisting the right type of edge into our guts. Kanda, once a being of terrifying might—one of the Six, the brightest star, the one whose very name once commanded fear and awe—now wanders through a life that no longer fits the shape of her soul. She has lived as a monster, a savior, a terror, a mama and wife, a farmer, and always a woman trying desperately to believe that quiet is something a creature like her deserves. She has watched her children grow away from her, watched youth fall from her body like leaves in autumn, watched time carve lines in her hands that once slew gods. She carries so much trauma inside her that the land itself seems to bend beneath its weight. And each chapter gives us lines that cut the bone clean:
“For where else could they go, after all that they had befallen them, but wander without purpose.
The Hall Roven was gone, Kanda herself had destroyed it.
Even her name, when she was one of the Six and the greatest the best of them, she could not remember even the name she had then.
Thus they followed the river as it ran to the sea, followed the river as it ran only to be lost.”
This is not just worldbuilding—it is the voice of trauma itself. The disorientation. The self-erasure.
The way memory splits and reforms like broken bone. Anyone who has lives through intense violence—emotional, physical, generational—knows this wandering. Knows what it is to lose the old self and not yet know where to even start to trust the new one. Shattered, splintered, and beyond repair as it feels - Kanda is not merely wandering a ruined world. She is wandering the ruins of herself. I refuse to go into the story as that is what makes the magic truly come alive. Ill just say the parental narrative of how she must do this while mothering three children she loves with a ferocity that both saves her and destroys her. Not a 'resurrection per say, but most definitely a death and birth of character. All through the lenses of how her girls are who do not always understand her, who push against her protection, who demand their own stories even as the shadows of the past threaten to swallow them whole.
That is where we see Anna Smith Spark become an utter genius: she binds the cosmic horror realities we all question to the domestic of what we hope to bring meaning from in life so tightly that we the reader cannot tell where one ends and the other begins. A child’s rebellion becomes as terrifying as a demon. Who is to say they are different? A moment of maternal anger becomes as dangerous as a spell. A quiet walk through forest brush becomes an echo of ancient wars. And always, always, the past presses close. Like a layer of skin buried under the scars we refuse to tell most about. For example: the loss of a child is a devastating and life changing method of life. Or being a child born to parents who didn't desire such responsibilities, you learn you were just a quick fuck of half assed pleasure - perhaps these scars I relate to the most with Kanda. To have 3 and be left with 2 - never mind the horrors the living 2 have. .. Many a ghost appear - so well written and much in a manner I relate to personally:
“A dead child, calling on the other wind, who says you can never rest now in quiet peace.”
If the previous quote was trauma’s root, this one is trauma’s curse: the truth that after certain losses, there is no quiet peace. Not really. Not ever again, certainly. Perhaps most parents know this voice—the fear that never subsides, the dread that blooms when children grow older and the world grows sharper around them. PTSD speaks in this cadence. The past you have buried calls to you. And Queen Grimmy weaves that into the mythic fabric of the story so seamlessly that it becomes both literal and metaphorical at once. The brilliance of "A Sword of Gold and Ruin" is that it continues the dual-timeline approach of its predecessor but deepens it, widens it. We now see more clearly the lost world of Roven, the Six in their golden, terrible glory, the monstrous battles they fought to keep the dark away. And we see the consequences of those battles—not just on the land, but on Kanda’s body, Kanda’s marriage, Kanda’s children, Kanda’s future. The mythic past is not a story told for beauty; it is a burden her whole family must now carry. Yet it is beautiful as that is what life is - messy yet possible of still showing moments that awe us in delight ... and horror.
The present timeline—Kanda and her family traveling in search of Roven, not to reclaim it but to understand what remains—does something extraordinary. It holds within it all the contradictions of aging: fading strength, growing wisdom, increasing fear, desperate love. Kanda’s children grow, rebel, break, heal. They want to walk ahead of her. They want to be strong enough to fight beside her. They want answers she cannot give. Something I understand all too well with my own; coming from the dark corners of life into a part of the world that has brought my own children a great deal of beauty to their day to day. Proud I am of it, but shame fills corners of the frame when left in my view for too long. Many ghosts, never mind demons reside in the halls of my own - this book seems to bring them all the closer in their hauntings.
Anna Smith Spark writes their conflicts not as melodrama but as inevitability. That is what makes it hurt. This is what it means to grow up. This is what it means to raise children in a world that cannot be made safe. This is what it means to love them anyway. Praying ignorance never brings too much of the poison to their lives. Praying over them like the desire for anything less would be a sin for them, while remaining somehow in gratitude for what you already have above others. Its with Kanda’s struggle—to be mother, hero, monster, and woman all at once—is rendered with such raw precision that it feels less like reading fantasy and more like being read by it. Anna Smith Spark’s language is alive with that trademark myth-poetry: golden apples glinting with dreamlight, broken cities singing with the echoes of gods, rivers whispering secrets of old battles, dragonfly wings flashing like spells. Yet the novel is just as committed to the earthy, grounded textures of real life—mud, hunger, sore muscles, grief that tastes like iron. Just like in "Bronze and Ashes," this book lives between beauty and brutality, but here the balance leans more toward the possibility of redemption, though never cheaply earned. You feel as if you are living your own life within that of Kandas.
