What a good book! I really enjoyed the momentum this book set with the cliffhangers at the end of POVs. However, I would have appreciated honing in on fewer perspectives for book 1 of a series. The ancestral magic is interesting and the characters are engaging. The voice is straightforward, but also feels like storytelling. Looking forward to book 2!

What a book! Weighing in at nearly 600 pages, this might be one of my longest reads of the year. Told from several POV's, this story doesn't skimp on the action. That being said, with so many POV's, keeping a timeline was difficult. I really liked the imagery and the storytelling. This absolutely falls into the epic fantasy genre and I look forward to reading the rest of the series.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for an eARC of this book! (Which got delivered a day before my Illumicrate version!)

This book is for the fans of epic, high fantasy books, with new realms and magics, with sprawling character arcs, and multiple point of views.

Ask the little girl who loved all of the scenes with Mushu and the ancestors in Mulan. This book was awesome!
Imagine if, when in fighting in battle, you could call upon your ancestors to battle alongside you. Instead of a snappy dragon they have a brutal weapon with which they lay waste to your enemies! There is something almost comforting in the idea of being able to call forth a loved one but do not expect cozy feelings. These battle scenes are brutal.

While, I did love having multiple point of views, there are large jumps where some character’s point of view aren’t covered at all. When you do jump back into their point of view, it’s a little bit of whiplash.
But then again didn’t we all get to Manon’s first chapter and ask who’s this bitch???? So, you know, we can get over it 😂

All in all, this was an extremely complex novel that covers a lot of intricate Sease not just involving the battles and ancestors, but the general idea of family and sacrifice love and support. On top of the politics of kingdoms and different statuses within that kingdom.
A big theme within the book is noble versus common, whether or not power should or could only be used by commoners. There is a lot of almost got like a dollar tree towards the Noble class in this book by the majority of the commoners. They’re just so many interesting aspects of this book. I could probably go on forever talking about it!

Unfortunately I was not able to finish the ARC because of classes, but I made it to part 2 and could not stop thinking about. I can't wait to get my hands on the book and finally continue the story! It will probably end up being 5 stars for me but since I didn't finish the ARC in time I gave 4 stars.

This was absolutely stunning!
I loved the originality and the magic system with song and dance!
Highly recommend if you love epic fantasy.
Loved the different POVs and highly request a book just on Temi 😂
Thank you so much for this! This was so fresh 🫶

I read the arc, A Song of Legends Lost by M.H. Ayinde and I really enjoyed this fantasy. This is a debut epic fantasy without any sort of heavy romance in the book. That seems to be a rare thing these days. I loved the world building and this unique, ancestral magic system. Only those of noble blood are supposed to be able to summon the ancestors, but our FMC, Temi does it, and she is not noble. I should add, that Temi is one of a handful of main characters as we get five different POVs in this story. And, the only problem with this structure, is the amount of pages we are away from some of these characters. Temi was one of my favorites. This is a book about family, culture, class, divisions, identity and heritage. This is the first book in a series, I believe and I can't wait to read book two! I really enjoyed this story - I would just like to see the POVs distributed a little bit better as Temi was one of my favorites and I felt like we spent too little time with her in the second half of the book. But, outstanding debut that I gave 4.4 stars. Thank you to Net Galley and Saga Press #sagasayscrew for my arc! This book releases today, June 3, 2025. Go get it!

If you’re looking for beautifully dense world-building, look no further! A Song of Legends Lost is a multiple POV science fantasy, set in a world inspired by West African culture, and full of twisty plots and mysterious agendas.

I love a book that keeps me guessing and I still don’t know what’s going on in this world. Ayinde meters the information out at a perfect pace to keep interest high, and while much is revealed in this first installment, there is still much to discover.

Working with a larger cast of POV characters, the narrative does leave some storylines for an extended time while the plot is built in other areas, but you can see where things are starting to weave together. The characters are fascinating with a broad range of motivations and moral codes. Bonus points for being set in a queer-normative world. A strong debut, and I am very much looking forward to the next book!

