TL;DR: A particularly hard hitting volume in a fantastic series.
Source: NetGalley, thank you so much!
Plot: This takes place on Chih’s first journey out to collect stories where they are working in a seaside town being swarmed with refugees.
Characters: We get to see a different, much less confident Chih here which was different and really leant to us learning more about what makes them who they are.
Setting: A lovely seaside town. I liked the culture we got to see pieces of.
Fantasy: The magic was light here. It’s definitely a fantastical world, but less of the magic or magical creatures.
Summary:
Every story begins somewhere.
On the banks of the Ya-lé River, the town of Luntien gathers to celebrate the start of the rainy season, but the celebration is marred by the arrival of refugees from the sea. Everyone has a story about the foreigners newly in their midst—lazy, violent, unwanted—while the refugees themselves grieve the loss of the home they loved.
Cleric Chih, very recently still Novice Chih, is also a stranger in Luntien. A moment of carelessness and bad luck leaves them waiting tables as they struggle to establish themself as a real cleric. A cleric’s job is to listen and record, but the stories emerging in Luntien are ugly and violent, as hard to predict as the river itself. With their hoopoe companion Almost Brilliant by their side, Chih must help the refugees while also unraveling a mystery that may have roots in their own faraway home in the abbey of Singing Hills.
In the seventh entry of the award-winning Singing Hills series, we meet Chih and Almost Brilliant just beginning their journey together as Chih assumes their place on the road and in the world.
Thoughts:
The stories in the Singing Hills Cycle are always a favorite for me. I love the setting, I love Cleric Chih, and I love what we take from these tales. In this one we go back in time and see our Cleric on their first expedition out of the monastery. They’re working in a restaurant in a seaside town that is dealing with an influx of refugees. So while the Cleric works, and struggles with their first steps they’re also watching people and their treatment of those they see as other.
This one feels very topical for the moment, but I think it’s going to keep it’s impact even past now. It’s a human thing, struggling with seeing others as human. And you see Chih as they watch this happen but even still fully lack the words to understand what’s happening. Chich themselves are trying to figure out who they are and how they’re going to manage what they’re doing. It’s a heavier and somewhat darker Singing Hills book than we’ve had in a minute but I loved it.
This one is a fantastic continuation and I loved the look at young Chih that we got. I’ll always recommend and loves these books, this one is no exception.
Sarah Evermotion's Reads 
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