The carnival of ash by Tom Beckerlegge

This is my stop on tour with The Write Reads for Tom Beckerlegge’s book, The Carnival of Ash. This book my dear readers is one that defied my expectations. Why? Well lets start with the blurb.

Cadenza is a city of Words, where its rulers are poets, writers and its whole philosophy is ruled by literature. That if you aren’t a writer of some sort you are nothing in the city. Libraries are its heart and the Printing Quarter is the place that makes the dreams of its citizens come true.

With that blurb in mind you feel a sense of romanticism. That the story within will be filled with sonnets and wave after wave of literary beauty. However, this novel is far from the romantic notion of sweet poetry. The story is seeped in political unrest, with its residents, our characters fighting for understanding of their own predicaments. There are moments of macabre events that detail the disturbing underbelly of the city of Cadenza and tells us just how power can corrupt an individual into believing that they are mighty powerful. But in Cadenza’s side alleys and backstreets a revolution is brewing.

This though is a piece of beautiful literature, just not in the way you expect. The writing is a literary feast and the story itself is split into twelve canto’s. Each focuses on a character and what they themselves are struggling with. We have an aspiring poet who is unfortunate. An Ink Maid, (a woman who is paid to write solicitous letters to clients) who’s past comes to haunt her. A scholar who is in search of a fabled collection of books. A monk who uncovers a disturbing murder. Kidnappers who ransom doesn’t quite work out, and in the end the city itself turns itself upside down. These are just a few of the stories that grace these pages.

As mentioned there are some devilishly disturbing scenes, ones that depict torture and murder, but that doesn’t spoil the overall story. They are there for the reader to understand just what the city is and how the residents interact. Even though there are twelve separate stories and voices they all come together with characters from each canto appearing in one another’s.

I enjoyed being immersed in Cadenza and all its literary beauty. This is a book you should manage in a few sittings as it’s a tomb of a read and the language can feel as though it had been written centuries ago. But don’t let that put you off. Give it a go, you won’t be disappointed.