*I received an advanced reader copy from the publisher and NetGalley and am voluntarily leaving my review*

🔥 SFF friends, this one’s for us. Within a few pages of A Song of Legends Lost, I had that moment- you know the one- where you sit up straighter and know you’re about to be transported. And wow, was I right.
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Set in the Nine Lands, where spirits, ancient tech, and magic collide, this story follows Temi- commoner who accidentally summons something far more powerful (and dangerous) than an ancestor.
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What follows is an epic unraveling of war, legend, power, and identity. It’s got the layered feel of classic fantasy, but with bold, refreshing influences from Yoruba and Filipino cultures, plus echoes of Black Panther in the worldbuilding.
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The POV structure is ambitious—five main characters, all flawed, complex, and impossible to pin down. You’re never quite sure who to root for, and that’s part of what makes it so gripping.
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There’s eerie tension, political maneuvering, deep family wounds, and the kind of battles that leave you breathless.
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Yes, the world is vast. Yes, it takes a few chapters to find your footing. But once you’re in, you’re in. It’s inclusive, thoughtful, and built with care and intention. It made my little fantasy heart sing. I’m already desperate for book two.
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If you love big worlds, morally gray characters, and a story that actually feels new, add this to your list immediately. Thank you to @sagapressbooks for the ARC! #sagasayscrew
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For fans of:
🏰 Epic fantasy
👯‍♀️ Multi POVs
⚔️ Crime families
🧠 Mental health rep
🐈 Mysterious cat
✨ Ancestor magic
🗡️ Cinematic battles
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#ASongOfLegendsLost #FantasyBookReview #EpicFantasyReads #BlackFantasyMatters #SFFBooks #BookstagramFantasy #FoundFamily #MoralGreyChaos #MultPOV #WorldbuildingGoals #FantasyRecs #YorubaFantasy #FilipinoMythology #BooksThatMatter #OwnVoicesFantasy #NewFantasy #FantasyWithDepth #AncientMagic #FierceFemales #BlackPantherVibes #SFFCommunity #booknerdsunite

Horizon Zero Dawn meets Hiroyuki Takei's Shaman King in M. H. Ayinde's spellbinding science fantasy epic; ancestral summoning, engrossing storytelling, and expansive world-building make this debut one you won't want to miss.

This debut is ambitious—centering around a rebellion, ancestral spirits, and the weight of legacy across multiple POVs. While I appreciated the scale and the thematic focus, I struggled with the emotional payoff.

The pacing was uneven. Some POVs clicked right away, but there were so many side characters that it was difficult to keep up with everyone without the included guide (thankfully included). Character growth often felt told, not shown, and the world, while conceptually strong, didn’t always feel fully realized on the page.

The ending picks up the pace and delivers the most tension and intrigue—though the cliffhanger relies on a relationship dynamic that didn’t sit well with me. Still, I’m curious to see where it goes. The ending reminded me a lot of season 2 of Arcane.

HAPPY PUB DAY!!! This epic fantasy was epically fantastic ( I'm sorry if that was too corny) but regardless I genuinely enjoyed reading this book and only succumbed to sleep so I wouldn't miss anything while fighting sleep. Although I didn't love being left on a cliff hanger at the end of almost every chapter, I did enjoy the many POVs as there were many people involved in this plot. Thank you so much for the opportunity to beat able to read this arc. I can hardly wait for the rest of the series to come out!

Ayinde’s excellent debut novel and first book in this African inspired epic science-fantasy series, The Invoker Trilogy. You’ll find a vast cast of diverse characters with five main POV’s, monsters, epic battle scenes, lost civilizations and complex world building. This book is based in the Nine Lands where people of noble blood can summon the spirits of their ancestors into battle to help fight off the monstrous grey bloods that come from the Fevered Lands.

I thought this was a fantastic and ambitious debut. The world building was lush, and I really enjoyed reading each POV. There are five 𝙢𝙖𝙞𝙣 characters but you also get to read the POVs of side characters as well. Ayinde did a wonderful job taking the thread from each character and weaving these stories together to make the story blend beautifully in the end. Reader be warned, the author does not hold the hands of the reader, the story relies on the reader to keep track of and maintain the various plot lines and characters. Looking forward to continuing this series.

Thank you @sagapress for this gifted ARC

This book somehow pulled off old school martial arts facing off against futuristic tech, but from the distant past. I felt the author did an incredible job building a unique, diverse world and pacing kept me interested the whole book!

