Review: The Ale Boy's Feast

The king is missing.

His people are trapped as the woods turn deadly.
Underground, the boy called Rescue has found an escape.

Hopes are failing across The Expanse. The forests, once beautiful, are now haunted and bloodthirsty. House Abascar's persecuted people risk their lives to journey through those predatory trees. They seek a mythic city - Abascar's last, best hope for refuge - where they might find the source of Auralia's colors.

They journey without their king. During a calamitous attempt to rescue some of his subjects from slavery, Cal-raven vanished.

But his helper, the ale boy, falling through a crack in the earth, has discovered a slender thread of hope in the dark. He will dare to lead a desperate company up the secret river.

Meanwhile, with a dragon's help, the wandering mage Scharr ben Fray is uncovering history's biggest lie - a deception that only a miracle can repair.

Time is running out for all those entangled in The Auralia Thread. But hope and miracles flicker wherever Auralia’s colors are found. [From the back cover]

Everything has led up to this point.  The ultimate struggle to establish New Abascar will succeed or it will fail, but not without exacting a heavy price.

And yet, there is something missing.  What of the Keeper?  Cal-raven has lost his inspiration, his vision, and as the real saga of Tammos Raak is unveiled, the faith of the king is ready to fall.

Friends will become enemies.  Enemies will become reconciled.  And when the Ale Boy's feast of New Abascar comes, all is changed, and the world teeters on the edge of destruction...and the ale boy prepares to change history.

The Ale Boy's Feast is a fantastic, heartrending journey across The Expanse, from the depths to the heights.

In The Ale Boy's Feast, Overstreet attempts to show the glory of creation, and the Maker it reflects.  Through The Ale Boy's Feast, I glimpsed the world beyond the Expanse of fantastic colors and threads.

Overstreet's writing, like always, is darkly poetic and colorful, his characters complicated.  He weaves a strong tapestry of fear, hope, and all of the colors of the Expanse in the final installment of the Auralia thread.  Every thread converges into a climactic ending, satisfying, yet leaving you thirsting for more.

Some questions seem like they will never be answered.  But the places they point to are greater than you can imagine.  Like Krawg said, "Questions are the life of the story."

And I have to agree with him there.  Highly recommended.  Rated 9.2 out of 10 stars.

If you wouldn't mind taking a quick second, you can rate my review here.

Go ye therefore, and read this book.

(This book was provided for me by Waterbrook Multnomah Publishing in exchange for an honest review.)