This is a story based on Arthurian Mythology.... and I had really hoped it would have worked out better. I read The Boneless Mercies and enjoyed it enough and was looking forward to reading this one but somehow it just didn’t work as well for me as the previous book. It started out fine but the pacing just wasn’t working for me and I couldn’t find myself connecting with most of the characters or particularly caring for their quest all that much. The main quest of the journey is for the protagonist to rescue her sister yet the story took a very sluggish pasts with so many mini stories interlaced. I just could not connect with the characters by the end of the book and the retelling was not really that much of a retelling. There was no real emotional connection to the characters or that much character input. Sadly I just did not enjoy this book as much as I would have liked.
*thank you netgalley for sending me an early arc in exchange for an honest review*

While the author remains true to the writing style used in The Boneless Mercies, I liked this book so much more! The friendships between characters are quick to form but have strong bonds that grow deeper with time. I can see why this is promoted as a gender-bent King Arthur tale, but I actually didn't notice those similarities until the end. There is so much more to the story than that, and I think to only describe the book as a retelling does it a great disservice. I also love that the romance included is not the main point, and that Torvi doesn't need a man in order to do great things. The side characters are a delight, and even the characters we don't see for very long have me wishing for more time with them. The transformation in Morgunn was difficult to swallow, but it makes sense. I don't know if we will get more books about Torvi, but if we did, I would read them.

I did not get the chance to read this ARC prior to the book's publication, but we did end up buying it for our library collection.

I love Arthurian retellings. I really enjoyed Amy Rose Capetta and Cory McCarthy’s Once & Future. But Tucholke’s Seven Endless Forests just didn’t do it for me.

Tucholke’s prose is something else. It’s brutal and wonderful to read. Her world building really is a masterpiece. I understood the world so well even in just the five chapters I did manage to finish reading. These factors alone could have carried the book well to someone who clicked with the book.

Unfortunately, I was not that someone.

I couldn’t connect to the characters and I felt like I was lost in whatever minor plot did show up in the early pages. It drawled one for a long time. Five chapters where the main character buries her family (not really a spoiler since it’s the opening scene) and then meets a wandering druid and a local town burns down took too dang long to establish. Maybe I’m used to a more fast paced writing style, but Seven Endless Forests meandered more than it moved forward, giving us flashbacks and long expositions of setting or character.

I wanted to love this one, but it just wasn’t for me.

Thank you to NetGalley, Macmillan Children's Publishing Group, and April Genevieve Tucholke for the opportunity to read Seven Endless Forests in exchange for an honest review.

I loved Tucholke's style in Wink, Poppy, Midnight, and wanted to try something else from her. I do have Boneless Mercies, though I have not read it yet, as I understand it, Seven Endless Forests is a standalone companion piece to Boneless Mercies, which means you can read one without having read the other. If I had read Boneless Mercies first, I see some areas of potential crossover and little hints to the first work.

As it stands, this book is a solid piece that a young reader can tackle without having read any of Tucholke's other books first. It is a nice quest storyline featuring a female protagonist seeking to pull a sword from a stone tree to become the ruler of a jarldom.

Overall enjoyed the story. I thought the character relationships between each other could have been more fleshed out. It was a rather quick read that could have been expanded, though the end offers potential for other stories in this world.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR) for letting me read Seven Endless Forests by April Genevieve Tucholke early! I really wanted to read her book Boneless Mercies (which I haven’t done yet...), so when I saw Seven Endless Forests on NetGalley, I jumped at the chance to read it. Unfortunately, this wasn’t really the book for me, but there were some really cool aspects to the book, so keep reading to find out about those!

Seven Endless Forests 3/5 Stars

Summary from Goodreads: On the heels of a devastating plague, Torvi’s sister, Morgunn, is stolen from the family farm by Uther, a flame-loving Fremish wolf-priest who leads a pack of ragged, starving girls. Torvi leaves the only home she’s ever known, and joins a shaven-skulled druid and a band of roaming Elsh artists known as the Butcher Bards. They set out on a quest to rescue Torvi’s sister, and find a mythical sword.

On their travels, Torvi and her companions will encounter magical night wilds and mystical Drakes who trade in young men. They will sing rowdy Elshland ballads in a tree-town tavern, and find a mysterious black tower in an Endless Forest. They will fight alongside famous Vorseland archers and barter with Fremish wizards. They will feast with rogue Jade Fell children in a Skal Mountain cave, and seek the help of a Pig Witch. They will face wild, dangerous magic that leads to love, joy, tragedy, and death.