A Song of Legends Lost is a debut epic fantasy novel from M.H. Ayinde. While I don’t read as much epic fantasy as I used to, I have read a couple short stories I really liked from Ayinde, including “The Invoker and Her Quartet” set in the same universe as A Song of Legends Lost, so I was excited to give this one a try.

A Song of Legends Lost takes place in a world that feels both pre-colonial and post-apocalyptic. The Nine Lands, spanning vast areas with geographic and cultural diversity but that’s non-European in its core, are led by noble families whose leaders can summon ancestors to fight their battles. And this ability is vital in a world full of technological detritus left by a society destroyed by its own creation. The Nine Lands are constantly assaulted by part-machine enemies seeking those remnants of the past, and it’s all the leaders can do to keep their borders secure. Against this backdrop, a pair of slum-dwellers receive strange powers, both gifts coupled with voices from the spirit world spurring them along new paths. The unfavored son of a noble house is personally challenged by one of the most terrifying of his people’s enemies. And a priest finds the remnants of a mission to uncover a powerful weapon that could turn the tide of the conflict.

A Song of the Legends Lost eschews the “throw the reader into the middle of a conflict and let them figure it out” style of storytelling, dedicating the entire first quarter of the book to just two perspective characters. Both immediately draw the reader’s sympathy for personal struggles—one with a family being oppressed by a more powerful one, one struggling to gain his people’s approval—that offer compelling reasons to keep reading independent of whether their subplots will factor in the larger epic. Of course, as in all good epics, those initial, small-scale plots do play a foundational role, but they work wonders for the pacing, keeping the book interesting from the get-go and avoiding the slow starts that often beset epic fantasies.

The plotlines and POV segments begin to open up in the second quarter of the book, but they don’t land quite as effectively as in the first part. There are a couple reasons for this, starting with the new perspective characters just not having hooks as intriguing as the first two. The introduction of weaker POVs coupled with the extended absence of one of the first two makes for a book that can sag in the middle.

But the ongoing quest by one of the two initial leads to neutralize a particularly powerful enemy also faces some narrative muddiness. To be sure, part of this is by design. A Song of Legends Lost has a propaganda storyline that makes it clear from the early stages that plenty of what is believed as ironclad fact is half-truth or not truth at all. So when allies or enemies behave strangely, it’s partially hinting at the true shape of the world underneath the layers of deceit. But there are other times that characters seem to oscillate back and forth even before any perspective change. The same enemy may be viewed alternately as a terrifying opponent capable of destroying whole cities or as an easy match for a small band of warriors. While it’s supposed to be hard to grasp exactly what the characters should believe, it makes it hard to grasp what the characters do believe, in a way that at least partially undercuts an otherwise intriguing propaganda subplot.

Questions about what to believe naturally lead to questions about who to trust, and for all the physical and magical fighting that occurs, this feels like the true driving conflict of the story. There are so many figures with strange powers and opaque motives that neither the characters nor the readers can easily determine which of them—if any—are working for the good. And this uncertainty can certainly create some drama from the reader’s perspective, though the other side of that coin is the loss of some agency from the characters involved. They have a tendency to be dragged around by powerful forces, and if the readers are unsure about which powerful forces to trust, it can be hard to truly invest in their success or failure. I’m sure this element will be a feature for some readers, but it will be a bug for others.

One of the trickiest parts of opening an epic fantasy is providing an ending that justifies the investment in the first book while also drumming up enough intrigue to keep the reader coming back for more. On this, A Song of Legends Lost is a mixed success. Some immediate problems are pretty thoroughly solved, but with so much unknown about the motives of the more powerful entities, it’s not always easy to say how satisfying those solutions should be. There are a couple very late revelations that serve to clarify a little bit while serving as sequel hooks, but I found only one of these truly hit hard—in the second case, there wasn’t enough connection to the involved parties for the revelation to have the desired impact.

On the whole, A Song of Legends Lost builds an interesting world with plenty of space for readers trying to puzzle out details of its history and the motivations of the many powerful secondary characters. But though it draws the reader quickly into the stories of a pair of compelling protagonists, the proliferation of those powerful secondary characters can rob the protagonists of some agency in the story that follows, and there’s some inconsistency in the quality of the perspective characters. Still, even with some inconsistency, it’s an intriguing opening to an epic fantasy with some flashes of excellence—certainly worth a look for fans of the subgenre.

