The Woven Ring

Sol's Harvest #1

by M.D. Presley

A fantasy reimagining of the American Civil War, The Woven Ring pits muskets against magic, massive war machines against mind readers, and glass sabers against soldiers in psychic exoskeletons.

In exile since the civil war that tore the nation of Newfield apart, former spy and turncoat Marta Childress wants nothing more than to quietly live out her remaining days in the West. But then her manipulative brother arrives with one final mission: Transport the daughter of a hated inventor deep into the East. Forced to decide between safely delivering the girl and assassinating the inventor, Marta is torn between ensuring the fragile peace and sparking a second civil war.

Aided by an untrustworthy Dobra and his mysterious mute companion, Marta soon discovers that dark forces, human and perhaps the devil herself, seek to end her quest into the East.

Genres: Fantasy, Fiction, War, Historical Fiction, Historical, Historical Fantasy, Military Fiction

272 pages, Kindle Edition

Published July 10, 2016

About the author

Never passing up the opportunity to speak about himself in the third person, M.D. Presley is not nearly as clever as he thinks he is. Born and raised in Texas, he spent several years on the East Coast and now waits for the West Coast to shake him loose. His favorite words include defenestrate, callipygian, and Algonquin. The fact that monosyllabic is such a long word keeps him up at night.

And no, he's not related to Elvis. Thanks for asking though.

Reviews

[Mihir · Rating 5 out of 5]

Full review over at Fantasy Book Critic

OVERVIEW/ANALYSIS: The Woven Ring is M. D. Presley's debut book and a glorious introduction to the world of Soltera. This title is another one that I was lucky enough to be graced with in this year’s SPFBO. This book was one that stood out to my mind based on its blurb and the fact that it was a fantasy reimagining of the American civil war in a secondary fantasy world. I dove in with a lot of expectations and was rewarded immensely. It was an easy semifinalist pick along with The Songweaver's Vow.

The story begins in two timelines in the world of Soltera. The first track starts nineteen years ago as we meet Marta our protagonist a six year old girl who faces a terrible situation. The first line of the book sets up the scene wonderfully “Marta was mad. Carmichael had lied to her. Again!” While this line & scene might not seem particularly vicious, we soon learn what truly has happened and how much of a twat Carmichael is. The second timeline opens up nearly nineteen years later, Marta is no longer a fresh-eyed girl. She’s a veteran of the civil war that has shaken their nation and left her scarred emotionally & physically. She however is tasked by her elder sibling Carmichael to hunt down a person whom she hates more than her brother. Thus begin the two timelines as we see Marta’s painful evolution into the person that we meet in the second timeline.

Very few titles capture the reader’s interest by offering more than one surprise. This debut book not only has spectacular world building but it also manages dual storylines very coherently. Let’s talk about what captivated me so strongly about this book. Talking about the world & magic system mentioned within. I have to note when it comes to books that have spectacular world-building, often times the book’s plot and characters aren’t quite that up to the mark. On the flip side, often when characters/plot are focused upon then the world-building might conversely suffer. It’s rare for a book to ace both factors, fewer books especially debuts do these things so smoothly. A few examples who fall into this unique category are:

- Scott Lynch’s The Lies Of Locke Lamora,

- Mark Lawrence’s Prince Of Thorns,

- Anthony Ryan's Blood Song

All of these debuts won readers over and have created legacies that most debut authors would love to emulate. With this title by MD Presley, I believe we have another debut which while different from the aforementioned titles, will set its own path. The author has to be lauded for creating a world that while mirroring the American civil war but creates its own legacy. Let’s talk about the world, what the author has so wonderfully done is that while he doesn’t focus on the slavery angle, he builds up a religious conflict which is centered on a magic system. The magic system while being simplistic is quite fascinating. The author builds upon the concept of breath which plants have one (body), animals have two (body, mind) & humans have three (body, mind, soul). With some human beings have four and depending on the location of the fourth breath. The magic users could be classified as a:

- Shaper (body)

- Listener (mind)

- Whisperer (mind)

- Render (soul)

- Weaver (soul)

The conflict that builds up in the nation of Newfield is due to the theological & philosophical clash that occurs between Renders & Weavers and the eastern and western halves of the nation of Newfield. I loved how the author made this an eastern vs western one (holding a mirror but yet changing events a bit). There’s also the Pseudo-European lands called the Auld lands from whose descendants the nation of Newfield is founded by. There’s also the Myna nations and Ingios territories who are similes’ foe the Native American tribes. I loved how the author managed to weave the travails of the land with the religio-political squabbles that cause all the tension within the story. The author also manages to showcase the science within the story by making the magic system logical and making it a tad boring. What I mean by this is that the magic in this story isn’t the unknown arcane power. It is studied, and harnessed. There are vehicles which are utilized by tapping into the Ley lines of the land. There are ways of communication invented. All of this following the magic system and the powers that can be. All of this is very logically presented & from a world-building perspective is just so damned fine to read.

There’s also characters and this is where I want to talk about Marta. The Marta we meet in the past and the Marta we see in the present timeline are two completely different people. The beauty of the story and the author’s writing is we get to see her first see as a bright & energetic six year old but who then slowly transforms into the twenty five year old, scarred veteran that we meet immediately in the start of the story. While much of the plot is narrated from Marta’s POV, we do get a few POVs from other characters but majorly it’s Marta who shows us the world. I also want to highlight the fact that she’s clearly an anti-hero but perhaps by showing how she became that way, the readers will be able to sympathize with her actions and understand her way of thinking. Like I mentioned previously Marta was a character whom I both admired & disliked. I look forward to what reactions she creates among other readers. There’s also the other characters we meet via Marta, and like Anthony Ryan’s Blood Song, we seem them as flesh & blood ones with dreams, plans & aspirations of their own. I very much enjoyed the greyness of most characters as they are caught in this conflict which makes everyone a puppet of other folks. Not to say that there aren’t villainous characters, there are but the true fun is reading morally ambiguous folks who are defined by their circumstances rather than personal choices.

The mythology of the land, plus the presence of certain magical creatures is very well ensconced within the story and doesn’t feel like an infodump and this was truly an outstanding feature. Because in a world this rich, it might be all too easy to have characters go on soliloquys explaining different facets of the world, religion, etc. Credit to the author he explains a lot without making it all too complex or boring. For a cartophile like me, there’s also three maps provided which further enriched my read.

Lastly I can think of only two drawback in this story, firstly we truly never get a viewpoint into Carmichael Childress and this was disappointing. One of the major conflicts of the story is this sibling rivalry between Marta & Carmichael and to never get a different side to it was slightly off putting. But since this only volume one of the entire story I’m willing to wait and see how the story unfolds. There’s also the plot pace which is a bit slow in the start of both story lines however within the first two-three chapters of each timepoint it picks up rapidly and from that point onwards, it just surges forward slowly and surely building up to a dual climax in the past and present. For some readers though this might not be the pace they are used to expect.

CONCLUSION: The Woven Ring is an understated effort however it’s not an underwhelming one. M. D. Presley has given the readers a story that touches the elegant writings of Mark Lawrence in creating wholly realized, unlikeable anti-heroes whom you cannot ignore. Plus the scale & depth of world-building is definitely on par with some of Brandon Sanderson’s finest efforts. All of this is a debut which heralds a rich future for Matt D. Presley and I for one will have a very, very hard time in deciding who will be our ultimate finalist based on all the four semifinalist selected so far.

[Lukasz · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was planning to read this book some time ago but decided to wait after the author mentioned on his social media he was planning to change the cover. I enjoy good covers. I buy with my eyes and the cover on the first edition was, to put it mildly, uninspiring. The new one, on the other hand, looks great. I think it would stand a chance in already finished best SPFBO cover contest, had it been released earlier. It seems there was a reason behind the cover choice and change, as you can read in an interesting blog post by M.D. Presley.

Even most stunning cover won’t make up for mediocre content. The Woven Ring has few reviews and I wasn’t sure what to expect. The synopsis sounds interesting – it suggests The Woven Ring will offer something else then gazillion of stories happening in pseudo-medieval Europe settings. Civil War is a tough subject but also the one that gives a lot of space for creativity and drama.
After finishing the book, I feel satisfied with the story, plot, and characters. I want more. Waiting for sequels sucks.