There are glimmers—so faint, so precious—of healing. Of rebuilding. Of choosing to rise instead of burn. I have read Queen Grimmy: Anna Smith Spark's entire catelog and find respectfully compared to McKillip for her lyricism, to Novik for her folklore depth, to Bakker for her psychological weight, to Peake for her grotesque grandeur. But in "A Sword of Gold and Ruin," she surpasses even those echoes. Her voice becomes something deeper, more ancient, more refined in its broken magic. This book is a reflection on aging, on memory, on the relentless ache of parenthood, on the ghosts of past identities some of us carry. It is a story of daughters who grow ferocious and mothers who grow afraid and families that cannot stop loving each other even when it hurts. But above all—it is a myth that feels true.
It feels like something passed down beside a fire. Something your favorite Grandmother half-remembered and you fully now do in her absence. Something that could belong to us all, the way only real stories do, but our selfish desires horde the treasure like it isn't unlimited. I am grateful some of us find ways to write as that is about the only method we have any chance of having these grand and beautiful ideas being carried on. And yes - perhaps quality and quantity will forever boast the shelves of folks like Anna Smith Spark vs say any of the 'best sellers' of today. I do however believe the right books seem to always find those that look. I feel blessed for finding this author - period. If I am to label"A Sword of Bronze and Ashes" as the awakening of what I feels embodies so many quality points then "A Sword of Gold and Ruin" is the reckoning that defines it. Suppose I see it like I do baseball - the more 'tools' a player has is much like how many elements work in a book; most folks are blessed if they have 2 in general, but thankfully its more likely I find a 3 in the world, and damn if there are not a plenty of 4 and even 5's for me too (just like many of my favorite players have 5tool skills), but sometimes there are those that just nail every standard set and thus are expected to be what others now measure up to instead; think Babe Ruth for those that don't know many baseball names - he is a worthy standard to praise other worthy ones. Queen Grimdark, Anna Smith Spark is one of those.
Anna Smith Spark has done it again. Hell - maybe even surpassed her last standard (its all GOldbaby!). This isn’t just a novel. It’s a soul laid bare in mythic form with the use of symbols and meaning as a justification for its existence. Just like me.
I advice all to: Read it. Let it fuck ya up. Let it heal you. Then let ya self be reminded that YOU and literacy, at its highest purpose, does not help us merely escape reality— it teaches us how to survive it!
Not sure how the fuck she does it - truly another great read. There are writers I have said summon worlds in my last review - but with those worlds come those who tell stories, and then there are writers who go so hard in resurrecting the bones of old myths and make them breathe again and sometimes I find the fear so real that it is no longer Fiction. Anna Smith Spark—our QueenGrimmy, the poet-sorceress of modern fantasy—once more proves in "A Sword of Gold and Ruin" that she does not merely write books. She opens a door. And behind that door is a world that feels older than our own, but just as real, sorrowful, (maybe) more beautiful, but as in all her created worlds, equally cruel. A world that whispers to something ancestral in the reader—something we had forgotten, maybe on purpose. Where "A Sword of Bronze and Ashes" was a hymn of blood, motherhood, and first awakenings, "A Sword of Gold and Ruin" is the echo of that hymn carried through time, cracked and changed, resonant with regret and longing. It is a story not just of what happened to Kanda, but of what happens after—after the battles, after the sacrifices, after the impossible choices are made. After the hero becomes a mother, and the mother becomes a stranger to herself. After the world turns, and the myth gets old, and the children you once carried become the ones who must now carry you.
And gods… how our Queen of Grimdark captures this transformation. How she makes it hurt. Twisting the right type of edge into our guts. Kanda, once a being of terrifying might—one of the Six, the brightest star, the one whose very name once commanded fear and awe—now wanders through a life that no longer fits the shape of her soul. She has lived as a monster, a savior, a terror, a mama and wife, a farmer, and always a woman trying desperately to believe that quiet is something a creature like her deserves. She has watched her children grow away from her, watched youth fall from her body like leaves in autumn, watched time carve lines in her hands that once slew gods. She carries so much trauma inside her that the land itself seems to bend beneath its weight. And each chapter gives us lines that cut the bone clean:
“For where else could they go, after all that they had befallen them, but wander without purpose.
The Hall Roven was gone, Kanda herself had destroyed it.
Even her name, when she was one of the Six and the greatest the best of them, she could not remember even the name she had then.
Thus they followed the river as it ran to the sea, followed the river as it ran only to be lost.”
This is not just worldbuilding—it is the voice of trauma itself. The disorientation. The self-erasure.
The way memory splits and reforms like broken bone. Anyone who has lives through intense violence—emotional, physical, generational—knows this wandering. Knows what it is to lose the old self and not yet know where to even start to trust the new one. Shattered, splintered, and beyond repair as it feels - Kanda is not merely wandering a ruined world. She is wandering the ruins of herself. I refuse to go into the story as that is what makes the magic truly come alive. Ill just say the parental narrative of how she must do this while mothering three children she loves with a ferocity that both saves her and destroys her. Not a 'resurrection per say, but most definitely a death and birth of character. All through the lenses of how her girls are who do not always understand her, who push against her protection, who demand their own stories even as the shadows of the past threaten to swallow them whole.
