Review to come. Thanks to Canterwine Press and Netgalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Publication Date October 20, 2020
#chantandcrown #NetGalley

The cover was really cool and the premise of the book sounded interesting but it sort of ended there. I ended up being bored - espesially when the important parts were just mentioned and then it rambled on at the non-important parts..I just wasn`t interested in the story or characters.

The two main characters have the same first name, but different middle names, which made reading this book super confusing.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an e-arc of this book in exchange for an honest review!

The cover is beautiful, hands down. I love covers with colour contrasts. I loved the idea of the book as well. The writing was not great, but kept me interested in the book for a while. The story was a bit off from what I expected, but it worked well enough for a first book.
Now... Let's get to the stuff that didn't work out for me...
My biggest issue in this book were the names. Both MCs had the same first name, but different middle names - and still, one character was called by his middle name and the other by his first name. Pray tell me, what is the point of this? Why can't you call them both by their middle name or give them each an individual first name and have them share a middle name? What is the point of doing it the other way?
The characters had no idea what they were doing or what they supposed to be doing. Couldn't take a single one serious and was absolutely annoyed with their behaviour. Oh, and the plot twist? Predictable from the start, no surprise and honestly, quite boring in my opinion.
It wasn't a book that's going to stay with me and I grew bored of it real quick.

I received a free ARC by Netgalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review

It was a good solid book, but definitely not amazing. I think more could have been done with the building of the characters and the world.

I have to give this book two out of five stars. I found it boring, and the world building felt inconsistant. It is not a quick read and seems to drag during many parts. I do however know many people who would enjoy this type of book, and I will happily recommend it to them. If you are the type of person who enjoys reading small parts of a book at a time, this is for you. I did not find the characters particulary interesting or felt compelled to care about them in any way. This may just be because I prefer a book to take me on an adventure as opposed to just sort of setting here waiting for something to happen.

Chant and Crown follows the story of two brothers with a complicated relationship as they deal with the upcoming war and dangerous secrets.

The book primarily focuses on the relationship between the two brothers which is practically non-existent because of their situation, the kingdom only allows for the king to have one child and the brothers have to deal with the fact that one of them was meant to die and the other was meant to take their place. Their troubled relationship and how it develops alongside the conflicts and emotions that the main characters show was written really well, the brothers had a lot to deal with and secrets and unresolved issues between them throughout the book. I did not expect the characters to be as young as they were, and the book is mainly told from Ezrick’s perspective, but I did like the two main characters.

I just found the book lacked a plot. At the start, nothing seems to happen, and it is very confusing because there is a lack of world building. Although I liked the focus on the brothers and their relationship, there was so much information about them both in the present and in the past during the first half of the book that there was no plot to the book except detailing their relationship. The book picks up during the second half but honestly, I was really confused on what was happening – personally I thought that things were not explained enough and too much was happening all at once near the ending. The fantasy world was not developed enough in the book for me to understand what Chants really were and the ending and the reveals felt rushed.

2/5

This book was a miss for me. It seemed both too fast and too slow in parts. I liked the magic and the brother's characters, but it was strangely paced and I couldn't get past that

3.75 stars!

Books centred around sibling bonds often have a direct path to my heart, and so it was no surprise that I fell in love with these brothers and their attempts to reconcile with each other.

~★~ What is this book about? ~★~

The kingdoms of Trestlewen are haunted by Chants--magical beings known to wreak havoc. For this reason, Chants are hunted by knights and put to death.

The Princes of Astara have a rocky relationship as brothers. For one, royalty is only permitted a single child, and their very existence opposes that.
Aylan lives with the knowledge that he is supposed to die. Ezrick lives with the knowledge that he was never meant to be born. The two have a relationship built on hatred and trauma, which hardly allows them in a room together without argument.
When a chant attack sets the kingdom ablaze and leaves Ezrick temporarily kidnapped, the brothers receive a rude awakening. With their lives on the line and the kingdom on their shoulders, Ezrick and Aylan do everything to piece together their relationship.

~★~ Characters ~★~

Ezrick and Aylan were easily my favourite thing about this book, their backstory the biggest point of interest for me. Aylan’s grudge was not without reason, and uncovering bits of his past as the story progressed was great.
Ezrick’s wish for his brother to love him warmed my heart and propelled the story wonderfully. The development on both of their parts was by the end really evident.
While I didn’t care too much for the side characters, Ezrick and Aylan more than made up for that.

~★~ Writing ~★~

The writing was yet another high point of this novel. Jordan McMakin’s narrative contains the elegance that many great fantasy novels have. The atmosphere was established well, along with any other points that called for added descriptiveness. McMackin’s writing is in no way simplistic, yet remains easy for the reader to follow.

~★~ Plot ~★~

While objectively quite unique, the plot was my least favourite aspect of this novel. If Chant and Crown were slightly longer in length, I think it could have been executed a lot better. There wasn’t enough time to completely map out the magic system in such a short book. The breadth of Astara and the other kingdoms felt so vast, I would have liked further explanation on chants and their origin. The conclusion left me with questions, and it’s unfortunate that this will likely be a standalone, because I would have loved to follow Aylan and Ezrick a bit further into their adventures.