The world of Ayr is an exciting place permeated with the Breath of Sol (their God). Literally. The glowing Breaths float in the night and can be caught in a glass and used to illuminate a house (although you need to free them before Dawn, otherwise you may be sentenced to death). Ayrians’ faith is based on the conviction that Sol split himself into countless pieces of Breath that animate the living world. Humans usually have three breaths but some of them, so-called Blessed, have a fourth Breath that gives them all kinds of fancy powers. Here’s an excerpt from the book explaining it and showing book POV discover she’s one of the Blessed:

There were the usual three all humans were born with, one in the centre of the chest representing the Body, the second in the middle of the forehead for the Mind, and the third at the crown of the head signifying the Soul. But in that moment of clarity, Marta could feel a fourth Breath nestled deep in her chest next to the Body. Were she not so angry, she might have been surprised to find it, to feel it thrumming with its own frequency. It had a resonance, a musical identity all its own that only she could hear.

Being Blessed is a huge thing. Some people inquire after it, try to breed Blessed, but it seems there’s no principle to follow. It’s as if Blessed appear randomly. On the other hand, Childress clan seems more successful in breeding Blessed than other families. The book protagonist – Marta belongs to Childress clan. She is a Shaper – she can fashion Phantom Blade, Rabbit Legs, Armor and other deadly appendages with her Breath. Shapers are quite powerful, but Weavers and Renders are even more dangerous.

The sides of Civil War are divided by religion and politics (not uncommon in the real world).
When we meet Marta she is a ruined, battle-hardened beauty who drinks too much and is fueled by anger. The story is told almost exclusively from her POV. It happens in two timelines. One occurs after the war and follows Marta’s mission to bring little girl Caddie to her father. Father Marta plans to kill. The other one happens in the past and shows us why Marta has become who she is now. Her story isn’t uplifting, and some of the things she went through were devastating. We learn about them as we go, and personally, I enjoy this type of narration. It keeps me interested and engaged while the answers to questions I have are slowly revealed.

Apart from Marta, characters that count are her brother Carmichael that I’ll allow Marta to characterise: She felt like a chess piece moved against her will. She had thought herself safe as a queen, only to realize too late she was again her brother’s pawn./ You really don’t want to stand in his way unless you want your life turned into a misery.

Marta is helped by two “freebooters” – Luca who’s addicted to to the feel of exquisite torture of teetering between success and failure and Isobell who remains a bit of mystery throughout the book.

There’s also Caddie – a girl that’s escorted by Marta and freebooters. Some things are hinted, and we can only guess that Caddie is much more than she appears. I hope we’ll discover this in the sequel.

I think that pacing of the story is excellent as we continuously learn new things about both Marta’s mission and her past in the Traitors Brigade of Shapers. Intertwining storylines keep the plot fresh and make it difficult to put the book down. Apart from malevolent humans, there are all kinds of monsters: Ghouls, Emets, Glassman and the scenes featuring them were remarkably well written. I especially enjoyed a scene with glowing Ghouls on spider legs. It was both creepy as hell and visually suggestive.

World building is meticulous and in-depth, but there’s not much of info-dumping. We learn about the world as we follow Marta through it. The plotting is well done, and there’s quite a lot of twists.
It’s not an uplifting book, and some of the scenes are terrifying. Marta’s story is sad and tragic. There’s not much humour in the book to balance things a bit. And yet I enjoyed it a lot. A rare thing indeed.

I root strongly for Marta. I’m sure some readers won’t enjoy this unlikely protagonist with all her rage, occasional self-loathing and anger management issues but I find her complex and believable. It’s possible some readers will perceive her as one-dimensional as she intends to finish someone (sometimes slowly, sometimes quickly all the time) but there’s much more to her than that. She may have darkness in her, but there is some light as well, no matter how she tries and hides it. I care about her M.D.Presley. Don't you dare kill her at the end of the series or else I’ll find you. And bad things will happen.

I think The Woven Ring is well written, intelligent book with an exciting and unusual setting, excellent pacing and just the right amount of drama.

I want a sequel, especially after reading sample chapter that suggests we’ll get more Luca POV in the sequel called The Imbued Blade. I’m not sure when it’ll hit the shelves, but once it does, I’ll grab a copy.

[Esme · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked this one up on a reddit thread, where someone posted asking for authors of indie books with a small number of reviews to post their work. I picked up 22 on that thread, and this will be #9 that I've finished.

I didn't know anything about it going in, and I was pleasantly surprised by the book, there was a lot I liked about it.

Characters:

* Marta: Born to an affluent family that guards secrets about the use of magic in their world, she's one of 3 siblings, the middle child. She's our main POV, and although there are a few instances where the POV jumps from Marta to someone else, 95% of the book is through Martas POV. She's been battle hardened and isn't squeamish about killing people, in fact she considers killing them quickly a mercy - for people she doesn't like she kills them slowly. She's known as a Shaper and can use Breath to form solid objects.

* Carmichael: Marta's older brother, who has been nothing but a douche bag to her since their childhood. He's a Whisperer, and can use his Breath to affect other peoples minds.

*Isabella/Lucas - "Freebooters" who team up with Marta about halfway through the book

* Caddie: a young girl who's been traumatized, and Marta is on a mission to return her to her father - and maybe kill the father too, who knows.

Plot:

There's a lot going on here in the plot, it's a civil war kind of book with the East and West at odds over their faith. The faith of Sol is a huge part of the book, and a big part of the lives of these people. They believe that their god split himself into billions of pieces of Breath that gave life to everything on Ayr (they're world). Plants have 1 Breath, animals have 2 Breaths, and humans have 3 Breaths. If you have a fourth Breath you're known as Blessed, and you can perform different magical abilities depending on where your fourth Breath resides in your body. The standards are chest, forehead, and crown of the head representing the Body, Mind and Soul.

The magic system is somewhat complicated to try and type it all out for a review, but suffice to say that there are Renders and Weavers, and they disagree on what blasphemy is and isn't. Weavers can create "festations" which are mindless slaves that serve until death, and the Renders find that to be against the will of Sol.

Marta served in the Grand War when these two factions clashed, and it didn't go well for her. Through the book we get two parts of the story, the present and the past. Each chapter goes back and forth from past to present filling, with the middle being revealed as we go along.

Pacing:

It was pretty fast paced, between the action going on in the past with the Grand War, and Marta's new mission in the present, we get to see a ton of monsters of all sorts. Glassmen are definitely some of the creepiest.

Tone:

I don't want to say it was bleak, but it wasn't uplifting either. Instead of "adventure" I would say this is more of a stealth/spy tension kind of tone. Martas family is a family full of spies and deceitful people trying to win a war, there isn't much levity and there's not much in the way of comic relief. It wasn't overly bleak though, it wasn't like the end of the world and everything is horrifying, it's just that the main characters story is more of a tragic one. When we see the beginning that Marta was a very different person, and seeing what's happened to her over the years to change her into what she is now is rather sad.

World Building:

There was extensive world building in this book, we get 3 maps - one with a zoomed out view of the whole world, and a zoomed in version of East and West, there are tons of cities, towns, and different ecosystems throughout this world. There's different cultures, traditions, magic uses, histories and politics. There was a bit of info dumping, but it wasn't too bad, most of it was drip fed so you don't get overwhelmed.


Audience:

*People who prefer single POV
*People who really like battles/fights
*People who like a ton of magic in the world
*People looking for a female protag
*People looking for 'something different'
*People who don't like time hopping may get annoyed

http://weatherwaxreport.blog

[Petros Triantafyllou]

Mihir is one of the few people who can convince me to read a book, and he recommended this one like there's no tomorrow.

[Richard Nell · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked this up as a random freebie, and just kind of slotted it into the TBR pile. I've now devoured it in the last day, mostly because it could very well win SPFBO and become 'cool'. Well, take that other guys, I read it first!

Tl;dr

Hugely imaginative, great world building. If you're a high-fantasy lover who's looking to get lost in the details of a magic-system and how it affects the fictional world, this is the book for you. And that's coming from a guy who much prefers low-fantasy. Easy recommend.

Main Review

This is a unique story. You get exactly what the book description promises: a kind of re-imagined, fantasy version of the American civil war. Presley has likely wisely stripped out the slavery aspect, so it's more of a war over culture and theology. And I'm not American so some of this is lost on me, but I also suspect civil-war/American history buffs will find additional treats in the names/places/battles.

On the negative side, I didn't feel particularly attached to the protagonist Marta (who is at least 90% of the pov), and because of the jumps back and forth through time there's a certain feeling of inevitability. The story of Marta the child is a tragic one, and the story of Marta the woman is not about character development, so the past sections can feel more like exposition than experience.

On a more neutral note, the writing style does its job and is not intrusive, though with the occasional oddity. There's some info dumping, and some pretty obvious string pulling, but I found these to be small flaws and not barriers to enjoying the book.

Ultimately - I rarely read high fantasy, I'm not particularly interested in American history, and I enjoyed this book anyway. That says something. A great debut from a young author, and a perfect demonstration of why indie publishing is awesome.

