Reader's Review: "You Left Me No Choice" by Kelly Blanchard

Synopsis from Amazon:

Sometimes your best intentions can lead to a world being obliterated.

Once more, Lorrek observes events now only five hundred years in the past for the final clues as to how to defeat the Thymord Order.

Rilolean Warthron quit the Thymord Order after his brother died on a mission. Rilolean suspects the Order knows more than they admit, so he's conducting a secret investigation against them. However, to his surprise, the Order reaches out to him with one last mission: return to his homeworld and rescue a former teammate who ventured into the one land that no human has ever escaped from. Rilolean has a choice: does he help the Order he is convinced had a hand in his brother's death, or does he leave his friend to die in the world that Rilolean had hoped to one day save?
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My Review:

Can it get any better??

Ladies and gentlemen: LORREK'S WORLD HAS A NAME!! WE FINALLY KNOW THE NAME OF THIS VAST COLLECTION OF EPIC KINGDOMS!! I'm not going to tell you what it is, but I HAVE WAITED FIVE WHOLE BOOKS FOR THIS AND IT FEELS GOOD!

AHEM! On to the review.

Four whole books of questions and more questions and cool features with mysterious origins (like the handblades and the World Orbs... or even how the kingdoms got started) and finally we're getting some answers! Way back at the end of Book 3, Lorrek and Radella depart on a ship, on the run from the Thymord Order because of what Lorrek did just before disappearing again... and the last two books have been spent filling in backstory and setting up what promises to be an epic and most satisfying conclusion to a magnificent story!

Here's the thing: I've always used the most grandiose terms to describe all the books in this series. We started with a war between kingdoms that would rival the Battle of The Five Armies, and it just ramped up from there: a malevolent entity from back in some forgotten era resurfacing and laying waste to everything he sees... long-forgotten secrets and surprising connections in unexpected corners of the magic realm, where one small tug in the wrong direction would erase a person's entire existence... One has to wonder where else Blanchard can take this series that it hasn't been already!

But she delivers, every time--to the fullest extent. We're on Book 5 the fictional world is bigger than ever--it's a whole universe beyond the already-massive continent where the story originated! I feel like I'm actually reading recorded archives of a literal civilization, meticulously compiled over centuries by multiple persons...

But it's just one exceptionally gifted author who may have just "cracked" whatever sort of "code" there probably is for being able to produce finely-tuned masterpieces at a relatively steady rate. I am constantly in awe of what she is able to achieve, and I definitely want more!

You Left Me No Choice is stunning and poignant--it is set far back in the history long before Lorrek ever disappeared from Cuskelom, before him or his parents were even born, in the time of the Immortals: Dragons and kelliphs. It's by far the most traditionally-fantasy of the series, as this time period wasn't much for technology, relying on medieval-era machines and magic to get things done--but it's beautiful, and the references to things already hinted at over the course of the series, the explanations of how things came to be, or what really happened back then, is highly gratifying, to say the least!

I tend to get really spoiler-y when reviewing books in this series, so I'm going to try not to do that, but I will say this: if anything I've mentioned sounds remotely interesting, and you're in the market for some good sci-fi/fantasy... there isn't a whole lot that is better than The Chronicles of Lorrek!

Yet again, You Left Me No Choice scores top marks, earning a *****5 STAR***** rating for the way it moved through the plot, the way the characters responded and interacted naturally and not forced, the driving climax and the resolution that not only accomplished the goal of the story itself, but set up answers for questions we've had since Book 1--all in all a satisfying entry to an Upstream Writer Certified ABSOLUTELY RECOMMENDED series!! Definitely check out this series for yourself--and prepare to have your mind blown time and again!

Further Reading: (Epic Sci-fantasy/Addictive Series/Magnificent World-Building)

The Chronicles of Lorrek--Kelly Blanchard 
        -Someday I'll Be Redeemed 
        -I Still Have A Soul 
        -I'm Still Alive 
        -Do You Trust Me? 
        -The Truth Behind: A Short Story Collection 

Dawn of Steam Trilogy--Jeffrey Cook
      -First Light
      -Gods of The Sun 
      -Rising Suns

The Red Dog Conspiracy--Patricia Loofbourrow
       -The Alcatraz Coup 
       -Jacq of Spades
       -Queen of Diamonds 

The Therian Way--Kimberly Rogers
       -Leopard's Heart 
       -Wolf's Path 
       -Tiger's Shadow

The PSS Chronicles--Ripley Patton
       -Ghost Hand 
       -Ghost Hold 
       -Ghost Heart 
       -Ghost Hope

The Grave Reports--R. R. Virdi
        -Grave Beginnings 
        -Grave Measures 
        -Grave Dealings 

The Vemreaux Trilogy--Mary E. Twomey 
       -The Way 
       -The Truth 
       -The Lie 

The Jill Andersen Series--J. D. Cunegan
       -Bounty 
       -Blood Ties 
       -Behind the Badge