That is where we see Anna Smith Spark become an utter genius: she binds the cosmic horror realities we all question to the domestic of what we hope to bring meaning from in life so tightly that we the reader cannot tell where one ends and the other begins. A child’s rebellion becomes as terrifying as a demon. Who is to say they are different? A moment of maternal anger becomes as dangerous as a spell. A quiet walk through forest brush becomes an echo of ancient wars. And always, always, the past presses close. Like a layer of skin buried under the scars we refuse to tell most about. For example: the loss of a child is a devastating and life changing method of life. Or being a child born to parents who didn't desire such responsibilities, you learn you were just a quick fuck of half assed pleasure - perhaps these scars I relate to the most with Kanda. To have 3 and be left with 2 - never mind the horrors the living 2 have. .. Many a ghost appear - so well written and much in a manner I relate to personally:
“A dead child, calling on the other wind, who says you can never rest now in quiet peace.”
If the previous quote was trauma’s root, this one is trauma’s curse: the truth that after certain losses, there is no quiet peace. Not really. Not ever again, certainly. Perhaps most parents know this voice—the fear that never subsides, the dread that blooms when children grow older and the world grows sharper around them. PTSD speaks in this cadence. The past you have buried calls to you. And Queen Grimmy weaves that into the mythic fabric of the story so seamlessly that it becomes both literal and metaphorical at once. The brilliance of "A Sword of Gold and Ruin" is that it continues the dual-timeline approach of its predecessor but deepens it, widens it. We now see more clearly the lost world of Roven, the Six in their golden, terrible glory, the monstrous battles they fought to keep the dark away. And we see the consequences of those battles—not just on the land, but on Kanda’s body, Kanda’s marriage, Kanda’s children, Kanda’s future. The mythic past is not a story told for beauty; it is a burden her whole family must now carry. Yet it is beautiful as that is what life is - messy yet possible of still showing moments that awe us in delight ... and horror.
The present timeline—Kanda and her family traveling in search of Roven, not to reclaim it but to understand what remains—does something extraordinary. It holds within it all the contradictions of aging: fading strength, growing wisdom, increasing fear, desperate love. Kanda’s children grow, rebel, break, heal. They want to walk ahead of her. They want to be strong enough to fight beside her. They want answers she cannot give. Something I understand all too well with my own; coming from the dark corners of life into a part of the world that has brought my own children a great deal of beauty to their day to day. Proud I am of it, but shame fills corners of the frame when left in my view for too long. Many ghosts, never mind demons reside in the halls of my own - this book seems to bring them all the closer in their hauntings.
Anna Smith Spark writes their conflicts not as melodrama but as inevitability. That is what makes it hurt. This is what it means to grow up. This is what it means to raise children in a world that cannot be made safe. This is what it means to love them anyway. Praying ignorance never brings too much of the poison to their lives. Praying over them like the desire for anything less would be a sin for them, while remaining somehow in gratitude for what you already have above others. Its with Kanda’s struggle—to be mother, hero, monster, and woman all at once—is rendered with such raw precision that it feels less like reading fantasy and more like being read by it. Anna Smith Spark’s language is alive with that trademark myth-poetry: golden apples glinting with dreamlight, broken cities singing with the echoes of gods, rivers whispering secrets of old battles, dragonfly wings flashing like spells. Yet the novel is just as committed to the earthy, grounded textures of real life—mud, hunger, sore muscles, grief that tastes like iron. Just like in "Bronze and Ashes," this book lives between beauty and brutality, but here the balance leans more toward the possibility of redemption, though never cheaply earned. You feel as if you are living your own life within that of Kandas.
There are glimmers—so faint, so precious—of healing. Of rebuilding. Of choosing to rise instead of burn. I have read Queen Grimmy: Anna Smith Spark's entire catelog and find respectfully compared to McKillip for her lyricism, to Novik for her folklore depth, to Bakker for her psychological weight, to Peake for her grotesque grandeur. But in "A Sword of Gold and Ruin," she surpasses even those echoes. Her voice becomes something deeper, more ancient, more refined in its broken magic. This book is a reflection on aging, on memory, on the relentless ache of parenthood, on the ghosts of past identities some of us carry. It is a story of daughters who grow ferocious and mothers who grow afraid and families that cannot stop loving each other even when it hurts. But above all—it is a myth that feels true.
It feels like something passed down beside a fire. Something your favorite Grandmother half-remembered and you fully now do in her absence. Something that could belong to us all, the way only real stories do, but our selfish desires horde the treasure like it isn't unlimited. I am grateful some of us find ways to write as that is about the only method we have any chance of having these grand and beautiful ideas being carried on. And yes - perhaps quality and quantity will forever boast the shelves of folks like Anna Smith Spark vs say any of the 'best sellers' of today. I do however believe the right books seem to always find those that look. I feel blessed for finding this author - period. If I am to label"A Sword of Bronze and Ashes" as the awakening of what I feels embodies so many quality points then "A Sword of Gold and Ruin" is the reckoning that defines it. Suppose I see it like I do baseball - the more 'tools' a player has is much like how many elements work in a book; most folks are blessed if they have 2 in general, but thankfully its more likely I find a 3 in the world, and damn if there are not a plenty of 4 and even 5's for me too (just like many of my favorite players have 5tool skills), but sometimes there are those that just nail every standard set and thus are expected to be what others now measure up to instead; think Babe Ruth for those that don't know many baseball names - he is a worthy standard to praise other worthy ones. Queen Grimdark, Anna Smith Spark is one of those.
Anna Smith Spark has done it again. Hell - maybe even surpassed her last standard (its all GOldbaby!). This isn’t just a novel. It’s a soul laid bare in mythic form with the use of symbols and meaning as a justification for its existence. Just like me.
I advice all to: Read it. Let it fuck ya up. Let it heal you. Then let ya self be reminded that YOU and literacy, at its highest purpose, does not help us merely escape reality— it teaches us how to survive it!