[Adam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fighting for your ideals is a noble cause, an honorable path in which to dedicate your life. But what if those ideals are corrupted, and everything you know and love is ripped away from you--what would you become? M.D. Presley attempts to answer these questions in the remarkable The Woven Ring, book one of the planned four-volume “Sol’s Harvest” tetralogy. This book is an achievement that excels in so many levels, yet is still greater than the sum of its parts. Presley has created a vivid world that has been shattered by civil war, yet pulses with life through its fine cast of characters and a rich system of magical Breath abilities. It is elegantly written, with a poetic cadence that rewards multiple passage readings. And it is a brilliant start to a series that paints a heartbreaking, yet endearing portrait of a woman who has lost everything, but will never stop fighting.

Marta Childress was born a high society noble, daughter of the leader of this continent’s Cildra clan. This secretive clan is a spy network of men and women gifted in the art of espionage and information gathering, and they hold great political sway. The clan was part of the Eastern alliance, known as the Covenant, who declared its independence from the Western territories due to the Covenant’s views on using their rare Breath ability to manifest phantom golems that handle their labor. The Westerners believe that the use of Sol’s gift of Breath manipulation is heresy, and deploy Reavers to cut out the Breath of those who mishandle these Blessed abilities. Tensions soon escalate, and a civil war, the Grand War, arises to kills untold thousands over several years of fighting. Eventually, the Westerners win the war due to a technological invention that shatters the Covenant into submission.

We follow Marta across two separate timelines that alternate at the end of each chapter. The present-day Marta is a broken woman: emotionally and physically scarred, unable to look herself in the eye in a mirror, numbing herself to life with alcohol and physical labor. She hides her identity and is on the run from her past, yet we do not know why. She is soon given a mission, sent by her hated brother Carmichael, to find and escort a girl across the country to reunite with her father. This father happens to be the man who invented the technology that decimated the Covenant, including Marta’s hometown and fellow Cidra clan members. Marta is simultaneously given secret orders by her own father that contradict Carmichael’s instructions, and must decide whether to choose duty over vengeance, or family over revenge.

We also spend time with the Marta of the past, learning how she discovered her Shaper powers, her years in training, her involvement in espionage, and eventually her tragic years fighting in the Grand War. We witness the breaking of Marta over time, witness to her life slowly disintegrating as she discovers that she is only a pawn in the bigger game of war and politics. Nevertheless, she persisted. It is heartbreaking to take this journey with Marta, who fights so hard to help her people be free.

If this sounds like a lot of information, you are correct. I’ve barely explained the various Breath abilities: Marta is gifted with the ability that allows her to Shape, or manifest her Breath into armor, or a phantom blade, or a lock pick, or even powerful, jumping rabbit legs. Listeners are gifted with hearing echoes of thoughts from people nearby who don’t protect their Mind. Whisperers can incept ideas in others’ heads; Renders can pull Breath from the Blessed out of their bodies, and sever their life force using glass weaponry; Weavers can pool Breaths to create and control ethereal automatons to utilize for work or combat. There is a detailed history brimming with stories on how Breath is the life force that gathers within all living things, and their Breaths are balls of light that return to the earth after death, joining rivers of ley before inhabiting life anew. There are ancient emets, phantom beasts that are either benign, malevolent, or indifferent that are worshipped by towns for generations. There are glassmen, creatures of such evil power and malcontent that are near impossible to kill. There are tribes of Native American-like Ingios, there are tech-savvy Tinkers, there are Gypsy-like nomads called Dobra that run a communication network across the lines of ley. And nearly all of this is introduced or alluded to in the first few chapters of the story.

The learning curve felt steep towards the beginning of the book, as I found myself highlighting a great many passages and scribbling notes while so many new ideas were introduced. Each passage felt like they were of great importance, and they were: much of what we learn early in the story is applicable to the rest of the book. Once I progressed past the 20% mark, I had absorbed which areas were siding with whom, which people had what abilities, and so forth. In fact, I didn’t mind the massive information dump; indeed, it was one of Presley’s biggest strengths in his writing: Presley not only spends time explaining the “what” of these new topics, but ensures that the reader understands the “how” and the “why” as well. It would have been easy to gloss over some of the bigger concepts that were introduced, but instead Presley applies some of these concepts into real-world scenarios, giving these concepts depth and consequence. I greatly appreciated how well-developed his ideas were, as these examples helped strengthen the concept that these new ideas carried weight and a sense of realism. As more and more concepts were introduced, the book dedicated extra time to hashing out the implications of these themes in vivid detail, which elevated the world-building into rare territory.

There is so much more than even what’s mentioned above, and therein lies perhaps the book’s greatest asset: it is continuously rewarding with each new chapter and revelation. While Marta’s story is a sad one, it is also fulfilling, fascinating, and incredibly compelling. I cared for Marta’s journey, both past and present. I warily attached myself to her companions over time, but was careful not to trust them any further than Marta did. I caught my breath during the scenes of battle, felt sorrow during loss, and felt hope as her mission edged closer towards something that resembled progress.

I don’t know where this story is going, but I will certainly be along for the ride. The Woven Ring is one of the most thought-provoking and overall favorite reads of the year.
8.7 / 10

[The Nerd Book Review · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have an author interview up on the podcast The Nerd Book Review
Since this book is still in the SPFBO 2017 I’m going to give a more thorough review on here than I normally would for a book that I will have on the Pod.

I really enjoyed this book. I stayed up late two nights reading this book even though I had to be up early and knew I’d be tired if I did. Any book that I stay up late for is a 5 Star in my opinion. Presley took a chance here by creating a world based so closely on our own and basing his book pretty closely on the American Civil War. There are quite a few important characters who seemed fairly obviously, to a history major anyhoo, based on historical characters from the Civil War. This could have been a crutch used to write a derivative work that couldn’t stand on its own. Instead it was merely the framework he used to build a great story that simply used the Civil War as an anchor point enabling me to stay within the story the entire time I read the book. Even if I didn’t know exactly where something was happening it wasn’t a big deal because I had a sort of mental image from real life.
Oh yeah and there’s magic! And a pretty easy to understand magic that is integral to life even for non magic users in a way I haven’t seen used before in a fantasy series. I won’t get too far into it because I prefer mostly spoiler free reviews but I found it to be a strength of the book.
The book features a female protagonist named Marta who hails from an old aristocratic family who breeds specifically to produce children who have the ability to be “blessed” with the ability to use magic. For someone who had a privileged childhood hers is a tragic story that shows how war can destroy lives.
The Great War that she will participate in will leave her a shell of her former self as the book begins.

Presley employs a split story strategy by alternating between present day and the past as Marta grows from childhood to her war time experiences. The present thread is a Western Fantasy.

The war is fought over differing religious views instead of slavery, although there’s an element of a type of slavery in the differences between the two religious factions. Neither side in the conflict is really bad or good and I viewed this as a good thing in this book. Unless you are a fan of slavery it’s pretty hard to think the Confederacy was the good guys in our Civil War(if you try to say it was states rights not slavery that was the catalyst of the Civil War you’ve never read the Confederate version of the Declaration of Independence which explicitly states the right to own slavery as their primary reason for secession).
In summary
1. Cool magic system
2. Easy to follow story based on, but not just an imitation of the Civil War
3. A Western that feels like a fantasy book.
4. Presley is a screenwriter and it shows in the fast moving plot and tight storyline but it feels like a novel not a screenplay.

Now I’d really love it if you’d still listen to my upcoming author interview as we talk about this book but I recommend this book to anyone who likes a grim realistic view on the damage that war causes to the human psyche as well as a book that has a nice tight storyline without a ton of unnecessary flowery language and a cool magic system.

[Wol · Rating 4 out of 5]

Characters

Marta – A member of the wealthy Childress family, and our main PoV character. She is a part of the Cildra clan, who are secretive about their magical abilities and guard them closely. The children of her family are encouraged by her ambitious father to be highly competitive and to believe that affection is weakness.

Carmichael – Marta’s older brother and, to put it delicately, a gigantic dick. He cares little for his siblings and will stop at nothing to gain the approval of his father.

Oleander – Marta’s younger sister, a sweet girl who fears that she will not develop magical abilities and will therefore be shunned by the family.

My Thoughts

The Woven Ring is an entertaining flintlock fantasy about civil war, told in a nonlinear narrative. Our main focus is on Marta, a young woman of means who is shaped by her experiences both at war and with her highly ambitious family. The main conflict is between East and West, and much like in the real world, it’s the usual religious/political squabbling that tends to be the catalyst for war. In this case, in our prologue a standoff between the two sides results in the execution of a prisoner, and everything kicks off.

