Mammoths at the Gates (The Singing Hills Cycle, Book 4)

Mammoths at the Gates (The Singing Hills Cycle, Book 4
Nghi Vo, 2023

Premise: Follows Into the Riverlands, although these books can mostly be read in any order. Cleric Chih is finally headed home after many adventures, only to run into trouble at the abbey's very doors.

Like each of the preceding novellas, this is both an entertaining fantasy adventure and a beautiful meditation. In this case, the deeper meaning is focused on memory. 

When Chih returns home to the Singing Hills Abbey, they discover that most of the other inhabitants are off on a special investigation and their beloved mentor has passed away. This would be stressful enough without the mentor's granddaughters, their soldiers, and their very large mammoths demanding the elder cleric's body, contrary to Abbey tradition. 

That's the surface story. The real story is about remembering someone who is gone, and all the stories, contradictory and complex as they may be, that make up a life. It's also about how the person you were as a child is also dead and only a memory, and sometimes moving forward from that old story to write a new one is hard.

It's about looking up to parents and elders as children and about becoming a parent or elder in turn. It's about the deep mystery of what defines humanity, alongside what defines the magical neixin birds that embody the mission of the Singing Hills Abbey. 

It's gorgeous and sad and uplifting and mysterious and I loved it.

5 Stars - An Awesome Book