A Songbird's Tale (Tales of Tigraen) by Tiffani Sahara 
Published by Self Published on September 17th 2023
Genres: Fantasy
Pages: 457
Format: eBook
Source: Amazon
This post contains affiliate links you can use to purchase the book. If you buy the book using that link, I will receive a small commission from the sale.
Jaren once lived the thrilling life of an adventurer , saving the innocent and slaying foul monsters. But now, blind and haunted, he ekes out a lonely existence as a hermit in the forest. His only companion is a tiny, loyal songbird.
But fate is not finished with Jaren.
Jaren’s solitude is shattered when a wild fey demands he recommence his life as a hero. An ancient demon once believed buried has been growing in strength; if no one stops a fanatic cult from unleashing it, the country will burn.
This quest would be nearly impossible for an entire group of warriors, let alone a single blind man. With Jaren reluctant to heed the warnings, the fey turns his attention elsewhere and transforms the little songbird into a beautiful maiden to send in Jaren’s stead.
“This will be my champion.”
Armed with more curiosity than common sense, a naïve but determined Songbird is unwavering in her quest to vanquish the demon. Jaren is thrown into an impossible predicament- let Songbird charge forth alone to certain death or join her and take up his sword once more.
Good premise but the story could have used some cleaning up.
It has been six years since Jaren of Mulk and his crew fought the demon, Arzinock, and Jaren was the only survivor of the party. Jaren ran but only after his oldest friend sacrificed himself to trap Arzinock between realms.
When a Fae comes to Jaren, now a broken, blind man and tells him that Arzinock’s cult followers are amassing and Jaren still has a job to do, Jaren passes on the great honor to sacrifice himself but the little songbird who lives in the nearby forest and sings for Jaren each day jumps at the chance for a great adventure. The Fae being capricious decides to grant the Songbird’s wish, makes her a human woman and tasks her with killing Arzinock.
Jaren might still not have been swayed to care except he and Songbird are attacked by cultists at his home. Arzinock having tasked them to bring Jaren into the fold or bring his body for sacrifice. Even blind, Jaren has been practicing with his sword and they are on his land. Defeating them is not hard but traveling toward danger blind is certain death. Staying put risks the entire town so Jaren asks the Goddess’s blessing to return his sight so he can complete his mission.
Jaren and Songbird take to the road to defeat Arzinock before Autumn arrives but can a broken warrior and a tiny songbird be enough to save the world.
THOUGHTS:
I saw a TikTok from a book tok reviewer who indicated she switched to just self-published books and received over 600 books to review. This was one she talked about and highly recommended…then as always I touched something on my phone and could not find her again.
What definitely caught my attention was the basic premise of the songbird-turned-human fighting against evil with the blind warrior. Although I did question how far we would get with a blind warrior. The first fight made sense since no one expected him to fight back but it wouldn’t take much for a group to take him down. Obviously once he returns to his quest, he is no longer being punished for cowardice and is given his sight back.
As you can imagine Songbird had a lot of questions about everything and Jaren has little patience. I spent a lot of time being displeased with snappy Jaren. So much so I was delighted when she finally yelled at him that no, he actually doesn’t explain anything to her until after something happens, such as when a musician is try to convince Songbird to come to his room and he will teach her to play his big flute. She obviously does understand his double meaning and Jaren waits until after this issue to explain the dangers of the men in town. He just kept saying don’t to this and don’t touch that even knowing she won’t understand why and a few more words would have explained. Grrr….
While it was an interesting premise. This books suffered from many slow points, unnecessary side quests and awkward attempts at a slow burn between Jaren and Songbird which were mostly Songbirg and Jaren staring at each other and getting flustered.
We also should have had a few more flashbacks or dreams involving Jaren’s brother and the other adventurers who were killed before we found out about the ultimate failure of their attempt against the demon so we would have felt a connection to those characters and understood Jaren’s devastation with more sympathy as to why he ran away from his task to kill the demon. Obviously they lost since that was part of the whole set up but their loss didn’t mean enough to us since we barely knew them.