There’s a fair bit of hopping between timelines which could annoy some readers, but for the most part this is executed well and it doesn’t take too long to get your bearings. It’s a nicely paced story that doesn’t drag, and manages to balance a good deal of character development with plenty of action, suspense, and an extremely detailed world and magic system. Fans of magic systems should definitely pick this one up and give it a go – I’m not typically that enamored of them personally, but even I found this one pretty fascinating. It works on the idea that all living things contain breaths, or life force which can be harnessed to different purposes. This includes simple things like light sources, all the way to transport and the magical abilities of various characters – Marta is a Shaper, which means she can fashion her breaths into physical forms such as armor, weaponry, etc. There are several types of magical ability, but I don’t want to go into that too deeply because Presley does such a good job of bringing it all into the story without too much info dumping. It’s all very deeply intertwined with their religion and makes for a very believable culture.

There’s also the culture of Marta’s family. Her father, the clan’s patriarch, is a rather power-hungry, cold and manipulative figure. He has fostered a deep-seated rivalry between his children by conditioning them into a survival-of-the-fittest attitude that pervades everything they do. All of their games and interactions hinge on this sense of competition, of deliberately trying to deceive and generally get one up on one another in order to win his approval. Carmichael takes this the most seriously of the three, disdaining his youngest sister entirely for her apparent lack of magical talent, and barely acknowledging Marta. However, Marta and Oleander have a quiet fondness for one another that comes across as quite sweet given the environment they’re in. It also explains a lot about Marta’s angry nature, which boils over into outright self-loathing and crippling doubt in adulthood. It’s a very strong, believable piece of characterization. Her father continues to be a shadow looming over the entire story, and is never far from her thoughts. As an adult, Marta is a broken human being, tainted by war and barely able to function. Comparing the differences in her character as we switch back and forth between timelines is really interesting and probably the thing I think Presley has pulled off best of all.

Marta’s mission leads her to Luca and Isabelle, an intriguing pair of freebooters/mercenaries who provide an excellent foil for her to play off, while Caddie, a traumatized young girl, gives her some heart. For readers who don’t like Marta (and she can be difficult to like at times), these characters will provide relief. It’s hard to fit their story into a category – while it flirts with grimdark, it’s not completely hopeless. Marta’s loyalties are constantly challenged and tested, and it all gels together and makes for a compelling story with a conclusion that leaves you wanting the next installment.

The prose is generally good, with a little bit of awkward phrasing in places. There were also some inconsistencies in the details that caused me to raise an eyebrow here and there, but it was all relatively minor stuff considering the grand and ambitious nature of the novel. I’d love to have seen Carmichael’s point of view in all this – our lack of his perspective on things, and our view of him only through Marta’s eyes means that he never quite reaches his full potential as the villain of the piece. But I also appreciate that it would have been insanely difficult to attempt this in an already packed novel. I hope there’s a chance we might see that in the sequel now that the foundation has been laid for this world. Great stuff, and I’ll definitely be picking up part 2.

For reviews and custom cocktails, visit The Tome & Tankard Inn!

[Marco · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this book through the TBRindR-service over on reddit.
The woven ring ist the first in a series of now/soonish three books centred around the continent Ayr which was given live by the god Sol. For those who do not now the book is a “Flintlock-Fantasy” which means most of the usual tropes you would expect are not here. That’s maybe also because of the choice of main character in Marta Childress which starts out as a rather damaged character before we learn what caused her to become the person at the start of the book.
Also being in the Flintlock (or Gunpowder choose your poison😉) genre means there is no classical sword fighting as the technology of the world progressed to roughly the level during the Napoleonic Wars (plus/minus a few innovations, also magic).
The story revolves around a big conflict between East and West. We witness the outbreak of the war in the first chapter before we jump forward a few years till after war is over and a unstable peace has taken over.
As said earlier we see two parts of the story one is in the present where Marta must carry out an assignment from her clan after many years of no contact and the other is the story of Marta and how she became the person she is at the beginning of the book through her lessons from her clan and her time in the Great War (think of it as a civil war more than the first WW). Most of her character growth comes from pitting the character she is against the person Marta wants to be or is capable of being. You also feel a tremendous difference between Marta at the start of the book, Marta through the years before/during the war and Marta at the end.
The other characters are more companions pieces to Marta’s journey instead of fully fleshed out persons themselves, not badly written mind you just a bit in the background as Marta is the sole main character and doesn’t share the spotlight. So no multiple viewpoints here.
The magic system is on a mix between hard and soft, for the most part as it is important to the story you have very clear rules and limitations on the powers of the characters but we’ll get to that in a bit.
First about the magic in general, in Ayr magic is derived from having a fourth breath (humans have three Body, Mind and Soul) where the breath is situated decides what powers you have. For the more defined ones we have the listeners who can read minds (but you can guard against it) and shapers who can use their extra breath for various things like making armour or swords/utility’s out of it but have to stretch it for that which means a bullet can still take them down even if they can lift a horse if they wear their armour.
For the more softer approach we have whisperers who can control you with their voice though its never made clear how long (for Marta it seems to be years) or how definite their statements are, we only see one whisperer and no one to oppose him on his powers though I admit that this probably will be a point in future books.
There are also weavers/renders depending on where they come from who are the closest thing we get to a classic mage. They aren’t an important point throughout the story and we have no point of view character who is either a weaver or a render so not much is known about the limits of this power, but as it’s never used to resolve a situation for the main characters I don’t think of this as a problem.
We don’t see all that much of the world though most chapters (especially on the young Marta part) take place in one specific location that gets changed every so often the world serves more as a backdrop for Martas growth as a character (or lack thereof). Actually really awesome is the way the land is portrayed throughout the war you never get a clear good vs evil situation and characters change their view on their hometown only to get thrown back to their old desires in the end. For all I read the novel I never really found a “good” character most of them deal in various shades of grey (with a few exceptions) and I think that should be mentioned while Marta is the obvious protagonist with who we should bond over the novel, I never got the feeling she was the good that fights the evil (except in the end).
So that leaves us with: awesome main character, thought out world and conflicts, interesting magic system which may or may not be flawed (looking at you Whisperers, Renders/Weavers) and my personal interest where the story will lead.

[Jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

I did enjoy this book and will most likely be reading the second one. The story is great and the characters are well written. The overall flow of the book was hard for me since it bounced between the past and present. Overall a well authored book.

[C.T. Phipps · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Woven Ring is a story set in a fantasy world which seems to be a somewhat oft-kilter version of the Civil War. It takes place in a land which has Presidents and newspapers rather than kings or criers. It is on the verge of Steampunk the way Dishonored was but not quite completely there. I've seen the term "flintlock fantasy" used for it and I think that's a pretty stable description for it.

The protagonists are the wealthy Chidlress family and they are a group of magic-users who are heavily involved in intrigue as well as spying. They're also deeply, deeply dysfunctional and never quite able to extricate them from the intrigue going on around them which seems mostly based on a combination of religious differences as well as land disagreements.

Much effort is devoted to discussing how the concept of magic (or "breath" works) and how it relates to the rest of the world. This is actually really detailed and the author has clearly put a great deal of thought into how the system works.

Overall, I found this to be a very entertaining story but a bit rough around the edges. I think a bit more sharpness in the depiction of the civil war and its consequences would have benefited the story. It seems a bit too clean a world as the perspective of the uninterested apathetic atheist is not really the best way to handle a religious war's conflict.

8/10

[BriarGrey · Rating 5 out of 5]

I discovered this book through TBRindr. The Woven Ring is a well-thought out flintlock fantasy with a unique magic system and fascinating tech based on this magic (such as trains running on ley lines). It took a bit for me to get into it, despite telling right away the writing was really good, but that is because it's a sub-genre of fantasy I need to be in just the right mood for. This is a great first book in a series and really tells a great story while setting you up to want to know more about the over-arching story in the rest of the books.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

4,5 stars

I liked the worldbuilding in this one quite a lot, the magic system was interesting and most characters fun to read about. Except Carmicheal, he can f***ing die. Seriously, I dreaded some flashbacks because I wanted to punch this man in the face myself, but I guess that is more of a compliment to the author for achieving to make me hate the character so much. I'll definitely be picking up the rest of the series.

[Jon Adams · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thoroughly entertaining with some great character development and unique world-building. It follows a dual timeline, but it's done correctly so it's never confusing. And, I can't remember finding any errors! Huzzah!

FYI: I read both of these for free on Amazon Unlimited, but I liked them so much I purchased both in paperback.