Torvi set out to rescue a sister, but she may find it’s merely the first step toward a life that is grander and more glorious than anything she could have imagined.

So let’s start out with the really cool things about this book- the world is amazing! There are some really cool characters and the lore and the world building and the food and all of that stuff is amazing and I loved it. But unfortunately, at my core, I’m a plot driven person and I didn’t feel like I had a really good grasp of the plot in this book. It was boring for me- BUT I know a lot of people are not as plot driven as I am and they love reading about worlds and cultures and characters. This book honestly reminded me a lot of the Night Circus in the way it was for me while I was reading it- hard for me to get through, but I know that there are so many people out there who would love it. I had a hard time connecting with any of the characters or the plot and the pacing was not my favorite. I’ve read some other people compare it to Naomi Novik novels (I’ve never read any of her books), so maybe if you like her books or if you liked the author’s other books or slower paced books in general that are more focused on the world than the plot, then you might really enjoy Seven Endless Forests.

I loved that this was set but also separately in the Boneless Mercies world and that readers don't need to read the Boneless Mercies in order to enjoy Seven Endless Forests. This King Author retelling was adventurous, courageous, filled with lively creatures and a save my sister trope as well as found family trope that is well loved with readers. I just wish there were trigger warnings in the front of the book for readers, but other than that this book was well-written and fun to read (for the most part). Thank you for the opportunity to read this.

Title: Seven Endless Forests
Author: April Genevieve Tucholke
Genre: Fantasy
Rating: 4.5 out of 5

On the heels of a devastating plague, Torvi’s sister, Morgunn is stolen from the family farm by Uther, a flame-loving Fremish wolf-priest who leads a pack of ragged, starving girls. Torvi leaves the only home she’s ever known, and joins a shaven-skulled druid and a band of roaming Elsh artists known as the Butcher Bards. They set out on a quest to rescue Torvi’s sister, and find a mythical sword.

On their travels, Torvi and her companions will encounter magical night wilds and mystical Drakes who trade in young men. They will sing rowdy Elshland ballads in a tree-town tavern, and find a mysterious black tower in an Endless Forest. They will fight alongside famous Vorseland archers and barter with Fremish wizards. They will feast with rogue Jade Fell children in a Skal Mountain cave, and seek the help of a Pig Witch. They will face wild, dangerous magic that leads to love, joy, tragedy, and death.

Torvi set out to rescue a sister, but she may find it’s merely the first step toward a life that is grander and more glorious than anything she could have imagined.

I thought The Boneless Mercies—Tucholke’s previous book set in this world—was phenomenal, and I thoroughly enjoyed reading this one. The story opens with tragedy…and tragedy shadows the entire story. Parts of this are magical and enchanting, parts are inspiring, sad, evocative; basically the whole gamut of emotion lives here. The ending felt a bit rushed to me, but that was because it was more of a summary of events instead of actually telling the story (and to set things up for the next book, I imagine). Nevertheless, I highly recommend this!

April Genevieve Tucholke lives in Oregon. Seven Endless Forests is her newest novel.

(Galley courtesy of Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR)in exchange for an honest review.)

Seven Endless Forests is a standalone companion novel to The Boneless Mercies, it’s set in the same world, but with different characters. This novel to me has a similar problem to the first in that the author heavily relies on the reader to fill in the scenery information for the most part. She describes things vividly, but it is not normally scenery. It’s the culture and the people. It’s all up to my mind and what I know about Scandinavian culture, or in this case also Arthurian legend.

This novel is also a retelling of the King Arthur legend, had I know that going in I probably wouldn’t have read this book. I am particularly hard on my King Arthur retellings as anyone who has read my review of The Guinevere Deception and Once & Future. However, the connection between this retelling and Arthurian legend is tenuous at best. Uther is the name of the main villain, there is a sword involved, and Morgunn sounds a bit like Morgan.

One of the problems that I had with this book I also had with The Boneless Mercies. This novel is also incredibly atmospheric. The world sounds magical, beautiful, but also fierce. However, I don’t really know much about what it actually looks like. I fill in my own assumptions about what the lay of the land and the buildings look like. To a certain extent I even do this with some of the characters. The author describes them, but not in any way that sticks with me. However, the culture and the atmosphere of these novels are beautiful. They make me want to go there, explore it myself, and hopefully live.

