Barok was a son of a powerful man. When his older brother frames him, he is exiled away from all he knows. After a trip into a forest connects him to his ancestors, he realizes he needs to build his own kingdom. Soon war over his father's successor brings his brother and his enemies closer.

I thoroughly enjoyed Ghosts in the Yew. Each chapter tells the story from a different person's point of view. Each character's evolution helps make the story flow easily. The setting of the story further intrigued me. I rarely read books from that location and time period.

This is a good book and a good debut.
It's an epic fantasy, full of twists and turns, fast paced and well written.
The world building if good, the cast of characters interesting and the plot was engaging and fascinating.
I look forward to reading the next installment in this series.
Highly recommended
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC

Oh dear.
This is clearly the authors magnum opus, their proud epic, their masterpiece....
And its just awful. There are about ten different viewpoints, all in first person, all with the exact same tone and voice. I cannot tell the difference between them. We are introduced to plots and politics without understanding the systems or even the people behind them, and then are snatched away to some other persons chapter, still with no explanations or attempts at character building.
Who is the prince? Why is this person dead? Why is this person being thrown out of the city? Why do we care?
The short answer is, we don't. Without having someone to care about, to invest in a novel, it's difficult to summon the willpower to be bothered to read. I gave up after a few chapters.
I recommend the author go back, sketch out all the connections and plot devices and who does what to whom and where, and then get out the paring knife and chop away at least half of it.
If the bones of the story is there, then there's something to polish and present. This clunker as it stands, is not it.