[Calvin Park · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love magic systems, and M.D. Presley’s The Woven Ring has one of the most unique and imaginative magic systems I’ve come across. Add to this a unique and enthralling setting and you have a formula for a fantasy with vast potential. That potential is tempered, however, by a main character that is unlikeable at best and a plot that never quite connected for me. This is one that will be easily loved by some and difficult to love for others.

First, the magic system in The Woven Ring is wonderful. It’s unique, imaginative, and highly engaging. In Presley’s world each human being is endowed with three Breaths. This separates them from other living things. Animals only have two Breaths. Plants and insects have merely a single Breath. Yet some humans are endowed with a fourth Breath and depending on the location of this Breath within their bodies they can do various magical things. For example, some can listen to others’ thoughts. Others can create a kind of armor around themselves. Still others can use Breath to create creatures. When a person dies their three Breaths leave their body and return to the flow. Breaths can be harvested from the flow via lines of ley and used in technologies or in other ways. It’s an absolutely fascinating system and I want to see more of it. The world itself is also wonderfully realized. Presley has created an analog to Civil War era America—but with 100% more magic and airships. This backdrop for the story is something that really shines throughout the book. There were moments when I just wanted to learn more about the setting itself. This is a fresh take on a fantasy setting that I think will appeal to many fantasy fans. There are a number of plotlines that don’t get much screen time in the novel, but are intriguing. There are plots and counterplots taking place, many of which the reader can only guess at. On top of this there are a couple of secondary characters that I really enjoyed and would love to learn more about in the future.

My main disappointment with the novel came in the form of the main character. While Marta is well fleshed out as a character, she just isn’t likeable. She’s angry at everything—sometimes without really having a reason to be so. She’s a broken person, and we’re able to see why she’s so broken through a past timeline that is scattered throughout the novel every few chapters. This shows Marta’s life before and during the Grand War (analog to the American Civil War). There is an element of fascination here as we get to see how Presley has crafted this character—and Marta is probably very true to life in that I can imagine someone who has gone through what she has gone through being very much like her. She’s believable, but not likeable. There are moments when I feel sorry for her, but then there are also moments when I think she is being stupid and if she would take just a couple moments to calm down and think she’d probably make decisions that were much better. In the end, I found myself preferring the past timeline to the current timeline in the novel. In either timeline, I often found myself confused as to what motivated Marta to act in the way she acted. My second big disappointment with The Woven Ring is that the main plot feels like it drags a bit in the middle and never amounts to much beyond a fetch quest. It’s true that the plot is left dangling at the end, as this is the first book of a trilogy. Even so, the plot never gripped me and thus I didn’t feel much tension at the cliffhanger ending.

This is a hard one to rate. The world building and magic system are out of this world. A couple of the secondary characters are interesting, and the past timeline really gives us a glimpse into why Marta is the way she is. All excellent elements. Marta herself, as a character, is difficult to root for, and more problematic is that the main plot failed to grip me at any point. I think folks’ reactions will be tightly linked with their take on Marta.

3.5/5 stars

[Megan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really liked this and highly recommend

I really liked this book. The story is told in alternating chapters of backstory and current events that help to reveal this history of Newfield and the main character, Marta. I did not particularly like Marta, but there is something very compelling about her story. The other characters are also very interesting with hidden histories, motivations, and objectives. I really liked Luca and Caddie and found that they really helped the story. Caddie is a very interesting character in that she is unable to speak or move, but still feelsike there is a lot of depth. The author did a very good job creating characters with mystery and depth. I highly recommend this book for anyone looking for a unique fantasy story and I am excited to re ad the second one.

[E.Y.E.-D · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was my first full length flintlock fantasy and I must say I am very impressed. Mr. Presley has created quite an amazing world and filled it with some very interesting characters. Then he kinda destroyed it with a civil war. While this sounds awful, let me tell you it makes for a great read.

The magic in the world is a product of the breath that all living creatures posses. All humans have three breaths but the blessed have four. The fourth breath is what gives people special abilities. There are whisperers who can manipulate the thoughts of others, listeners who can hear peoples thoughts, shapers who can make physical objects such as armor and swords. The truly blessed are the renders and weavers. Renders can pull the breath from living creatures and weavers can use breaths to create manifestations to use for labor or war.

The chapters alternate past and present tense told from the POV of the main character Marta. The past chapters begin with the tale of her childhood and indoctrination as a shaper into her Childra family clan. It proceeds through her years as a young woman and her experiences in the Grand War. The present chapters are years later, Marta a woman both estranged from her family and battered by life but still unwilling to give up. Marta is definitely not a character for everyone, I personally love her. I think she was wonderfully written, probably one of my favorite characters I have encountered this year.

About 95-97% of the story is told through Marta's POV, we do occasionally get glimpses of some other characters who may play a larger role as the story progresses.

Marta's mission in the present is to find and deliver a girl named Caddie to her father. Caddie is catatonic and requires quite a bit of work on Marta's part. Marta does have a few others who are at the moment helping her. They are Luca and Isabelle, Luca is a listener and Isabelle is a non speaking member of the Ingio tribe which are similar to Native Americans.

There was a lot of action and the writing was very engaging. Overall it was a really good read. I will for sure be picking up book two in the series and reading it as soon as I have a chance.

I recommend this to anyone that enjoys flintlock fantasy or anyone likes fantasy but wants something outside the standard fantasy setting. If you are not familiar with it I would also recommend checking out Sigil Independent, they have an excellent line up of authors and you might just find your new favorite.

[Jake Swartz · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was given this book in exchange for an honest review.

Awesome flintlock style world with a unique magic system. A broken mc living in a broken nation after a gruesome civil war. Presley does a great job building the world leaving you with enough questions to want to jump to the next installment.

[Jennifer (bunnyreads) · Rating 4 out of 5]

This couldn’t be any more different than my last read, which was drop you in and hope you keep up….
There was some serious world building going on in this book, and I am pretty sure if you asked the author he could tell you which regions of this world has the best soil for grape growing, if you wanted to start a winery. Just Wow!

So, if you don’t like that sort of in-depth world building then this might not be the book for you. It’s not always my thing, that’s for sure.

But by the end of this book I was impressed. Considering I was not a fan of Marta for a good portion of the story, and when I am sitting through that much world building and not liking the character that much, there must be something else keeping me there.

This story is split, with part being told in the present and part being told in the past, working its way up to a time closer to the Marta, that we see now. This worked quite nicely actually, showing us how Marta became the jaded person she became, but especially for me, it broke up the world building, so even though we were still learning about the place it kept it fresh and new.

And I think that’s part of why I couldn’t quit reading. The double story lines and watching her go from the girl she was to the girl now, was a perfectly paced reveal that had me totally enraptured. There is something just incredibly satisfying about seeing a really well thought out plot come together like this one did.

The world building in this is top-notch, everything from the interesting and very cool magic system, down to how the lights work, is intricately detailed. The author deserves kudos for that alone but then add in that tight plotting and that damned good ending…this almost got five stars from me.

There were a few things that held me back- mostly personal dislikes.

- Until the past and present stories started rolling and we get some side characters in the mix (whom I liked way better than Marta) I was finding it a bit draggy in places.

-I didn’t like the prologue. It was from the pov of a character we never see again (or if we did I never realized). I didn’t think it served any purpose to the rest of the story other than to showcase how the magic works.

-There was a lot of things that I didn’t understand about Marta’s clansman and the childhood games, that were all about subterfuge and survival, when they lived in a mostly civilized environment. It seemed odd to me that their whole clans culture would have such a survival of the fittest attitude. I could have understood better if it was a paranoid power-hungry father teaching his kids to be that way, but it sounded like it was a clan thing.

-Also, Marta seemed to have a built-in anger, that I could appreciate and totally sympathize with in older Marta, but couldn’t quite see the reason for in very young Marta. She came across as a little one-sided because of that and only her times with Oleander seemed to help give her another side. I started really looking forward to those scenes.

But really such minor complaints, in a seriously strong debut. This gets a 4.5 from me.

This might be perfect for you, if you like crazy in-depth world building like Rowe’s Sufficiently Advanced Magic, or Black’s Ninth City Burning, but in a flintlock/civil war style environment.

[Peat · Rating 4 out of 5]

MD Presley's day job is writing screenplays. This will not come as a surprise to anyone who's finished the book as the plotting and storytelling is tighter than Scrooge McDuck. Marta's journey through a shattered nation littered with shattered families is full of "Oh Damn" moments and there's one of the best sucker punches at the end I've seen in a long time.

The story is split between the antihero Marta's journey through the land with the girl Caddie, and the journey Marta took to become the antihero we see. The contrast works really well, the two time lines ensuring neither ever feels stale. There's a few nice loaded guns planted in the second time line that pays off nicely in the first.

