Dark Oak by Jacob Sannox

Jen reviews Dark Oak, the first book in Jacob Sannox‘s epic fantasy series, The Dark Oak Chronicles.

An ecopy was received by the author in exchange for an honest review.

Humanity has finally defeated the Dark Lord, but Morrick fought on the wrong side. Though he was a slave, he is branded a traitor and must earn the trust of new lords in order to return to his family – if they are still alive…

Now that their common enemy is dead, the nobles begin to forget old loyalties, and Queen Cathryn’s realm looks set to plunge into war once more. But there are older and more terrible powers dwelling within the forest, and when they are awakened, Morrick will decide who lives or dies.

“He stared up at the cloud, unfeasibly high above him then his eyes fell upon the forest.
It was no longer aflame.
Blackened skeletons of trees, partially burned trunks and the unhurt woods beyond were now islands in a shallow lake which seemed to be washing outwards and towards him. Distant though they were, Linwood was certain that he could see the shape of women moving in the water, seemingly urging it onwards like mothers following behind young children taking their first steps.”

Bottom of the Deep Blue Sea by Missio

This was a difficult song choice so I decided to go with tone over lyrics (though they actually sort of work in their own way). I felt the echo-y oppressive haunting sound of this song worked pretty well for the tone of the story.

Dark Oak is one of those stories that we find our footing with as it goes. It’s a little bit of a drop-in style because we are joining at the end of a battle with a POV on the losing-side in Morrick, so you’re thinking to yourself ok, that’s a little different, and are not really sure which way to expect things to head – especially if like me, you have totally forgotten what this book was supposed to be about because it’s been in your reader for so long.

This was just a neat book! For a while Dark Oak does have this classic fantasy with a bit of a storyteller feel to it, but as the story builds it surprises you and goes off into some pretty dark messed-up places and by the end of it, I was like wow, that was not what I expected at all and I like it!

I’ll try and keep this as vague as possible because I really don’t want to spoil the journey this story took me on for anyone else.

I really enjoyed this whole setting. There were some great visuals with the Dryads making appearances – morphing from the earth, water or trees, etc. The story itself once it gets going, has this dark and twisty horror fairy tale vibe that I loved, and it can be pretty creepy. Honestly, the whole thing just left me with that feeling of a genie wish gone wrong and a few of the events in this story have haunted my head for the last few weeks.

This is only spoilery to Dark Oak if you have seen the MASH TV series finale. I won’t outright spoil either the show or book here but be warned you’ll know what I am referring to if you have seen the show.

So it’s been kind of killing me to not say anything about one of the plot points in this story so I’m going to… in a very roundabout fashion while keeping everything as spoiler free as possible.

When I was a kid, we used to watch MASH 4077 faithfully – it’s probably one of the few shows where I’ve seen all the episodes as they aired, including the finale. And let me tell you, that finale has stuck with me for years. Even now, I couldn’t help but think of the sadness/horror that I felt then for one of my favourite character’s breaks and the reason behind it.

I was way too young to really understand the mental anguish this choice would have given a person, but I did understand the horror of it. I don’t want to say it was nice to see it from the other-side because good grief that doesn’t sound right, but I did like that we got that exploration of the fall-out from the POV of the person who had to make this awful choice, and not just from the person who was also affected to some degree by that choice. If that makes sense?

Anyway…

If you’ve seen MASH or have already read Dark Oak, you’ll know what I mean, and hopefully, that’s vague enough to tell you why I have not been able to quit thinking about this story, and just like that MASH finale, some of the events in Dark Oak, will also live in my head for another decade or so.

So, I hope that intrigues you enough to pick up Dark Oak (or MASH) and see if it lives in your head for thirty-plus years too.

Fans of Benedict Patrick’s Yarnsworld might dig this dark little tale.