Bygone

by Morgan Shank

A bad trip off fairy ichor, or one too many drinks? Whatever the means, Irya doesn't remember traveling to Ashuk, and this is no time for a country frolic. The Northern War rages, winter brews strong, and rumors of monsters haunt Allacia.

Irya's chance for a safe trip home arrives through an untimely reunion with Shen, a man of shadowy origins who remains one of the only people she trusts, and Lerran, a millworker who appears to be his hapless lackey.

The three head north, toward a place where legends are claimed and lives are restored. But something's chasing Shen, and when every secret is revealed and every motivation laid bare, it becomes clear that it's nigh impossible to ever let bygones stay bygones.

405 pages, Paperback

Published May 31, 2022

About the author

In middle school, Morgan finally broke away from incoherent clumps of algebra to fill a composition notebook with his first handwritten novel. Since then, he's imagined his own Skyrim rather than fumble through objective studies.

For reasons unknown to anyone, he somehow found his way into a trucking gig, and he now enjoys a day job hauling freight. When he’s not trucking or writing, Morgan spends his time dabbling in landscape photography, running Spartan Races, and staring at the mountains that surround his hometown of Harrisonburg, VA, in the USA, which provide ample inspiration for his fantasy novels.

Reviews

[E.J. J Doble · Rating 4 out of 5]

A deeply despair yet enigmatically hopeful book, full of broken characters and traumatised stories coming together for a greater purpose. The main cast of characters - Irya, Lerran and dark, broody Shen - provided good shades of grey in a very dark narrative (and it should be noted as well this book depicts self-harm and promiscuous, haphazard sex as well!). Overall, the emotional notes were poignant and high the mark perfectly (as usual with a Shank novel), although the four star rating is mainly because the balance between action and emotion in the book is quite skewed to one side: intense fight scenes are interspersed with several paragraphs of personal analysis, which drew me out of the action every so often. With that being said, the action sequences *are* intense, and feel purposeful, and the ending was beautifully bitter - the book is a marvel in a single volume, and is worth a go to anyone who enjoyed Shank's other works!

[LambchoP]

Would love to find a copy of this somewhere, sounds right up my alley!