June 2, 2025
Excellent, as always. A full review to follow.
September 30, 2025
Excellent novel combining a unique mythic feel, lyrical storytelling and yet has at heart being part of a family. An absolute pleasure to read and a few surprises await too
Full review - https://www.runalongtheshelves.net/bl...
Full review - https://www.runalongtheshelves.net/bl...
January 12, 2026
*copy from Netgalley in exchange for a review*
I've been a fan of Anna Smith Spark's for years, ever since her Court of Broken Knives , which I hand-sell as "Kind of like if a heavy metal album was also a fantasy series". But she's kept going since then, and A Sword of Bronze and Ashes, a liminal, dreamlike, murderous, epic work about a woman stepping away from heroism and villainy, such as they were, and diving back in to save her family, was a surprise hit for me. This sequel takes the best of that story and crafts something new and beautiful and terrible with it. This is a book that wants to talk about people, about characters and stories, the stories we tell each other and ourselves which also happen to be the stories of us, and it wants to do so while looking at heroism, at blood-on-the-dirt villainy, and at how choices can make us mix one in with the other.
Our protagonist, you see...well, now she's Kanda. Mother of several girls, of varying ages. Wife to a man who is, well, stolid and good and delighted to be with her. But Kanda has been a few other things as well. She's been one of the six swords of Roven, a Camelot-esque dream that is revealed in flashbacks across the course of the narrative. They were made by and did the bidding of their Lord, fighting monsters and unseating tyrants and being general do-gooders. And she was also something else - a hardened killer at the front of an army that tore down cities, that burned for the sake of burning, killed for the sake of killing, built their own monsters and set them free. Until she wasn't, any more. Until the freedom to be a monster felt like a prison cell, and Kanda walked away, to make something else, a different life, a different love, a different family, neither gods nor monsters therein. Well, not right now anyway. And I don't think I can giuve much away by saying this is a very character driven book. We're in Kanda's head, while she examines herself, her preconceptions. What she wants. And what she wants for her children. Whether one is too gentle or another too keen to pick up the sword. Whether Kanda herself can feel pride in the works of her children, even as they step outside her, perhaps step beyond her. Whether that pride is tainted by her history or enhanced by it, and whether her daughters mistakes are their own to make. Kanda is a woman filled with broken panes of glass, looking back over a history that blurs into myth, trying to unpick fact from fiction in her own life, even as a new story builds itself around her and before he (and, whisper it, perhaps, without her). Kanda is a mother and a wife and a hero and a killer, and wrestles with her needs and those of others in a world still holding to the boundaries of the unreal - where a buried skull beneath the door of a new home can keep evil away, and a new hall built around the bones of a hanged man can exert malevolent power. What the truth is, is difficult to unpick, but in a sense it doesn't matter. Because Smith-Spark's prose carries that story directly into your brain. It has a precise, lyrical quality we see in Greek myth, and it rolls off the tongue as if it should be spoken or sung aloud. It's a tale in form as well as function, harking back to old traditions, built in a new way.
It is, as I say, rather tightly focused on Kanda, her family, and how they manage to get along in the face of what they survived in the first book in the series, and what they plan to do next. Things Do Happen, but to me it feels like these are events meant to let out a little more of our characters, show us a little more of who they are under pressure or under arms or in each others arms. Which isn't to say that those Things aren't ,momentous in their own right, don't tell us a tale that is likely to draw a gasp or a smile or a wry chuckle. This is a story of blended together worlds, where dragons and knights and killers and daughters walk hand in hand, and are sometimes the same thing. There's a lot going on. It just also serves the characters, gives us ways to see these people as they build their own palaces, or their own graves. It's thoughtful, incisive prose, wrapped in an elaborate, heady style that makes everything feel like a saga or a fireside tale. And it's compelling stuff - I couldn't put it down. I suspect if you enjoyed the first book in this series, you won't be able to put this one down either, and so...yes, highly recommended.
I've been a fan of Anna Smith Spark's for years, ever since her Court of Broken Knives , which I hand-sell as "Kind of like if a heavy metal album was also a fantasy series". But she's kept going since then, and A Sword of Bronze and Ashes, a liminal, dreamlike, murderous, epic work about a woman stepping away from heroism and villainy, such as they were, and diving back in to save her family, was a surprise hit for me. This sequel takes the best of that story and crafts something new and beautiful and terrible with it. This is a book that wants to talk about people, about characters and stories, the stories we tell each other and ourselves which also happen to be the stories of us, and it wants to do so while looking at heroism, at blood-on-the-dirt villainy, and at how choices can make us mix one in with the other.
