A Choir of Lies is a novel by Alexandra Rowland, a sequel to A Conspiracy of Truths and the second entry innthe Chronicles of the Chants series.
Three years ago, Ylfing watched his master-Chant tear a nation apart with nothing but the words on his tongue. Now Ylfing is all alone in a new realm, brokenhearted and grieving—but a Chant in his own right, employed as a translator to a wealthy merchant of luxury goods, Sterre de Waeyer. But Ylfing has been struggling to come to terms with what his master did, with the audiences he’s been alienated from, and with the stories he can no longer trust himself to tell.
That is, until Ylfing’s employer finds out what he is, what he does, and what he knows. At Sterre’s command, Ylfing begins telling stories once more, fanning the city into a mania for a few shipments of an exotic flower. The prices skyrocket, but when disaster looms, Ylfing must face what he has done and decide who he wants to be: a man who walks away and lets the city shatter, as his master did? Or will he embrace the power of story to save ten thousand lives?
Much like with its predecessor, A Choir of Lies has a lot of plot points that are best discovered through reading it. Thus, as a warning, beware of unmarked spoilers.
A Choir of Lies provides examples of:
- Ancient Tradition: Chants have walked the land for millennia, and it's clear that this time has caused their traditions to diverge wildly. Mistress Chant especially notes that, Ylfing's blasphemy aside, his master was also a heretic according to ber beliefs.
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Alternative Character Interpretation: Tons, especially with the three Chants in the story.- How much of Ylfing's crisis of faith stems from his trauma, and how much of it stems from his own ego and even empathy? Multiple descriptions he has of other character's actions lack context or are otherwise painted negatively — is this personal bias, or ignorance?
- Is Mistress Chant truthful about the ways that she corrects Ylfing's records, or is her own series of events marred by her already rather overwhelmingly negstive feelings towards him?
- How much of Ylfing's Master-Chant's mistreatment was necessary, and how much of it was neglect? When he hastily went through with Ylfing's rites, did he actually mean to abandon him, or did he walk away, knowing the rough life he lived was catching up to him amd trying to spare Ylfing seeing someone else he cared about dying?
- Broken Bird: Ylfing, who is dealing with a crisis of faith alongside the many traumas he gained from his time in Nuryevet two years ago.
- Did We Just Have Tea with Cthulhu?: Ylfing describes a vivid lucid dream where he stands on a boat in the middle of a dark sea with a hooded boatman accompanied by a cormorant, whom he meets multiple nights in a row for a week. Mistress Chant is absolutely alarmed by this, because the figure in question perfectly matches the description of Shuggwa, a primeval god of misfortune the Chants were meant to keep people safe from.
- Fantasy Counterpart Culture: Heyrland is very much a stand-in for Renaissance-era Holland, and its economic crisis is an obvious parallel to tulip mania.
- His Name Really Is "Barkeep": Chants have no names, only the title of "Chant."
- Omniglot: A necessary trait for any Chant. Ylfing alone mulls over five different languages to write his notes in, and both he and Mistress Chant switch languages in the middle of a conversation multiple times.
- One-Steve Limit: Zig-zagged. Ylfing, Mistress Chant and Ylfing's former Master-Chant all technically have no name and the title of Chant, but only Ylfing's Master-Chant goes by Chant exclusively — Ylfing refers to himself by his own name privately and later publicly, and Mistress Chant uses a style of address with her title.
- Scrapbook Story: The entire story is a version of Ylfing's journal, annotated and edited by Mistress Chant (who outright burns entire chapters of it).
- Take Our Word for It: Mistress Chant makes offhand references to the sections that she burns, including a tearful summary of ''A Conspiracy of Truths from Ylfing's perspective, with only her dismissive description to go off for the most part.
- Villain of Another Story: Ylfing's Master-Chant and his actions during A Conspiracy of Truths show up prominently in the narrative, especially him pretending to lose his mind and making his apprentice complicit in the fall of a country and the deaths of hundreds, the trauma of which is a large driver of Ylfing's character and the plot.
