Title: The Rising
Series: The Branded Season
Author: Jo Riccioni
Publisher: Angry Robot
Genre: Sci-Fi, Fantasy
Release Date: 11th February 2025
BLURB
The explosive conclusion to the Branded Season two sisters harness their powers to fight for the people they love. But when those powers are capable of overturning worlds, love can be an uprising.
Nara and her twin sister, Osha, have escaped the Citadel and the brutality of the Wastelands to arrive in the capital of Reis, home of the wrangler.
The Shadow City is rife with political power plays, complicated by rumours of a long-awaited prophecy – the coming of a Pure healer with the ability to cure the Branded. With her healing powers growing ever stronger, all eyes are on Osha. But there are those in Reis who would kill to control her gifts.
If she is to protect her sister, Nara must navigate new allies and old enemies in the Shadow City. That’s easier said than done when she’s caught between her first love and the man who’s stolen her heart but broken her trust. Worn down by lies and deception, Nara is forced to question who she truly is and what she can believe. One thing is becoming she and Osha must learn to wield their powers to guard their freedom, but also to fight for what is right. With dark forces taking control across the continent, the Branded must rise to survive.
REVIEW
Nara and Osha learn to harness their individual powers to fight for the people they love the most, and to change a society that only values the Pure and looks down on the Brands as inferior and dispensable. Nara and Osha may have escaped the Citadel in Isfalk, survived the bleak wastelands and the suffering she endured, the harsh brutality of Orlathon but they have yet to face their greatest challenge and it begins in Reiss, the homeland of the Wrangler.
Though on the surface Reiss seems to be a city of freedom and equality between Pures and Brands, under the surface a woman called Phibia is plotting and manipulating the ruler of Reiss, Haxim the father of the Wrangler/Nixim. There is the Reiss prophecy that “one pure woman with magical powers to cure the branded and bring peace and happiness to the world. “The Elita” Phibia is the leader of the High Seer Circle and it will be her that will test the pregnant Osha to see if she is the long-awaited Elita. Naturally Nara is worried for her sister, with her promise to Amma to always take care of Osha she cannot hold back and intervenes at the testing. It is then Phibia realises that Nara is a Tathar like herself, but she dismisses both sisters, in particular Nara as she is a brand saying they are both weak.
Nothing is straight forward for Nara, she has so much weighing on her mind and heart such as the rather cryptic prophecy/warning that Frenka the blood wife gave her “Be careful of the boy. He is a good soul born of bad.” Along with the advice to be wary of relying on the visions she sees, telling all may not be as it seems and that things can happen to change these visions. She has to learn to master her sway as it will be an essential weapon in the battles that are on the horizon. Nara worries about her pregnant sister, Osha as she battles the uncertainty of who the father of the child she is carrying is. Is it the love of her life her lyfhort, Haus or is the pregnancy a result of her assaults at the hands of Orlath. Only time will tell. Then there’s the question of whether the baby will be born pure or brand and how healthy it will be. There are also the complications of the love triangle she finds herself in with Brim who sees her as a fec, but then professes his love for her, and Nixim whom she still doesn’t fully trust and that situation is only exacerbated by the fact he has the complication of a betrothed called Hira, the daughter of Phibia. Nixim also seems to have the knack of disappearing when she feels she most needs him!
Nara also has the mystery of who her parents were and why they were left in Fornwood with Amma before being sent to Isfalk. What do the pendants that she and Osha wear mean?
Nara has a lot on her plate even before the fighting starts and wow there are some great battle scenes in this book!
The Rising has amazing multi-layered characters, not just the main ones of Nara, Osha, Haus, Nixim and Brim but some of the others such as the usually drunken Maw who teaches Annek to fight, to defend herself after the trauma she experienced in Orlathon at the hands of Orlath and his men. Azza, the principled, straight-talking sister of Nixim who is also a Tathar but chooses to hide her gift and uses it only when necessary. I admired the way she used her gift only when necessary unlike others who use it for nefarious purposes, such as Phibia and Inness, she also helped Nara with her own Tathar powers too.
There’s lots of laugh out loud banter between the different characters, Maw, Dalla & Annek have a funny camaraderie and of course Nixim and Nara take the banter to another level, all whilst there’s the subtle simmering feelings of love they each hide from each other.
I loved the way Nara saw a different softer side to Nixim when he was around his sisters Azza and Sadiq. He was no longer the “wrangler” he was “Nixim”. In the same way that Nara could be two different people the “scourge” and then the softer side being “Nara”.
I of course adored the character of Nixim, but I also loved Haus, the quiet yet deadly lyfhort of Osha. Even when there is doubt over the parentage of the baby Osha is carrying he stays by her side, when she will allow him and hovers in the shadows when she will not allow him by her side!
I thoroughly enjoyed the fantastic, detailed world building with so much rich history to the different tribes & settlements, their cultures, traditions, languages, ways of living all wrapped up in an amazing, written plot with such varied emotive scenes from harsh battles, to beautiful heart wrenching betrayals, laugh out loud banter between certain characters and watching at first tentative feelings, that grow into fierce love between the characters that on the surface are so very different, yet are perfect for each other.
At times, it has very emotional and poignant scenes!
My immediate thoughts upon finishing the book were Wow! Just wow! Then I felt immediately sad that it had ended!
Summing up, The Rising has it all going on, action, drama, angst, betrayal and some simmering romance too! I loved the characters, the prophecies & visions that were twisted and sometimes turned on their heads. I enjoyed the way Nara sometimes interpreted them incorrectly as she was honing her talents. I felt like I felt Nara’s heartbreak when the reality of Frenka’s warning of “Be careful of the boy. He is a good soul born of bad”
