Welcome to my weekly segment, Waiting on Wednesday, where I look at upcoming books that I am planning to order and review in the next few months and which I think I will really enjoy.  I run this segment in conjunction with the Can’t-Wait Wednesday meme that is currently running at Wishful Endings. Stay tuned to see reviews of these books when I get a copy of them. After reading the incredible recent fantasy release Boundless, I am in a mood for another novel by one of my favourite authors, R. A. Salvatore, so in this week’s Waiting on Wednesday I check out Salvatore’s next upcoming book, Song of the Risen God.

Song of the Risen God will be the third and final book in The Coven trilogy, a series which follows on from the events of Salvatore’s epic The DemonWars Saga, which started in 1997 with The Demon Awakens. Set in his unique fantasy world of Corona, The Coven trilogy has so far featured two action-packed and compelling novels, 2018’s Child of a Mad God and this year’s Reckoning of Fallen Gods, both of which I have really enjoyed. Salvatore has been running these novels concurrently with his latest trilogy of books in the Forgotten Realms universe (which includes Timeless and Boundless).

The Coven trilogy is mostly focused on the humans who live around the shores of the massive Loch Beag, as well as the ruthless Uscar tribe who live above the loch on the slopes of the mountain, Fireach Speur. The Uscar are feared warriors and hunters who, with the help of their witch’s crystal magic, constantly raid the fishing villages around Loch Beag, taking the woman and children for slaves. While most Uscar are content with their violent lifestyle, one young Uscar witch, Aoelyn, rebelled and attempted to use her powerful magical abilities to escape the brutality of her tribe.

Together with her lover, the slave Bahdlahn, Aoelyn manages to make her way to the villages at the loch edge, where several of their friends and allies are waiting for them. However, just as Aoelyn and Bahdlahn managed to escape, a powerful army of goblinoids, the Xoconai, attacked both the Uscar and the villages around Loch Beag in the opening stages of an all-out invasion of the civilised human lands that lie on the other side of the mountain.

The second book in this trilogy, Reckoning of Fallen Gods, ended with the Xoconai’s fallen god rising from death and unleashing his full power on Loch Beag, devastating the tribes below and uncovering his massive dragon steed that lurked beneath Loch Beag. This was an epic cliff-hanger to end the second book with, and I am really looking forward to seeing how Salvatore concludes this great trilogy.

Song of the Risen God, which is set for release in late January 2020, currently has the following plot synopsis out, and it looks like it is going to be a pretty cool novel.

Goodreads Synopsis:

War has come to Fireach Speur.

The once forgotten Xoconai empire has declared war upon the humans west of the mountains, and their first target are the people of Loch Beag. Lead by the peerless general, Tzatzini, all that stands in the way of the God Emperor’s grasp of power is Aoelyn, Talmadge, and their few remaining allies.

But not all hope is lost. Far away from Fireach Speuer, an ancient tomb is uncovered by Brother Thaddeus of the Abellican Church. Within it is the power to stop the onslaught of coming empire and, possibly, reshape the very world itself.

While the above synopsis does not contain a lot of new details, it does sound like this is going to be a novel that focuses on a deadly war against the Xoconai. Salvatore’s previous works are littered with a number of scenarios where the forces of good have to fight against a superior force, and I’ve loved every single one of them so far. After the amazing first two books in this trilogy, I expect to have an outstanding time reading Song of the Risen God. This new upcoming book from Salvatore is probably one of my most anticipated reads for the first half of 2020, and I cannot wait to get my hands on it.