The biggest problem with the story is that some parts were unnecessary. There was a whole section where they come upon a dwarf who is an old acquaintance of Jaren. He sends them on a side quest to get special pinecones which will allow the forges to burn hotter so he can make Jaren a proper sword for this important quest. It takes two week to get there and two weeks back to the dwarves’ mountain. Then the dwarf prince offers to forge the most amazing sword to fight the demon. He is working non-stop for days into exhaustion and says he will need to keep working non-stop for 2 more weeks to finish it properly. Jaren says we don’t have 2 weeks but since the prince swore an oath to create this amazing sword, he won’t be able to stop until it is done. He then suggests that Jaren will have to steal the sword “as-is” and of course, become a criminal to the dwarves never to return. What was all the about? Couldn’t the dwarf have started something in the month it took to get the special pinecones? A whole month. He probably could have done it in a month with the regular forge if it takes 2 weeks with special pinecone fuel. They could have been on a quest to get a special bridal gift for the dwarf’s upcoming wedding while the dwarf made the sword. Or why didn’t it take three days of non-stop work the the special pinecones? I don’t understand the whole purpose of this dwarf/sword thing as they almost died on this side quest and it was really for nothing. If the author didn’t want to dwarves going on the quest with them, we already knew he was getting married in a few days—in a political arranged wedding that couldn’t be put off. Make the sword in a few days with the magic pinecones, take the sword and go with the gods’ blessings, and they could have returned to celebrate the wedding with the dwarves. But no, Jaren had to steal the unfinished sword, finish putting it together himself while they traveled and become a pariah to the entire dwarf clans. Why? It wasted a lot of time and we were all but plodding slowly along w the horses for weeks at a time. A whole section of the story which made no sense and should have been cleaned up.
It was an interesting premise but this story definitely could have used a good editor to help kick up the excitement of the slow parts and clean up or tighten up some of the scenes that we could have done without.
The ending was unexpected so I would say it ended well.
Favorite Scene:
Jaren was vigilant, and wary of travelers, adjusting the hood of his cloak whenever they passed someone on the road. A blissfully oblivious Songbird spent part of the morning trying to talk to the horse. Jaren mostly ignored this. His head throbbed, the sun was too bright and it hurt his eyes. He was far too sleep deprived for such ridiculousness.
After a while, Songbird sighed in frustration. “Jaren. I don’t think she understands me. Or I can’t understand her. I’m not sure.”
He rubbed his temples. “People can’t understand animals, although some of them can be trained to understand us.”
“What?” She sounded utterly appalled.
“Unless you’re an earth speaker, what some might refer to as a druid or green wizard, humans can’t understand animals. We can’t talk to them without the help of magic.”
Songbird was quiet as she processed this information. “Are you a druid?”
“No. I’m–well, I was a soldier. A warrior.” Jaren tapped the hilt of the sword belted to his waist.
“And only these green-wizard-druid people can talk to animals?” she queried.
“Some wizards or someone skilled with magic would probably have spells that let them speak with animals,” Jaren reasoned.
“Do you have one of those spells?” She winced as she spoke, her voice pained as she shifted in the saddle.
“No. I really don’t know much about magic. That was Feyn’s domain. I’ve always preferred a good, reliable sword in my hand.”
The horse shook her head, and Songbird reached out and stroked her neck. “Does that mean you didn’t understand me when I was a bird?”
“Ah.” Jaren paused as her seemingly innocent line of questions dawned on him. “Not exactly, no.”
“So, all those years in the forest talking to me, you didn’t think I could understand you, and you had no idea what I was saying to you in response?” The mare flicked her ears back nickering softly as Songbird continued to pet her.
“No.” he finally admitted.
“Hmmm.” The rhythm of the horse’s hooves on the dirt road filled the silence. Songbird straightened in the saddle. “I suppose that explains a lot, I was worried you were maybe a little daft.”
“Excuse me?” Jaren stopped walking and looked up at Songbird. The horse stopped next to him obediently.
Songbird shrugged. “I wondered if you were a little mad or something. Sometimes our conversations made sense, but most of the time they didn’t. I’m very relieved to know that you just didn’t understand what I was saying.”
Jaren made a face. “I’m a little insulted by that, to be honest. You were a bird, nothing but a simple animal.” Songbird scoffed at him, but his hackles were up, and he continued. “How was I supposed to know you could understand me? And considering that just a few days ago you refused to wear clothing, and have been in nothing but trouble since then, I don’t think you have any room to be calling me daft.” Jaren started walking again, and the mare followed. “But I suppose, at the time, that was a fair assessment from your perspective.”
“I’m delighted to know you weren’t a crazy wild man after all. None of the other birds believed me, but I knew.” Songbird smiled, clearly pleased with herself. “I’m glad we had this talk.”
Leave a Reply