The prose reminds me of Raymond E Feist's early stuff. Not what I'd have picked myself, but it tells the story. The worldbuilding is an interesting case in that while it feels very rooted in the real world, there's a lot of additions and embellishments and you get the feeling there's a lot more world to come in the sequels. The characters are great fun too - sharply drawn without being simple - and Marta's progress to becoming a slightly nicer but still not that nice human being is very touching. I just wish we were in a more modern style that gave her more of her voice, but maybe it wouldn't work.

In any case, well recommended to anyone who likes gunpowder fantasy, great story, and grey heroes. Roll on the sequel.

[Mihir · Rating 5 out of 5]

Full review over at Fantasy Book Critic

OVERVIEW/ANALYSIS: The Woven Ring is M. D. Presley's debut book and a glorious introduction to the world of Soltera. This title is another one that I was lucky enough to be graced with in this year’s SPFBO. This book was one that stood out to my mind based on its blurb and the fact that it was a fantasy reimagining of the American civil war in a secondary fantasy world. I dove in with a lot of expectations and was rewarded immensely. It was an easy semifinalist pick along with The Songweaver's Vow.

The story begins in two timelines in the world of Soltera. The first track starts nineteen years ago as we meet Marta our protagonist a six year old girl who faces a terrible situation. The first line of the book sets up the scene wonderfully “Marta was mad. Carmichael had lied to her. Again!” While this line & scene might not seem particularly vicious, we soon learn what truly has happened and how much of a twat Carmichael is. The second timeline opens up nearly nineteen years later, Marta is no longer a fresh-eyed girl. She’s a veteran of the civil war that has shaken their nation and left her scarred emotionally & physically. She however is tasked by her elder sibling Carmichael to hunt down a person whom she hates more than her brother. Thus begin the two timelines as we see Marta’s painful evolution into the person that we meet in the second timeline.

Very few titles capture the reader’s interest by offering more than one surprise. This debut book not only has spectacular world building but it also manages dual storylines very coherently. Let’s talk about what captivated me so strongly about this book. Talking about the world & magic system mentioned within. I have to note when it comes to books that have spectacular world-building, often times the book’s plot and characters aren’t quite that up to the mark. On the flip side, often when characters/plot are focused upon then the world-building might conversely suffer. It’s rare for a book to ace both factors, fewer books especially debuts do these things so smoothly. A few examples who fall into this unique category are:

- Scott Lynch’s The Lies Of Locke Lamora,

- Mark Lawrence’s Prince Of Thorns,

- Anthony Ryan's Blood Song

All of these debuts won readers over and have created legacies that most debut authors would love to emulate. With this title by MD Presley, I believe we have another debut which while different from the aforementioned titles, will set its own path. The author has to be lauded for creating a world that while mirroring the American civil war but creates its own legacy. Let’s talk about the world, what the author has so wonderfully done is that while he doesn’t focus on the slavery angle, he builds up a religious conflict which is centered on a magic system. The magic system while being simplistic is quite fascinating. The author builds upon the concept of breath which plants have one (body), animals have two (body, mind) & humans have three (body, mind, soul). With some human beings have four and depending on the location of the fourth breath. The magic users could be classified as a:

- Shaper (body)

- Listener (mind)

- Whisperer (mind)

- Render (soul)

- Weaver (soul)

The conflict that builds up in the nation of Newfield is due to the theological & philosophical clash that occurs between Renders & Weavers and the eastern and western halves of the nation of Newfield. I loved how the author made this an eastern vs western one (holding a mirror but yet changing events a bit). There’s also the Pseudo-European lands called the Auld lands from whose descendants the nation of Newfield is founded by. There’s also the Myna nations and Ingios territories who are similes’ foe the Native American tribes. I loved how the author managed to weave the travails of the land with the religio-political squabbles that cause all the tension within the story. The author also manages to showcase the science within the story by making the magic system logical and making it a tad boring. What I mean by this is that the magic in this story isn’t the unknown arcane power. It is studied, and harnessed. There are vehicles which are utilized by tapping into the Ley lines of the land. There are ways of communication invented. All of this following the magic system and the powers that can be. All of this is very logically presented & from a world-building perspective is just so damned fine to read.

There’s also characters and this is where I want to talk about Marta. The Marta we meet in the past and the Marta we see in the present timeline are two completely different people. The beauty of the story and the author’s writing is we get to see her first see as a bright & energetic six year old but who then slowly transforms into the twenty five year old, scarred veteran that we meet immediately in the start of the story. While much of the plot is narrated from Marta’s POV, we do get a few POVs from other characters but majorly it’s Marta who shows us the world. I also want to highlight the fact that she’s clearly an anti-hero but perhaps by showing how she became that way, the readers will be able to sympathize with her actions and understand her way of thinking. Like I mentioned previously Marta was a character whom I both admired & disliked. I look forward to what reactions she creates among other readers. There’s also the other characters we meet via Marta, and like Anthony Ryan’s Blood Song, we seem them as flesh & blood ones with dreams, plans & aspirations of their own. I very much enjoyed the greyness of most characters as they are caught in this conflict which makes everyone a puppet of other folks. Not to say that there aren’t villainous characters, there are but the true fun is reading morally ambiguous folks who are defined by their circumstances rather than personal choices.

The mythology of the land, plus the presence of certain magical creatures is very well ensconced within the story and doesn’t feel like an infodump and this was truly an outstanding feature. Because in a world this rich, it might be all too easy to have characters go on soliloquys explaining different facets of the world, religion, etc. Credit to the author he explains a lot without making it all too complex or boring. For a cartophile like me, there’s also three maps provided which further enriched my read.

Lastly I can think of only two drawback in this story, firstly we truly never get a viewpoint into Carmichael Childress and this was disappointing. One of the major conflicts of the story is this sibling rivalry between Marta & Carmichael and to never get a different side to it was slightly off putting. But since this only volume one of the entire story I’m willing to wait and see how the story unfolds. There’s also the plot pace which is a bit slow in the start of both story lines however within the first two-three chapters of each timepoint it picks up rapidly and from that point onwards, it just surges forward slowly and surely building up to a dual climax in the past and present. For some readers though this might not be the pace they are used to expect.

CONCLUSION: The Woven Ring is an understated effort however it’s not an underwhelming one. M. D. Presley has given the readers a story that touches the elegant writings of Mark Lawrence in creating wholly realized, unlikeable anti-heroes whom you cannot ignore. Plus the scale & depth of world-building is definitely on par with some of Brandon Sanderson’s finest efforts. All of this is a debut which heralds a rich future for Matt D. Presley and I for one will have a very, very hard time in deciding who will be our ultimate finalist based on all the four semifinalist selected so far.

[FantasyBookNerd · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Woven Ring by MD Presley is a revamp of his original debut with a stunning new cover, and it is a fantastic introduction to his wild west, post civil war fantasy world, Soltera.

The book itself is based around Marta, spy, outcast and veteran. With the story centring around Marta’s plight to deliver the daughter of a tech genius, Orthoel Hendrix, who is currently residing in a local Sanitarium, to him on the orders of her father.

Throughout the story we follow Marta, both as she is now, and in a separate storyline, of how she got to be where she is now, starting as a six year old girl.

I have to say that I was mightily impressed with this first book in MD Presley’s trilogy Sol’s Harvest. On some levels, it had a familiar feel to it, however, underlying this there is something that I have not read before. For one, I have not read a story that is set in a post civil war era before and I found that this setting worked well for the story. Not only that, MD Presley builds a world that is based on the wild west and all the best westerns that I have loved in the past. However, it is not a stylised version of the West, it is more like Sam Peckinpah’ s grittily realistic, violent world, where the dismal living conditions and general hardship of the environment worms its way through.

There are so many levels that this book works on for me. For one, MD Presley creates a fabulously nuanced western environment that is mixed with a steampunk world edge. It is gloriously elegant in its construction, with steam trains running on Ley lines in the air. Airships that are used to bomb the opposing side into submission.

With The Woven Ring, MD Presley has created a wonderfully rich world where not one thing is out of place. There is religion, different cultures, money. Everything is nuanced and defined to give it that tangible sense of believability. In some ways, it resembles our own history which gives you that ability to picture it in your head, and on the other hand give it a sense of uniqueness that is utterly captivating.

Similarly with the magic system, which is based on a system called Breath. Again, MD Presley initially creates something that seems rather simplistic but then intricately builds upon its foundation to create something that is unique.