For this novel women are also front and center, they’re the heroes and the villains. The male characters support them in their endeavors, but never take over the story themselves. I can appreciate that, however, I am having the same problem with the characters as the first one. I can appreciated them while reading the book, but afterwards everything about them seems to have disappeared. I only remember Frey from the first one and that’s because she’s mentioned in the review. Otherwise I would have forgotten all the names of all the characters and I assume that this is going to happen with this one as well. I’m just not attached to any of them and they feel like cotton candy in my mind. Pretty on the outside, sweet, but no lasting substance in the long run.

Overall, it’s still fun, incredibly atmospheric, and I would love to do like an RPG in this setting. I just wish that I could get more attached to the characters. I still think that lovers of fantasy novels, Norse mythology, and strong female characters will enjoy this novel. The world building is strong, the descriptions of the scenery could be expanded upon a little more, but overall it’s a great diversion for our quarantined selves.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with an e-ARC of this novel. However, all thoughts and opinions are my own.

After barely surviving a plague that killed their mother, Torvi and her sister Morgunn aren't sure what to do next. This is decided for Torvi when Morgunn is stolen by the wolf cult. Banding together with a druid, she decides to go after her sister. However, the druid has a different quest in mind: to find a mythical sword.

As Torvi and the druid set out to save her sister, they join a band of artists desperate to get revenge on the wolf cult. The wolf cult has been ravaging the country and burning down villages, and the artists want to hold them responsible. What Torvi originally though was just a rescue mission turns into something that might lead her to a much grander life than she ever imagined.

Thank you to NetGalley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux for an advance copy of this book! I got the chance to review The Boneless Mercies when it first came out, so I was excited to get my hands on this companion novel. Plus, look at this gorgeous cover! It absolutely deserves to sit on everyone's shelf.

First, let me say that if you haven't read The Boneless Mercies, you definitely can still read this book. It's a completely different story, though it's set in the same world. It does reference things that happen in The Boneless Mercies, but Torvi's story is something new. What's great about how these books interact with each other is the way they lift up women to be heroes. It's refreshing and well-done!

Seven Endless Forests is essentially a gender-bent retelling of the King Arthur tale, and this book feels like an arthurian legend. Tucholke does justice to the women who are fielding these heroic story arcs, and I love that she's twisting classic tales this way. Makes for an excellent story.

My main qualm about this book is that the plot seems to stall about halfway through the book. The beginning is exciting and the end is exciting, but the middle seems a bit muddled. It didn't feel as action packed as The Boneless Mercies and I just wanted a bit more meat in the middle.

All in all, an atmospheric novel that fans of the classics will certainly enjoy.

Seven Endless Forests is beautifully written. Described as a retelling of the Arthurian legend, it follows the story of Torvi, her band of Butcher Bards in the quest to find her sister, kill a pack of Wolf-Priests, and pull a legendary sword from a tree to win a Jarldom. I read this novel in about two days, absolutely soaking it up in the last day. The writing just pulled me in, Tucholke’s prose is gorgeous and lush. The world was so grounded, I bought into every small part of it. There were stories and legends, magic and old curses. The world was populated and so vast and full. I can definitely see many more books in this world and would be interested in picking one up.
The one thing that irked me as a reader was a lack of tension, in my experience at least. I felt tension between Torvi and her sister and that was wonderful, but the rest of it felt like floating along a river, waiting to see what is next. This is not necessarily a bad thing! It reminded me of that vicious magic stage in childhood where the world is open and the possibilities are endless and magic is real. But I wanted more continuous tension building into a climax. However, I understand that this might not have been the point of this story and that is ok.
Overall, I enjoyed the prose and ride through this crazy magical land but ached for a little more tension and a little more stakes between the characters themselves and their desires.

There is something about that way that April Genevieve Tucholke writes that reminds me of stories told around a campfire under the moonlight. It's transportive, she makes these retellings feel classic. I am deeply impressed by her ethereal writing style.

I am determined to one day love an Tucholke book.

Today is not that day.

An interesting King Arthur reimagining, with a feisty female lead. I think it's fun when an author takes creative license to put a different spin on the stories in their own way. I enjoyed the different roles the characters played that are completely different from the original Arthur myths.

The descriptions of the various landscapes were captivating, the embellishment of the atmosphere was engrossing, and the details of the battle scenes were intense. All typical ingredients that I usually find in a good fantasy. It should have been brilliant! But sadly, for me, the execution didn't live up to the promise. Plot elements were dropped in awkwardly, I never felt like I had all the background, and a couple of characters personalities vanished randomly. To me, it kind of felt like Tucholke had a really cool idea and tried to weld it to Arthurian myth. It might have done better as its' own thing.