~★~

This was an all around solid character-driven fantasy. The story and plot are fast moving, and I really do think there are many who will come to love this book.

Chant and Crown follows Ezrick and his brother Aylan, the Crown prince of a small rural kingdom at war with magic users known as Chants. Right off the bat, I enjoyed the world building, although I wish some things were given a little more detail (why could there only be one crown prince? Do the chants have their own army and country or do they live among the humans? Ezrick's gay (Yay for representation) but we're never really told what this world's views on LGBT+ people are - Aylan's friends use "gay" as an insult but other characters don't seem to care. Is there a stigma? Does it matter that he's a crown?).

While the plot is interesting, it has a major pacing problem. Too many characters are mentioned but not introduced until too late in the story, and characters that are present from the beginning completely vanish in the third act. Maddie's brother and the High Knight's son are mentioned repeatedly but don't appear until the end where they play major roles in the climax (I'm actually still not sure why Maddie's brother is a character at all. He has one scene in the entire book where he's foreshadowed to have a part in the finale but there's no pay off and his character basically vanishes after that.) Maddie, who is a major character throughout the book, vanishes completely in the third act and we never get the conclusion of her arch. Sven, Aylan's fiance, the knight Joe, and several other characters seen in flashbacks, appear in the third act only to have no real interactions with the main characters, and I'm once again not sure why exactly they were in the story at all as they played no role whatsoever.

The teenaged chants are introduced as if they'll be major characters but are never actually present in the story beyond a brief appearance at the end. This seems like a major waste of potential to me; these characters are introduced as if they'll be major parts of the story but they're barely present.

There's a lot of potential in this story, but I personally think it doesn't devote enough time to it's side plots, particularly the teenaged chants and the missing knights. The tension between Ezrick and Aylan was initially what drew me in, but by the middle of the book, their relationship improves and the plot starts to meander. Had this time been devoted to the various subplots instead, it would have given the plot a more defined structure instead of throwing the reader into an endless montage of flashbacks.

Overall this was a rushed but enjoyable story, and I assume there will be a sequel that ties up the loose ends.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an e-arc of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Chant and Crown is a story about two brothers and magic. Their kingdom is in trouble and they have to find a way to get along with one another to save it. The premise of the novel sounds like a typical fantasy quest novel with warring brothers and strong magical lore. For me the story was rich in world building and lore. The pacing of the story was on the slower side for what I'm used to, however, I would say that it's down to personal preference as to how much you enjoy reading about the world that has been written.

The relationship between the princes; Ezric and Aylan was interesting and I can't pick my favourite between the two. The story itself is full of emotion, tension and dripping with dark magic. I was desperate to find out all about the events before the novel and I implore Jordan to write a prequel because that would be awesome!

I'm beginning to think that fantasy novels under 400+pages might not work for me, as there just isn't enough time for the amount of world building and character development that I need to stay connected and engaged. The premise of this story is one that combines a handful of my favorite fantasy tropes (banned magic, coming of age, strong sibling bonds), and the flashback scenes were probably the most intriguing of all, but the fact that this story features a good bit of telling instead of showing, with copious amount of info dumps at the forefront, made it difficult to give this one high marks. I think with a bit more editing and cleaning up of this draft, it could be a truly spectacular book.

i enjoyed the premise of this story, but unfortunately there were a lot of issues regarding the pacing and overall writing style that prevented me from truly enjoying this story. It felt like there were large portions of the book that were overly drawn out and slow and then something important would be given very little page time. I also felt like I wish there had been more descriptive "showing" in the story instead of just being told all of the important things. I liked the characters and overall plot arc, but the way it was presented wasn't for me.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an e-arc of this book in exchange for an honest review!

This is a book about two brothers, trying to find out of they love or hate each other. In a land where people with magic, called Chants, are banned, strange things are happening. When prince Ezrick gets kidnapped by Chants and is found heavily injured, he is brought back to the castle. More and more secrets come to light and nothing is as it seems.

The description of this book sounded very promising. However, the story reads like a first draft. Some parts are very long with a lot of superfluous information, while important matters are only mentioned briefly. I understand this might be intentional to not give away the big plot twist but it doesn't work out very well. It's a lot of 'tell, don't show' instead of 'show, don't tell'.

The story in itself is quite interesting and original, but unfortunately the writing didn't pull me in and had me skipping pages.

Thanks to Canterwine Press for providing a digital ARC of Chant and Crown in exchange for an honest review.

Chant and Crown has an interesting backstory, but I don't think the story itself quite delivers. Every time we hear about the events that preceded it I found myself more interested in those than the actual plot. There just wasn't enough time to connect to the characters and for a plot that's so dependent on character relationships, its hard to get invested if you don't really care about anyone.

It wasn't the book for me but I didn't dislike much about it either so if you like the description, its worth giving a go.