In terms of characters, Marta is a fantastic character. As there are two timelines in the book we get to see two iterations of her. Firstly, as an idealistic child that believes in the cruelty of the world that she inhabits, and then as a jaded, broken veteran who has problems connecting with anybody. Whilst Marta in the future is not particularly likeable, it is easy to see why, as we follow her trajectory in the second POV, and realise that besides being utterly broken by the horrors that she has endured, she is a product of her family upbringing, which shapes her into a cold, unfeeling individual that thinks of nothing but herself.

On top of that we have a supporting cast of characters, Marta’s odiously sociopathic brother, Carmichael, Caddie Hendrix, who spends most of the book in a catatonic stupor who has withdrawn into herself as a result of some unknown trauma. Then there is Luca and Isabelle, who have been hired by Carmicheal to maintain his sisters safety.

On the whole, I enjoyed MD Presley’s ‘The Woven Ring’ with its rich world building and intricate magic system. I personally think that with the second and third books, this will become a favourite of mine and I am intrigued to see where the story goes

If you liked this review, I talk about loads more books on my blog www.fantasybooknerd.com

[Terrible Timy · Rating 3 out of 5]

The review is also up on my blog, RockStarlit BookAsylum!

Actual rating: 3.5* - this is one of those books that makes me wish there was a half star rating available...

I've got a copy from the author, M.D. Presley in exchange of an honest review. Thanks for the opportunity!

"In that moment Marta understood misery in its entirety. Most believed misery had a purpose, its existence to make joy seem all the sweeter in contrast, but they were all fools. There was no real comfort, no joy or ease in life. Moments of joy just existed to make the pain of every day more pronounced since one could not understand the true depths of suffering without the dizzying heights of joy."

Let's make one thing clear right at the beginning: I have no idea how this review will turn out. I have pretty mixed feelings about The Woven Ring and while I didn't dislike it, I didn't love it either. As some trusted blogger friends of mine seem to be really into this series, I guess it must have something to it and I'm willing to follow the adventures of these characters to see if I can fall in love as well.

In The Woven Ring we follow Marta's story both in the present and the past. Through her eyes we get a look into the horrors of the Great War as she follows the instructions of her family. The Cildra clan is a wealthy, prestigious family, which has ears, eyes and other useful body parts at both sides. But while the war leaves Marta scarred for life both physically and mentally - fighting for survival and dealing with the mark of being a traitor could weigh heavy on anyone -, her brother Carmichael rises up into the highest circles of politics. And now he has a task for Marta with the promise of redeeming herself in their father's eyes. So she sets out to deliver the daughter of the man he despises the most. All the while her need to please her father and brother wars each other inside her.

Let's get my criticism out of the way first, but rest assured, I have some praise too. My biggest problem with this book lies with the characters. I couldn't really like any of them. Well, okay, except maybe Caddie, but then who has anything against an innocent child is just a monster. At the beginning I thought I'm going to like Marta, who was a fierce child, one who didn't mind fighting back when she felt threatened. But as the story progressed, I started to like her less. Understandably, her years fighting in the war - which was depicted really well, especially the parts about the pit - left their marks on her. What irked me was the way she treated everyone around her in the present. Now, I don't say she should have trusted in Luca and Isabella from the start, but she looked down on them and treated them like they were her soldiers and didn't even bother to actually talk to them, instead of running rounds in her head. Honestly, to me she seemed a bit shallow.

"Because hate is easy, love is hard, and indifference the most difficult."

-Carmichael Childress

Luca and Isabella can turn out as interesting characters as the story progresses further in later books, but so far we didn't get to know them much. Or Graff, the Render for that matter, and we've spent more time with Luca and Isabella than him. Carmichael intrigues me, and I'm really hoping we'll get him as POV character sometime, because the guy is clearly a psychopath, or something close to it anyway.

I also struggled a bit with the writing. While I liked the fact that we see the events unfold both in the past and the present until the two timelines were waving seamlessly together like Marta's treasured ring, I felt confused quite a lot. Let me explain. It took me a long time to understand what's the difference between Weavers and Renders for example. Or to place some names or phrases like emet, nodus, festation. And that's because we don't get eased into the world-building, but rather thrown in it. Which can work if it's done well, but every time I came across a new thing or person like Orthoel Hendrix I wondered: am I supposed to know who he is / what it is? And why is this matters anyway? Of course later we get everything explained and things will make sense, but at times it was damn frustrating. But then, now that most of the world-building is done, I guess it'll be easier to navigate in the later installments of the Sol's Harvest series.

And since we are talking about world-building. Someone mentioned it was dense. Well, yeah, maybe, but that's to be expected in every first book of a new series, and I didn't have a problem with it aside the aforementioned things. Though, since one of the main plot is traveling through Newfield, it is required to have a pretty detailed world at hand so we could experience it as we travel along. Which at one hand is great, but on the other, I just prefer to stay at one place or two and discover it to the last nail. But this all comes down to preferences, and M.D. Presley did a pretty fine job of giving his world an outline which can be filled with a lot more things as the series progresses.

If I didn't know beforehand that the inspiration behind Newfield and its history came from America and the Civil War it would still have been obvious. As far as I can tell this was pretty well done - I mean, I'm not well versed in these topics, even though I have History degree (we Europeans are more focused on our own history, you see). The argument about festations and manifestations reminded me a bit the way North and South argued about the slaves. Or the way Renders and Weavers argued about Sol's Breath reminded me the way Catholics and the believers of the Reformed Church argued about religion. Both thinking their own way was the only option and everyone else be damned. Maybe it may seem the religious system in The Woven Ring builds on Christianity, I think it draws more from Judaism. Though there is one main god, Sol, there are hints about more godlike creatures, or there is something about the Dobra tribe's back story which brings to mind the Old Testament.

"You're right, the moral is stupid, but no more than any other story. There is no Waer any more than there is Sol. The story's just a way simpletons explain away the past and try to make sense of the Blessed. Everything that happens in life, it's all by happenstance. There's no order to it, no plan, no Sol guiding it."

-Luca

There were quite a few ideas I liked in The Woven Ring. The Breaths for example - every human being is born with three Breaths, but there are Blessed who has four, gifting them with special abilities depending on where that four Breath resides. Marta is a Shaper who is able to use her Breath as a weapon of some kind depending on her need at the time. And then there are Listeners and Whisperers. The former can see into a person's mind and catch their thoughts unless they are protected, while Whisperers can plant ideas into other's minds. Since we have Marta as POV character, we mostly learn about how shaping abilities work and how hard it is to learn and manipulate using it. I'm interested to learn more about the magic behind these abilities later on. Besides humans, plants and animals have Breaths as well in a smaller number. After one's death, Breaths are freed and they join to their fellows along leylines. Now, these leylines are pretty fascinating. They are not only pretty natural occurrences, but thanks to the "advanced" technology they can be used for transportation - I loved the idea of the trains - sending messages - I want to learn more about the Dobra as they seem to have the most interesting culture, a bit like a wandering carnival, or gypsies and they are damn mysterious - or giving birth to creatures like the emets. Monsters created by Breaths and having the most eclectic forms they can have. They can be evil or good but they are mostly left alone. Not that that stops them to have a prominent role in the grand scheme of things.

All things said, there is a lot to like about The Woven Ring. It's an imaginative flintlock fantasy with the potential of growing into a fantastic series. Maybe it's a bit rough around the edges, but no one can say The Woven Ring doesn't set a pretty solid foundation for the future for when Sol finally comes to harvest.

[Kathryn · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Woven Ring world-building and background is inspired by the American Civil War. I would not truly class it as historical fantasy or as a re-telling, rather the author used the Civil War as a very loose inspiration point. In the world of Ayr, our setting, the theology is based on a creator named Sol. Each plant gets one "breath", each animal two, and normal people 3. Some people are blessed with an extra "breath" which gives them magical abilities, depending on where the breath is based (i.e. telepathic type powers based in the brain).

There are deep philosophical differences in how the gift of breath should be treated which lead to a split in the nation between East and West. I will say, I had to remind myself continually throughout my reading that the West in this book was the more settled/traditional (read Northern) area and the East was the more newly-settled/frontier. I'm so used to Western being shorthand for frontier in historical pieces that I honestly struggled with this world-building choice.

Our story is presented primarily through one character, Marta, but it is split along mostly two parts in her life, separated by a period of roughly 5 years - her life during the war and her life in the aftermath of the war. I found the two timelines easy to follow, but I found the choice to alternate pretty strictly between them to make the narrative choppy and cut down on the tension/plot arcs. Just as one timeline would get really tense or to a climactic point it would cut away again to the other timeline.