Our protagonist, you see...well, now she's Kanda. Mother of several girls, of varying ages. Wife to a man who is, well, stolid and good and delighted to be with her. But Kanda has been a few other things as well. She's been one of the six swords of Roven, a Camelot-esque dream that is revealed in flashbacks across the course of the narrative. They were made by and did the bidding of their Lord, fighting monsters and unseating tyrants and being general do-gooders. And she was also something else - a hardened killer at the front of an army that tore down cities, that burned for the sake of burning, killed for the sake of killing, built their own monsters and set them free. Until she wasn't, any more. Until the freedom to be a monster felt like a prison cell, and Kanda walked away, to make something else, a different life, a different love, a different family, neither gods nor monsters therein. Well, not right now anyway. And I don't think I can giuve much away by saying this is a very character driven book. We're in Kanda's head, while she examines herself, her preconceptions. What she wants. And what she wants for her children. Whether one is too gentle or another too keen to pick up the sword. Whether Kanda herself can feel pride in the works of her children, even as they step outside her, perhaps step beyond her. Whether that pride is tainted by her history or enhanced by it, and whether her daughters mistakes are their own to make. Kanda is a woman filled with broken panes of glass, looking back over a history that blurs into myth, trying to unpick fact from fiction in her own life, even as a new story builds itself around her and before he (and, whisper it, perhaps, without her). Kanda is a mother and a wife and a hero and a killer, and wrestles with her needs and those of others in a world still holding to the boundaries of the unreal - where a buried skull beneath the door of a new home can keep evil away, and a new hall built around the bones of a hanged man can exert malevolent power. What the truth is, is difficult to unpick, but in a sense it doesn't matter. Because Smith-Spark's prose carries that story directly into your brain. It has a precise, lyrical quality we see in Greek myth, and it rolls off the tongue as if it should be spoken or sung aloud. It's a tale in form as well as function, harking back to old traditions, built in a new way.
It is, as I say, rather tightly focused on Kanda, her family, and how they manage to get along in the face of what they survived in the first book in the series, and what they plan to do next. Things Do Happen, but to me it feels like these are events meant to let out a little more of our characters, show us a little more of who they are under pressure or under arms or in each others arms. Which isn't to say that those Things aren't ,momentous in their own right, don't tell us a tale that is likely to draw a gasp or a smile or a wry chuckle. This is a story of blended together worlds, where dragons and knights and killers and daughters walk hand in hand, and are sometimes the same thing. There's a lot going on. It just also serves the characters, gives us ways to see these people as they build their own palaces, or their own graves. It's thoughtful, incisive prose, wrapped in an elaborate, heady style that makes everything feel like a saga or a fireside tale. And it's compelling stuff - I couldn't put it down. I suspect if you enjoyed the first book in this series, you won't be able to put this one down either, and so...yes, highly recommended.
Read
September 3, 2025Continuing the saga of Kanda, who was a great hero when the world was young, then a legendary terror, and then for a little while a simple farmer's wife, but who after the events of A Sword Of Bronze And Ashes isn't quite any of those things anymore, or else is trying to find a way to reconcile them all within herself. And when I say 'saga', I mean that both in the sense of great primal myth-cycles, all impossible challenges overcome and extended similes crashing down like waves, and in the sense of stories of unbowed mothers and daughters among wild hillsides and small communities. Fantasy and its precursors always had the strength of making the metaphorical solid, but it's still staggering quite how well Anna can weave high magic such that it sings like a legend you're sure you should remember, only to then wrap around and bite as you realise, oh, yes, of course: this is how it feels to see your child grown old and wonder what can have happened when surely they were only just a baby, to doubt that you can ever have been young yourself, to encounter your own beloved offspring suddenly fierce and hating and for one awful moment to reciprocate. And I suspect that the audience for that sort of unabashed parenthood material, and the audience for stories of grand adventure and terrible foes, don't have an enormous crossover – or at least too few people are aware they might be in that intersection – which is why Anna isn't nearly as famous as she ought to be. Even if, at the same time as I would obviously like writers I know to be vastly successful, that probably does save us from a lot of clueless would-be-wits attempting to pastiche a style that's like nobody else writing today, or possibly ever (though at times I see the late Patricia McKillip's grand swoops from high to low reflected in a pool of blood and worse than blood). I thought the previous volume had maybe a little more hope than Anna's previous work and world, and that trajectory continues here – there are still dreadful deeds, but also glimmers of at least the possibility of redemption and making right what was ruined, houses raised and not torn down, and more than ever, a delight in the beauty either of fairytale realms ("Golden apples, silver apples, apples made of pearls and diamonds and silk thread") or simple landscapes not so different from our own, "silver trout and green willow leaves, golden sand on summer beaches, the babble of a snowmelt river, dragonflies in a buzz of rainbowed wings."
(Netgalley ARC)
(Netgalley ARC)
September 6, 2025
Book Description:
Kanda and her family are on a quest to rebuild the glory that was Roven. Mother and daughters stand together as a light against the darkness. But mother and daughters both have hands that are stained red with blood. They walk a path that is stranger and more beautiful than even Kanda dared imagine, bright with joy, bitter with grief. Ghosts and monsters dog their footsteps - but the greatest monsters lie in their hearts.
Review:
I am becoming more and more a fan of Anna Smith Spark with every book she puts out. This series in particular is one that has sunk its claws in me and has such a dark atmospheric quality to it that borders on horror while still maintaining a fascinating fantasy backbone. I know people have often commented on Spark's prose and to risk overstating the point, she really does weave such magical imagery in her words. I haven't come across many authors who can create such vivid scenes through their narrative.
A SWORD OF GOLD AND RUIN is the sequel to the brilliant A Sword of Bronze and Ashes and in many ways it exceeds its predecessor. We continue to follow the trials and exploits of main character Kanda as she and her daughters navigate a world that is crumbling and infested with all manner of ghosts and monsters. The darkness is turned up another notch here (as one would expect from the Queen of Grimdark) and there's quite a bit of tension as these dangers present themselves in a number of delightfully sinister ways.
