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The Rue of Hope

(Beyond Barlow #2)

Jason R. Koivu (Goodreads Author)

3.60 · Rating details · 5 ratings · 4 reviews

Murder in the streets. Murder in the houses of the holy. The violent deaths of prominent figures have the populous on edge. Now, amid fire and flood, the revolt is on. The castle is taken, the lord is on the run, and the city is crumbling. With society on the verge of collapse, impulsive street-fighter Ford Barlow finds himself in just as much turmoil. Not only is he juggl ...more

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Paperback, 258 pages

Published February 20th 2020 by Black Rose Writing

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The Rue of Hope (Beyond Barlow #2)

Jason R. Koivu (Goodreads Author)

Release date: Feb 23, 2020

The Rue of Hope is a sword & sorcery sub-genre fantasy (similar to Lieber's Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser series) set in a pseudo-Medieval Anglo/Celtic w ...more

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Availability: 15 copies available, 471 people requesting

Giveaway dates: Feb 23 - Mar 09, 2021

Countries available: U.S.

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Dec 05, 2019 Jason Koivu added it · (Review from the author)

Shelves: fantasy, fiction

Feb 21, 2020
Along with the book's release yesterday, the first book in the series is being given away for free on Amazon (ebook, available world-wide) now through the 23rd: https://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Barlow-...

Feb 13, 2020
Here's an interview, mostly regarding writing and Rue. It was conducted by Jonathan Pongratz of the Jaunts & Haunts book blog and takes the form of an exchange between two writers: https://jonathanpongratz.com/2020/02/...

Feb 5, 2020
The book still hasn't released yet, yet th ...more

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Feb 19, 2020 Sadie Forsythe rated it liked it

Shelves: to-read-physical-books

I felt much about this second book as I did the first, there is very little to enjoy in it. Everything is death and despair. But here, more than in Beyond Barlow, I really feel the description (while not inaccurate) is deceptive. All of those events happen, but in such a background capacity as to be almost irrelevant. Ford isn’t integral to any of them. He’s not even aware of most of them. In fact, he has very little volition in the whole book. In my head, I repeatedly thought of this story (ser I felt much about this second book as I did the first, there is very little to enjoy in it. Everything is death and despair. But here, more than in Beyond Barlow, I really feel the description (while not inaccurate) is deceptive. All of those events happen, but in such a background capacity as to be almost irrelevant. Ford isn’t integral to any of them. He’s not even aware of most of them. In fact, he has very little volition in the whole book. In my head, I repeatedly thought of this story (series really) as a list of woes that befall Ford, and not as any sort of adventure Ford embarks on, or battle he chooses to fight, or purpose he finds for himself (the things that structure a plot). As such, I felt very much like there wasn’t so much an actual plot as this text was simply the documenting of a certain segment of Ford’s life. Two years earlier or later would and could have read the same. I felt no building toward any climax. Thus, I found it excruciatingly unsatisfying.

Having said that, it’s not badly written and I have complained recently about being tired of reading about the same sort of anti-hero over and over again. I can’t accuse Koivu of that. Ford is an anti-hero, for sure, but not one you see every day. He’s not overly bright (or at least not a deep thinker), he’s built like a brick shithouse, he’s morally ambiguous, and while he often tries to do the right thing, he usually fails. Some of what he does in this book makes me dislike him in the extreme. (Trying to steal bread from a starving child, drunkenly manhandling a woman when she rejects him, hanging out in an alley to creepily watching a young woman through her window, being drunk for a full third of the book, what he does to Addy even knowing she’s fragile, what he does to Elle in an attempt to save her from his imagination.) But he does value protecting the weak, which redeems him a little. If he had been a man with more prospects, he probably could have been a better man. (Which I do think is some of what Koivu was trying to get at.)

Speaking of the author, Koivu himself has a few 'men writing women' moments. He sexualizes a 12-year-old girl at one point and almost all of the women who actually speak are prostitutes or in love with/trying to sleep with Ford in some capacity. This seems so avoidable. Why place a child in a sexual position? It didn't progress the plot any or add anything to the story. Similarly, why include the random gay-bashing scene? Especially if Dunn, the primary perpetrator involved, was never going to appear again? I can kind of see it maybe lets the reader see that there are lines Ford won't cross (or even understand the appeal of). But I think that was already established, so mostly I thought it added nothing of value.

All in all, I didn’t actually think this was a bad book. I just think it wasn’t really for me.

Edit: The author politely emailed me to address why the gay-bashing scene was included. I won't repeat it since it would be a spoiler. But he does give a considered reason. I think there might have been a million other ways to accomplish what the scene did, but I acknowledge that Koivu did have a reason beyond titillation, which is what I took it for (not homophobia). ...more

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Jan 17, 2020 Carrie Marshall rated it it was amazing

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Feb 29, 2020 Megan rated it really liked it

I was not sure I was going to like this Ford in the beginning. He is a little rough around the edges. However, Ford goes through some of the best character development that I have ever seen. In the end I loved him. I hope to read more about him in the future.

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About Jason R. Koivu

Jason R. Koivu

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Adventures in the New England woods of his youth provided a backdrop for an imagination sparked by a love of LotR and D&D in Koivu that fostered his desire to create stories of his own. One writing degree and a myriad of disparate jobs later, he finally embarked upon his dream of becoming an author.

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