I also really struggled with finding a character to identify with or root for. Usually that's the protagonist, but Marta's a pretty tough, flawed, bitter character - she's convinced the war has ruined her and almost seems to embrace that. She's very bleak, for good reason, but that doesn't make it easier to identify with her or live in her head. The other characters are at a bit of a remove - primarily her manipulative brother Carmichael and two freebooters (mercenaries) who Marta never really warms to or trusts. The other "main" character is Caddie, a girl traumatized by something (the war perhaps?) who is more baggage than character throughout most of the book.

I think this is well-written with fairly clean editing (only found a few small errors). It's an indie title and I usually like to be a little more generous with indie authors. However, I also feel I need to be honest in my reviews. This book was not for me. I finished it, but I am a character reader and it's hard for me to enjoy a book where I never really connect with or want to root for any of the characters. I also found the bleakness of the book tough. I'm not a huge grimdark fan, and while I don't think this book fits the grimdark genre, I did find it pretty dark, which is not my preference. This is a good book that I'm not the right audience for.

[Wim · Rating 4 out of 5]

To start: this probably won't be a very good review from a quality standpoint, it is my first review and I am no good with words. Words are difficult. I just felt this book deserved more reviews since I really enjoyed it.

I loved this book for the first 95÷. I might have to reread the ending because it confused me. I loved the characters in this while finding their way of thinking completely alien to my own. To me that is a good sign.

We have our main character Marta, she was brought up in a spy family, her upbringing was disturbing to me and an example of how to NOT raise and love your kids. Eventually she gets thrown into the war, where bad things happen to her (as they do in war) and we get to follow her in the aftermath of this war. We get the vast majority of the book from her view and I really enjoyed following this Sol forsaken poor woman.

This is a book with two timelines, one follows Marta as she grows up and the other timeline is current events which I will in short describe as an escort quest.
We follow Marta as she breaks free Caddie Hendrix and has a mission to bring her to her father, while travelling they meet up with Luca and Isabelle who help them along for their own reasons.
I will leave it at that for a plot summary since I don't want to accidentally spoil stuff.

I have read this is a retelling of the american civil war and I can see the influences here, I will say that you don't need to have a good knowledge of the american civil war. Personally I know very little about it being not an American, I still really enjoyed it.

[Melissa Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was excited to read this book after reading the blurb and I wasn’t disappointed. This is a well written novel and very exciting. It was hard to follow at first, it was confusing with a lot of information given in the prologue but I quickly got up to speed. The main character, Marta, is a strong, interesting character and we see her in two different timelines. The story jumps between the past and present and it works very well.

The world building is amazing and by far the best part of the novel. You have to really give this book your undivided attention, but that won’t be a problem because it will suck you right in!

[Vigasia · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really liked this book. It was recommended for me on reddit when I was searching for something interesting with strong female lead. I wasn't disappointed. Marta is a little like Monza Murcatto with special abilities. It's mostly one PoV story, so the only person we can really know is the main character though I liked Marta's companions Luca and Isabelle and especially little Cadie.

We jump through past to present and I wish we could spend a little more time at Great War, this period was a bit rushed in my opinion, but overall I think it's fantastic beginning to promising series and It deserves a lot more attention.

[Dan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I came into this book with no knowledge of it at all, only picking it up because of a mention on reddit/r/fantasy.

It consistently intrigued and amazed me and genuinely has been one of my reading highlights of 2016. As a debut novel its extremely good and I would encourage anyone to pick this up and give it a chance.

I won't precis the plot again as you can see that above. For me what stood out was an outstanding main character, a slow burning, crescendo of a narrative and and some intriguing world building.

Superb book.

[Logan · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5

[Filip · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ve taken the exploration of flintlock fantasy to heart over this last year. From exploring Brian McLellan’s original Powder Mage trilogy, to Bulletproof Witches, all the way to Wax and Wayne’s part-Victorian, part Wild West adventures, some of the novels I most enjoyed spending my time with, evoke more than just a sniff of gunpowder as I run my eyes over page after page.

The Woven Ring is the latest name to add to this ever-expanding flintlock catalogue of titles, and it makes for good company to powder mages and Mistborn alike. In fact, before I get any further with this review, I must point out that author M. D. Presley shares with McLellan and Sanderson a deep love for a complex and carefully thought-out (or hard) magic system. The magic in “The Woven Ring” intrigues and fascinates, after a fashion. But more on that later.

This is the first book in “Sol’s Harvest” series, and as such has a lot of ground to cover. Not only does Presley have to introduce a fully realized world, but he also tackles a dual narrative, first introducing protagonist Marta Childress as a gaunt husk of a woman in the present, and then pulling the reader back in time in order to witness the full tragedy behind this young woman’s fall from grace. The horrors of surviving through a bloody Civil War during which Marta is seen as traitor both to the East and West have turned her into a bitter woman and a pariah who wishes for nothing but to earn enough for the bare necessities and move on from one small town to the next before she is recognized. The brand on her forehead, hidden only by a raggedy hat, does little to help.

But the Childress clan requests its elder daughter and middle child to return to the fold by performing a dangerous feat that, if Marta proves successful, will restart this bloody conflict. But to return to her family’s good graces, Marta is more than willing to follow through on the task at hand: reunite a traumatized child, Caddie, with her father, a scientist whose brilliance armed the West with the deadly weapons used to decimate the East. But will Marta stop there, or will she kill the man she blames for the worst part of the past conflict?

This is but one of the leading clashes in this story. The overarching conflict behind the Civil War is caused by the different ideologies of two types of magic users or people Blessed with a fourth Breath; the East’s Weavers can twist Breath (think souls) to create deadly “festations” and send them off to cause horrific destruction; Renders, meanwhile, can literally pull the Breath out of living things and cut it. They also look on Weavers as abominations, considering their Eastern counterparts to be working against the will of the god Sol, who blessed all living things with Breaths – but especially the Blessed.

Marta is a Shaper, herself, but we meet many more types of Blessed who use their Breaths in interesting and cool ways. The companions Marta finds herself burdened with in the present are a talkative Listener(mind-reader) and a mysterious mute woman. Fun banter there, despite Marta’s continued game of “How can I best kill and/or run away from these two ‘Freebooters’ and get away with Caddie while avoiding a deadly array of other horrors whom I’ve avoided by the hair of my chin?” Living life as Marta is not easy; neither in the past nor in the present. What past Martha does for close to half the novel is learn to be a spy for her clan; when she’s inevitably pulled deeper into the overarching conflict, she has to learn a number of other, less subverting skills.

My major complaint has to do with a beginning that, I felt, was too heavy-handed in its introduction to the magic system. Reading the first 20-25% of The Woven Ring took me longer than finishing the rest; at the end of the day, I don’t regret reading it, since all those explanations on the magic world and system were well and truly worth it in the end, but someone less invested and interested than I am might find the info dumping overwhelming.

With the introduction of Lucas and his silent companion Isabella, the plot in the present moved more fluidly. Dialogue was wittier and lighter – which, in hindsight, was sorely needed. As for the past, if anything, the pacing was a little bit too rushed; but then again, there could easily be a novella’s worth in-between most of the chapters in Marta’s past, and I bet some of them would be interesting to read, too!

And now, let’s move onto scoring; this time around, I’ll attempt to give a short explanation as to why I score each of the elements below.

Personal Enjoyment: 8/10 Great; The more I read of “The Woven Ring,” the more I enjoyed it; by the last quarter of the book, I was thoroughly hooked, and I’m looking forward to reading the

Dialogue: 7/10 Good; Some conversations now and then didn’t quite ring with authenticity, but for the most part, this novel offers an entertaining and good dialogue.

Magic: 10/10 Masterpiece; The magic system is one area which I can’t find any faults with, and you know what? I don’t want to, either.

Prose: 7 /10 Good; Despite some pacing issues and the info dump in the first quarter of the book, the prose makes for an easy read with vivid descriptions in which characters come alive.

The Rest: 8.5 Great; I wasn’t sure whether to put Character Development or Conflicts in this last slot, since I think they play off one another but Marta goes through changes in this novel, even if it’s a slow, subtle kind; and the conflicts between her and members of her family, a powerful Render, and the overarching conflict between East and West all make for an excellent read.

My recommendation? Read “The Woven Ring.” It’s well worth it if you like flintlock fantasy, tales of a country tearing itself apart, dual narratives in different time-periods, angry and deadly female protagonists, one of the finest magic systems I’ve come across in recent months, and more! Prob’ly.

I’ve divined the final score of “The Woven Ring” by preparing a concoction of gunpowder, powdered bits of bird bone, and a single drop of rum with some almond extract! And the Score is… 4 out of 5 Stars on Goodreads! With all the world-building out of the way, I expect sequel novel “The Imbued Lockblade” to fare even better under my strict criteria and lead-poisoned brain!

This book was kindly handed me over by M. D. Presley in return for an honest review!