Recommended if you like: multi-POV epics, non-Western worldbuilding, piecing together backgrounds and motivations of mysterious entities.

Overall rating: 14 of Tar Vol’s 20. Four stars on Goodreads.

I loved this book! I haven't read epic fantasy in a while, so there was a bit of a learning curve with this one, but I'm so happy I stuck with it.
You just kind of get thrown into the story. There isn't really any exposition or info dumps, you just need to figure out the world as you read. I would also say this book almost reads as a prequel, as it is setting up the world, characters, and plot. This is especially true for the first two parts of the novel. Things really start to pick up around part three, as we start getting answers to questions set up in the first two parts.
While I enjoyed all the different narrators, Jinao was really the only one I was able to connect to. I think this is because he is the only character that is present in each part of the novel. I liked the others, but wasn't able to learn as much about them since they were only present for a couple sections of the book. I did like all the narrators, but Runt did frustrate me quite a bit. I thought she was a well written character, I just didn't like the decisions she made.
I could not stop thinking about this book after I finished it and kind of wanted to reread it right after to catch what I missed the first time around. Can't wait for the sequel to come out!

Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for the advanced readers copy of A Song of Legends Lost.

I got to about 15% and I was just done. I think this is a book or someone who enjoys epic fantasy in the truest sense of the word. I am a selective epic fantasy reader. I felt as if I was drowning in this narrative. I saw the dramatis personae in the beginning of this book and almost cried. I was thoroughly confused. Not the book for me.

This is what epic fantasy needs to be these days. Intricately plotted storylines. Interconnecting plots that make the world feel so large and so small at the same time. A richly built world full of people from all walks of life. Intriguing magic. A world full of history that has been obscured and hidden. Mmmfff. So good.

If you love epic fantasy and want a world based in diverse mythology inspired by multiple pre-colonial cultures and complex magic and technology, you will sink your teeth into this one. There are quite a few POVs in this one, but I never felt lost as to whose POV we had as each voice feels so uniquely their own. Temi and Jinao are my favorite characters and POVs, but each character’s perspective brings something unique to the world and story. The story ideas and plot are a fresh dose of fun and tragedy in the world of epic fantasy that we need right now.

Oh and if you like cats there is a very unique one full of secrets in this one.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Thank you to @sagapressbooks and @netgalley for the eARC. All thoughts are my own.

In A Song of Legends Lost, M.H. Ayinde invites readers into the richly imagined Nine Lands, where ancestral spirits are summoned to battle, and the lines between magic and technology blur. This debut novel stands out for its intricate world-building, inspired by African cultures, and a narrative that intertwines themes of heritage, power, and identity.

The story unfolds through five distinct perspectives, each offering a unique lens into the societal hierarchies and personal struggles within the Nine Lands. From Temi, a commoner who unexpectedly invokes a powerful spirit, to Jinao, a noble grappling with familial expectations, the characters are deeply human, navigating a world where the past and present collide.

Ayinde's prose is both lyrical and precise, painting vivid scenes of kinetic battles and sacred rituals. The magic system, rooted in ancestral summoning, is refreshingly original, and the infusion of ancient technologies adds a layer of complexity that keeps readers engaged.
While the novel's expansive cast and shifting viewpoints may require attentive reading, the payoff is a multifaceted narrative that challenges and rewards in equal measure. The pacing is deliberate, allowing the story's mysteries to unfold organically, culminating in a climax that is both satisfying and tantalizingly open-ended.

For readers seeking an epic fantasy that defies convention and offers a tapestry of culture, conflict, and character, A Song of Legends Lost is a compelling choice. Ayinde's debut is a testament to the power of storytelling, promising an exciting continuation in the Invoker Trilogy.

I appreciate the publisher accepting my request to read this book however I just can’t get into it. It’s not bad but something just isn’t clicking for me. I constantly kept forgetting who was who and read pages without retaining anything. Orbit is my favorite publisher and I almost always love what I read but I couldn’t really get into this one.

dnf @ 47%

i thought i would really love this, but the pacing is dragging a little too much for me right now. there’s also A LOT of characters and while the world building is interesting, I’m not connecting to anything at all. so, I’m gonna put this one down for now unfortunately. I don’t think this is a bad book by any means, I just can’t tell if I’m not in the mood for it or if it’s actually not for me.