If a book starts with someone enraged by an interrupted meal of plantain, I automatically assume it's bound to be outstanding. That is how A Song of Legends Lost starts, and I was absolutely spot on with my assumption. 

This was a 5, all the stars epic, mind bending, tale that had me stunned, hooked, and yearning for more. It starts with a sumptuous breakfast being interrupted, but it winds its way to an ending that left me gobsmacked.  

M.Y. Ayinde has changed things with this book, and I am ecstatic I am here to read it all. 

Yes, for the initial anger with the plantains but immediately after that we get a sense of what exactly this world, one of lost technology, which keeps showing up unexpectedly, monsters, and ancestral magic, is all about. (Or so we think!) This combination keeps you on your toes, wondering how it all fits together. As you read, you learn the history of a lost species, and their technology, which is now forbidden. And then there is this special bond with the ancestors that only certain highbloods may access? While the monsters? Are they monsters? You ponder this for a long time. Actually, you ponder a lot of things as the story flows along. The author keeps up this intriguing foreshadowing, making your brain question everything. It is the BEST!

The story unfolds in a pre-colonial world, rich with tribal traditions and influences, while it follows five different viewpoints. A young baker in a poor neighborhood, a general’s son who cannot achieve anything in life, a captain who has lost the love of her life, a priest who you clearly cannot trust, and an unnamed young woman who washes dishes trying to keep her brother alive. They give us the true width and breadth of this world. Through their eyes, we see the power of politics and religion. We also see that history is what we are told, not necessarily what actually happened.

The mysteries in this epic Sci-Fi Fantasy pulled at me. Honestly, I am still turning them over in my mind. This is one of those books, well series really, which will stay with me. Entombed in my brain and will randomly come up in many conversations of mine. I mean it has already started lol! 

This one was written for those of us who love grandiose tales. Those whose imaginations defy limitations and whose capacity for lore and world building is endless. A Song of Legends Lost is a thick, absorbing read, one that I hope reaches into the hands of true SFF lovers or even better into the hands of those who, through it, discover how spectacular a SFF read can be. 

Loved this book... I cannot wait to see the rest of it unfold.