I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

I was intrigued by the premise of Seven Endless Forests, and how it seemed to be inspired by Arthurian legend, something I wanted to lear more about. However, I found that it only loosely borrowed from King Arthur, taking names of characters and places, and to an extent, the wider mythology, with a focus on the Druids. And for the most part, that is pretty well done.

But this is a case where the comparison in the blurb to Laini Taylor proved accurate, and a double edged sword. Turcholke, like Taylor, has a very evocative writing style, and while I definitely enjoyed her style more than Taylor’s, I felt it did at times make the book feel a lot longer than it was, even though this book wasn’t that long to begin with. There were also some odd style choices in the text that constantly threw me off guard.

There’s also a large cast of characters, and I didn’t even care who most of them were, even Torvi’s love interest. Torvi also wasn’t a particularly compelling lead, although I was invested in the journey to rescue her siste to an extent, and the developments once that panned out.

This is possibly an author-reader mismatch, given my conflicting feelings about the writing style which many others listed as a positive for this book. However, if you’re a fan of poetically written fantasy with a large cast of characters, maybe you’ll connect with this more than I did.

My favorite aspect of this book is the world-building. Every detail, every description seeps into the story and becomes just as important as the characters and plot. It feels lived in and realistic and just brilliant. As I read, I couldn't help but imagine this entire story as a Dungeons and Dragons campaign because it had all the right elements for a fantasy journey--characters with purpose, places along the way that navigate the characters through the world, and enough drama to make things interesting.

The story itself wasn't what I expected. This is pitched as King Arthur retelling, but it's only the bare bones. Prior knowledge of the legend isn't necessary to read this book, and I"m not sure people expecting a retelling would enjoy this. It seems more like a marketing ploy than an actual retelling.

As for the characters, I have mixed feelings. The side characters were fascinating, but Torvi felt distance. The "big" moments of the story were anti-climatic because there wasn't enough reaction from Torvi. She easily gives up on her sister and even during a part that's supposed to be devastating, it passes with barely another thought. Most of the events stack upon each other, but there isn't the sense of tension I expected. It builds and builds, but it doesn't rise. It just happens. She's there. They're there. It moves on.

I'm also a little wary of that ending because it was hard to tell whether there's a sequel coming or that's the end of Torvi's tale. If it's the end, it wrapped up much too quickly and didn't leave me satisfied. If there's more, I wish the last chapters didn't exist.

It's book likes this, however, that make me wish there was a genre between YA and Adult. Reading this, I couldn't help but wonder if teens could relate to Torvi and her struggles. She may be the same age as them (her age isn't specified from what I can remember), but her life doesn't seem relatable to their experiences on a number of levels. For the college/20s age group, though, I think a lot of readers would consume this story. If this had gone a tad deeper, it would have excelled for an adult novel except for the obvious, YA writing style.

Overall, the writing of this book is phenomenal and the world is brilliant. I like the characters, but the story felt a bit lackluster and like it was missing something that would give it that extra thrust to make it go from a good story to a great one. From an adventure to a legend.

Drawing heavily on Arthurian myth (and names) as well as Norse, Welsh, Italian, and other mythologies and folklores, this fantasy novel is narrated by Torvi, a young woman on a quest to reclaim her younger sister, an addict, from a group of "wolf-priests" who get high on yew berry poison and ravage villages and settlements, killing nearly everyone in their paths. Torvi teams up with a druid, a group of knife-wielding bards, and a band of archers to track down Uther, the leader of the wolf-priests. But each character also has a quest--pulling a legendary sword from a tree, translating a book of tales, conjuring a ghostly king. While Tucholke has some truly brilliant ideas and descriptions of original and fantastic people, places, and things, the narrator herself remains very flat and two-dimensional, as does her sister, whose arc readers will predict from miles and miles away. The dialogue doesn't help--sometimes it's very formal and flowery and at other times casual and more modern, even between the same characters in similar circumstances. And the references to pre-existing myths are often heavy-handed: Torvi's mother is named Igraine, a child named Pellinore creates a round table, a knight named Lionel passes through. Tucholke's idea of renaming places by slightly changing real-world place names is also grating: there's an island of Creet, for example. The Kindle copy I read also had a lot of strike-throughs and replaced words, and these show that simpler words are often replaced by more elaborate ones. I'd advise the author and editor to resist this: it's done so often that it distances the story from the reader and makes it more difficult to empathize with the characters. The epilogue seems akin to simply writing "time passes" and sets up a sequel, but the novel would be stronger with a chapter that didn't try to summarize so many things: it reads like a report.. All in all, this is a solid draft of a novel with some excellent and imaginative ideas that just needs to add some more depth to the characters, particularly Torvi, to be a real stand-out.