There were times while reading this book that I actually had to take a breather as some of the scenes are really impactful and emotional. You know that Spark is always going to expose that part of your psyche and that's what makes her books such tremendous reads. This isn't fluff fantasy, it's fantasy with heart and real raw jagged edges. Don't read these books if you can't handle that. For me, I want it no other way, put me through the ringer I'm totally here for it.
In closing I have to say that I'm so excited to see where this series leads. I truly hope there is more coming very soon because I can't get enough of this world. Full of nightmares, beautiful poetry, haunting visions, and characters who get tested time and time again. I'm loving this series and this book in particular has made the next one a must read as soon as I can get a hold of it. Anna Smith Spark continues to dazzle and she has delivered such a triumph with this new creation. Run out and grab both books in this series, you won't be sorry!
Kanda and her family are on a quest to rebuild the glory that was Roven. Mother and daughters stand together as a light against the darkness. But mother and daughters both have hands that are stained red with blood. They walk a path that is stranger and more beautiful than even Kanda dared imagine, bright with joy, bitter with grief. Ghosts and monsters dog their footsteps - but the greatest monsters lie in their hearts.
Review:
I am becoming more and more a fan of Anna Smith Spark with every book she puts out. This series in particular is one that has sunk its claws in me and has such a dark atmospheric quality to it that borders on horror while still maintaining a fascinating fantasy backbone. I know people have often commented on Spark's prose and to risk overstating the point, she really does weave such magical imagery in her words. I haven't come across many authors who can create such vivid scenes through their narrative.
A SWORD OF GOLD AND RUIN is the sequel to the brilliant A Sword of Bronze and Ashes and in many ways it exceeds its predecessor. We continue to follow the trials and exploits of main character Kanda as she and her daughters navigate a world that is crumbling and infested with all manner of ghosts and monsters. The darkness is turned up another notch here (as one would expect from the Queen of Grimdark) and there's quite a bit of tension as these dangers present themselves in a number of delightfully sinister ways.
There were times while reading this book that I actually had to take a breather as some of the scenes are really impactful and emotional. You know that Spark is always going to expose that part of your psyche and that's what makes her books such tremendous reads. This isn't fluff fantasy, it's fantasy with heart and real raw jagged edges. Don't read these books if you can't handle that. For me, I want it no other way, put me through the ringer I'm totally here for it.
In closing I have to say that I'm so excited to see where this series leads. I truly hope there is more coming very soon because I can't get enough of this world. Full of nightmares, beautiful poetry, haunting visions, and characters who get tested time and time again. I'm loving this series and this book in particular has made the next one a must read as soon as I can get a hold of it. Anna Smith Spark continues to dazzle and she has delivered such a triumph with this new creation. Run out and grab both books in this series, you won't be sorry!
September 27, 2025
Grimdark fantasy | Hardback book
4.5 ⭐️
The second instalment of The Making of This Ruined World Series and it was just as good as the first.
Previously, Kanda a wife and mother was revealed to be the greatest of the six, mighty warriors who had served at the hall of Lord Roven. Old enemies had returned to enact revenge upon her and her family and high adventure followed. The second book picks up after the devastating consequences of their final battle.
There are several things I love about this series; the main character is a woman, a wife and mother. So refreshing to have older female characters in a fantasy novel. Another thing I like is that the world is not easily divided into good and evil. It explores flawed characters, the heinous deeds they committed but also the good they had done. It grapples with guilt and shame and fear. I also really like the lyrical way the author writes, there’s a stop and flow to her sentences and folkloric stories are told throughout the plot. In this book there are quite a few reveals I didn’t see coming and you can feel the tension, doubt and love these characters have for one another.
Truly unique books that stay with me long after I’ve finished a chapter. High grimdark fantasy won’t be for everyone but if you already like fantasy and are keen to level up then this is a good place to start.
Book received by @randomthingtours in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
4.5 ⭐️
The second instalment of The Making of This Ruined World Series and it was just as good as the first.
Previously, Kanda a wife and mother was revealed to be the greatest of the six, mighty warriors who had served at the hall of Lord Roven. Old enemies had returned to enact revenge upon her and her family and high adventure followed. The second book picks up after the devastating consequences of their final battle.
There are several things I love about this series; the main character is a woman, a wife and mother. So refreshing to have older female characters in a fantasy novel. Another thing I like is that the world is not easily divided into good and evil. It explores flawed characters, the heinous deeds they committed but also the good they had done. It grapples with guilt and shame and fear. I also really like the lyrical way the author writes, there’s a stop and flow to her sentences and folkloric stories are told throughout the plot. In this book there are quite a few reveals I didn’t see coming and you can feel the tension, doubt and love these characters have for one another.
Truly unique books that stay with me long after I’ve finished a chapter. High grimdark fantasy won’t be for everyone but if you already like fantasy and are keen to level up then this is a good place to start.
Book received by @randomthingtours in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
November 30, 2025
This book didn’t hurt me the way the first one did.
It hurt me more.
If A Sword of Bronze and Ashes was grief in armour, then A Sword of Gold and Ruin is what comes after the war, when you’re still bleeding but expected to build something beautiful with shaking hands.
Kanda and her daughters are no longer simply surviving. They’re rebuilding. And that, somehow, is harder.
This book is quieter in places, stranger in others, and threaded through with a deep, aching tenderness that made me stop more than once just to breathe. It’s still brutal but now the brutality lives inside as much as out.
What I loved most is how this book treats motherhood:
not as soft,
not as saintly,
but as ferocious and flawed and desperate and endlessly human.
