Among the Burning Flowers (The Roots of Chaos, #0.2)
About the book
Author: Samantha Shannon
Publisher: Bloomsbury
More info:
The StoryGraph | Goodreads
Note: Content and trigger warnings are provided for those who need them at the bottom of this page. If you don’t need them and don’t want to risk spoilers, don’t scroll past the review.
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My review
Samantha Shannon says that you can start with any of the Roots of Chaos books as an entry into the series — The Priory of the Orange Tree, A Day of Fallen Night, or now this one, Among the Burning Flowers. Having read all three (in that order), I concur, but that wording is intentional. You can certainly start with any of these, but that doesn’t make all of them standalones. You should know that Flowers is a true prequel for Priory, taking place only a few years before and setting a lot of things up without resolving any of them.
That said, it’s a very good prequel, and now I feel like I need to reread Priory because I think the events of Flowers would have hit harder if I’d remembered the details a bit better. But still, I will never say no to the chance to bathe in the storytelling voice, worldbuilding, and nuance that is Shannon’s Roots of Chaos universe.
Now to decide if I’m going to actually reread Priory…
Content and trigger warnings
Confinement
Death of a parent
Torture