God, I wanted to like this one so much. One of my favorite genres is the "mythology retelling but from a female perspective," and I looked forward to devouring this one from the moment I was approved on NetGalley. Unfortunately, the characters and dialogue were so incredibly clunky that the experience of reading bordered on torturous. What do I mean by this? I'll give a (hypothetical) example. Which of the following would you rather read an entire book of?

1) Jane Doe ran down the stairs. Her feet thudded on the steps, and she skid to a stop just before the front door, panting heavily. "Is it here?" She exclaimed to her mother. "Tell me, tell me, tell me!"

OR

2) Jane Doe was waiting for a package. She'd been waiting a long time for the package, and was excited to get it. She couldn't contain her enthusiasm, and she excitedly yelled to her mother to ask if the package had arrived.

Obviously, the answer is 3), some combination of the two. But on the whole, I think a lot of us would much rather read a story that shows us how the characters are feeling and not one that tells us everything without any nuance. And, unfortunately, this was a book that was all show and no tell.

The characters and their relationships are so underdeveloped that the author literally has two characters magically learn each others' memories for some good ol' fashioned artificial relationship development. Beyond that, I couldn't tell you a thing about anyone - we're told Torvi is gentle and kind; we're told Morgunn is fierce; we're told Madoc is wise - but I'd be damned if I could find any evidence of any of those traits in the book. Picking up this book was a chore, and if it weren't for the fact that I had an ARC to review, I would've given it up a long time ago.

If you're looking for a Camelot retelling, this ain't it, chief.

the good: interesting premise, beautiful cover
the bad: flat characters, uninteresting plot, clunky writing style
the ugly: this book just gave me a headache

Seven Endless Forests is not so much of a retelling, as a story about a girl trying to save her sister. Told by her mother that all she is every going to be good for is someone's bride, Seven Endless Forests is a story about her journey of agency. A companion novel to The Boneless Mercies, you don't need to read the first to enjoy this one! The writing in this book was gorgeous, toeing the line between epic and lyrical, with emotional. My favorite aspect of Seven Endless Forests was the main character, Torvi.

If you like a character who has to figure out how to listen to her heart, embrace her destiny, and prove our parent's wrong, then you will enjoy Torvi. Her character growth was my favorite element of the story and I think YA needs a lot more of these heroines. The ones who have to find their voice, who are told they cannot be heroines, and who have a quiet strength

Seven Endless Forests starts right out with action. Our main character Torvi is burying two people she loves who got the sickness that came through the area. She only has one person left in her life who she loves, and that would be her sister. Her sister gets taken by a pack of wolves and Torvi sets out on a mission to get her back no matter what.

This book was full of so many different aspects it was very hard to follow sometimes. I felt that I would finally be learning something and then the author set out on a different paths. I love a good fantasy novel, but this one seemed to have so many different cultures and names that it was confusing. I didn't feel for the characters which I think is because the author was focused on the details of this world instead of the characters. Since this story is focused on a kidnapping, I thought I would become more attached to the characters.

While this was not my favorite book, I know many people will love the whimsical writing and love world that has been created.

Seven Endless Forests is falls in the same vein of The Boneless Mercies, giving us a lyrical spin on a classic story. In this book Tucholke tackles King Arthur’s rise to the throne with a feminine but no less lethal twist.
There’s are two sayings that kept coming to mind while reading: Hero’s rarely find their happy endings and its hard for a good man to be king. You can see both of these play out throughout the story. I love the atmosphere and the tones that these books give. This title (along with the Boneless Mercies) are perfect examples of campfire tales. Those stories that people tell of their ancestors around a fire when its time to make camp at night.
You follow Torvi on a harrowing adventure to reclaim home, family and freedom. Having to make hard choices that will lead the world to better or let it succumb to the flame and wolves of the priest Uther.

With her band of troubled yet endearing misfits you meet up with witches, assassins, bards, traverse tree top villages, cursed towers and hidden kingdoms. Tragic pasts, humorous banter, and relatable characters, Seven Endless Forests is a must read for Fantasy fans.

*E-ARC kindly provided by Macmillian via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.