The daughters are no longer just protected, they are dangerous in their own right. And the story lets them be. There’s no easy innocence here. No clean heroism. Only love sharpened by loss.
And the prose… god.
It still reads like myth whispered into a battlefield.
It still aches like poetry.
It still cuts like truth.
This is folk horror not just about forests and ghosts but about inheritance. Memory. Bloodlines. The things we pass down without meaning to.
If I have one tiny nitpick, it’s that the pacing can feel dreamlike to the point of disorientation but honestly? That’s part of its spell.
This isn’t a sequel that raises the stakes.
It deepens the wound.
It hurt me more.
If A Sword of Bronze and Ashes was grief in armour, then A Sword of Gold and Ruin is what comes after the war, when you’re still bleeding but expected to build something beautiful with shaking hands.
Kanda and her daughters are no longer simply surviving. They’re rebuilding. And that, somehow, is harder.
This book is quieter in places, stranger in others, and threaded through with a deep, aching tenderness that made me stop more than once just to breathe. It’s still brutal but now the brutality lives inside as much as out.
What I loved most is how this book treats motherhood:
not as soft,
not as saintly,
but as ferocious and flawed and desperate and endlessly human.
The daughters are no longer just protected, they are dangerous in their own right. And the story lets them be. There’s no easy innocence here. No clean heroism. Only love sharpened by loss.
And the prose… god.
It still reads like myth whispered into a battlefield.
It still aches like poetry.
It still cuts like truth.
This is folk horror not just about forests and ghosts but about inheritance. Memory. Bloodlines. The things we pass down without meaning to.
If I have one tiny nitpick, it’s that the pacing can feel dreamlike to the point of disorientation but honestly? That’s part of its spell.
This isn’t a sequel that raises the stakes.
It deepens the wound.
December 5, 2025
A full review of this excellent novel will appear on the fantasy-hive
As with A Sword of Bronze and Ashes, Smith Spark’s second book in the series weaves two timelines together with the present-time quest of Kanda and her family punctuated by tales of her past-time as the greatest of the six warriors of Roven. Roven remains that kind of mythic place somewhere between Camelot and Asgard – the former with its chivalrous heroes riding out to defend the weak and slay dragons, and the latter peopled by immortal beings imbued with magical powers and human failings.
The book opens with a tale of Roven heroics, but then switches to Kanda, her husband and their two surviving daughters helping in the raising of a hall in a village where they have been spending the winter. The sense of community and belonging of the event has echoes of the Amish barn raising scene in the Harrison Ford film The Witness. And, as with that film – there is a sense of danger bleeding through every page.
In Kanda’s inner monologue there is something of the angst-ridden reflections of Mary Shelley’s Victor Frankenstein, all captured in Smith Spark’s soaring descriptive prose - a facility with language as fluid and seamless as Thomas Wolfe’s.
Curiously, as Kanda’s thoughts and preoccupations return always to her children and their squabbles, a message to take from A Sword of Gold and Ruin is that – for a mother at least, the blood of the covenant is thinner than the water of the womb.
As with A Sword of Bronze and Ashes, Smith Spark’s second book in the series weaves two timelines together with the present-time quest of Kanda and her family punctuated by tales of her past-time as the greatest of the six warriors of Roven. Roven remains that kind of mythic place somewhere between Camelot and Asgard – the former with its chivalrous heroes riding out to defend the weak and slay dragons, and the latter peopled by immortal beings imbued with magical powers and human failings.
The book opens with a tale of Roven heroics, but then switches to Kanda, her husband and their two surviving daughters helping in the raising of a hall in a village where they have been spending the winter. The sense of community and belonging of the event has echoes of the Amish barn raising scene in the Harrison Ford film The Witness. And, as with that film – there is a sense of danger bleeding through every page.
In Kanda’s inner monologue there is something of the angst-ridden reflections of Mary Shelley’s Victor Frankenstein, all captured in Smith Spark’s soaring descriptive prose - a facility with language as fluid and seamless as Thomas Wolfe’s.
Curiously, as Kanda’s thoughts and preoccupations return always to her children and their squabbles, a message to take from A Sword of Gold and Ruin is that – for a mother at least, the blood of the covenant is thinner than the water of the womb.
April 4, 2026
I loved this second book in The Making of This World Ruined series.
The best way to summarize it is: it’s a work of grimdark fantasy based around family dynamics wrapped up in a lyrical folklore tale.
At times it feels a bit like a fever dream 😅 I like this in fantasy books. This one is incredibly imaginative, which kept me invested in the characters and story as the journey plodded along.
I also appreciated the angle of storytelling from a standpoint of an older Mother who had her “glory days” but is now past that. I say family dynamics - I won’t spoil anything here - due to some complicated relationships with family members. It’s a bit like book one continued.
The writing is lyrical. It’s almost borderline poetry at times. Again, I appreciated a different way of storytelling here.
I bounced between reading the beautiful Flame Tree physical special edition and an ebook version. Liked the little touches with the special edition. It’s fantastic add to a bookshelf.
The best way to summarize it is: it’s a work of grimdark fantasy based around family dynamics wrapped up in a lyrical folklore tale.
At times it feels a bit like a fever dream 😅 I like this in fantasy books. This one is incredibly imaginative, which kept me invested in the characters and story as the journey plodded along.
I also appreciated the angle of storytelling from a standpoint of an older Mother who had her “glory days” but is now past that. I say family dynamics - I won’t spoil anything here - due to some complicated relationships with family members. It’s a bit like book one continued.
The writing is lyrical. It’s almost borderline poetry at times. Again, I appreciated a different way of storytelling here.
I bounced between reading the beautiful Flame Tree physical special edition and an ebook version. Liked the little touches with the special edition. It’s fantastic add to a bookshelf.
October 19, 2025
A Sword of Gold and Ruin is true epic fantasy at it's very best, with great grimdark elements and extraordinarily beautiful prose, it really does read like an epic poem of old.
With staggering battles and sprawling, fantastical world building, its a remarkably immersive tale that will engulf you in myth, folklore and somewhat unnerving, unsettling horror components.
Character after Character all feel real and believable and development and progression really is top notch here. Being a father if three Daughters, I really enjoyed the strong, female characters.
It's a story of dark, it's a story of light, and everything in between. It's creepy, it's sorrowful, but it's also a story of hope and redemption.
The story moves at a great pace as it engulfs you along the way into this visionary, awe-inspiring world.
A huge 5 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 's from me.
With staggering battles and sprawling, fantastical world building, its a remarkably immersive tale that will engulf you in myth, folklore and somewhat unnerving, unsettling horror components.
Character after Character all feel real and believable and development and progression really is top notch here. Being a father if three Daughters, I really enjoyed the strong, female characters.
It's a story of dark, it's a story of light, and everything in between. It's creepy, it's sorrowful, but it's also a story of hope and redemption.
The story moves at a great pace as it engulfs you along the way into this visionary, awe-inspiring world.
A huge 5 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 's from me.
September 30, 2025
Anna Smith Spark continues her tale of Kanda, once one of the six swords of Roven, who had settled down and had three daughters. After the events of A Sword of Bronze and Ashes (paper), she, her farmer husband, and her two remaining daughters, one who embraced the sword and one who lived in an alternate place till she grew old.A Sword of Gold and Ruin (hard from Flame Tree Press) follows their adventures as they face not only an evil witch, and a king who once served in Kanda’s army. The tale is an odd mixture of epic fantasy like Conan the Barbarian, and the harsh reality of medieval life. Enchanting.
August 25, 2025
I received an eARC from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. It has not affected my opinions.
DNF at 20%
This is what I'd consider a "soft DNF" - I might come back to it at some point (when I'm feeling better!) I just wasn't able to get into it. It was a slow start that seemed to jump between time periods, which was a bit confusing, and didn't have an obvious horror/threat element.
DNF at 20%
This is what I'd consider a "soft DNF" - I might come back to it at some point (when I'm feeling better!) I just wasn't able to get into it. It was a slow start that seemed to jump between time periods, which was a bit confusing, and didn't have an obvious horror/threat element.
January 31, 2026
This series is so good, just really unlike anything else out there right now (as far as I can tell). Absolutely gorgeous prose that seamlessly links the mundane and the mythic. I also love how much these books get into the more 'unpleasant' aspects of families, the fighting and bickering and uncharitable thoughts.
December 8, 2025
This book isn't going to be for everyone. Aspects of the writing style, like repetition and long passages of description, are going to turn some people away. But if it's a style you like, there's a lot going on in this book, and it's very worth reading.
April 14, 2026
Just as strange as the first one. I started to figure things out, eventually. Prose is still gorgeous, characters are still interesting. Plot is still a bit of acid trip to get around. World is still interesting. Good book. It seems like there will be a third one, of which I will certainly read.
August 15, 2025
A strong follow up to the first novel.
For a full review, please go to https://areviewerdarkly.blogspot.com/... and follow me on X @josenher
For a full review, please go to https://areviewerdarkly.blogspot.com/... and follow me on X @josenher
September 25, 2025
🧡 Blurb -The sequel to the masterpiece folk horror high fantasy A Sword of Bronze and Ashes, a lyrical blend of epic myth and daily life.
Kanda and her family are on a quest to rebuild the glory that was Roven. Mother and daughters stand together as a light against the darkness. But mother and daughters both have hands that are stained red with blood. They walk a path that is stranger and more beautiful than even Kanda dared imagine, bright with joy, bitter with grief. Ghosts and monsters dog their footsteps - but the greatest monsters lie in their hearts
💜 Review -
I really enjoyed this fantasy novel. it was different from any other book that I have read before, which made it stand out. The story drew me in from the very first page and I kept reading until the end as I wanted to know what happened. There was enough content to keep me interested and there were plenty of twists and turns. The author's writing is brilliant and the pacing was just right and there was a great mix of characters. Plus the cover and sprayed edges are gorgeous. I highly recommend it and I look forward to reading more by the author.
💝 Thank you to Random Things Tours, the author and publisher for my copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.
Kanda and her family are on a quest to rebuild the glory that was Roven. Mother and daughters stand together as a light against the darkness. But mother and daughters both have hands that are stained red with blood. They walk a path that is stranger and more beautiful than even Kanda dared imagine, bright with joy, bitter with grief. Ghosts and monsters dog their footsteps - but the greatest monsters lie in their hearts
💜 Review -
I really enjoyed this fantasy novel. it was different from any other book that I have read before, which made it stand out. The story drew me in from the very first page and I kept reading until the end as I wanted to know what happened. There was enough content to keep me interested and there were plenty of twists and turns. The author's writing is brilliant and the pacing was just right and there was a great mix of characters. Plus the cover and sprayed edges are gorgeous. I highly recommend it and I look forward to reading more by the author.
💝 Thank you to Random Things Tours, the author and publisher for my copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.
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