Calligraphy Guild Book Review

Title: Calligraphy Guild
Author: R. M. Archer
Genre: YA, speculative, high fantasy
Star rating: Five stars
Release Date: June 17, 2022 

Synopsis:
Dragon ink gives calligraphers the power to set history in stone—or to change it.

Lai Duyên’s dreams are realized when she’s admitted into the ranks of the calligraphers, authors considered trustworthy enough to defend time from those who would change it. She’s thrilled at the opportunity to record her country’s history, and to work with the other calligraphers in her village.

But when Duyên’s guild is set upon by ancient dragons demanding a time-changer be destroyed, her world is flipped upside down. Her guild mates turn on each other, suspicion coloring their every move. To make matters worse, she’s begun hearing the dragons in her head and finds them impossible to block out: a condition that rendered her grandmother insane.

With the calligraphy guild in turmoil and Duyên's ever-present fear of madness clouding her vision, will the group be able to discover which of their guild mates has altered time before the dragons pass judgment on them all?

In April 2021, I lost my love for stories. Every book I had read that year had been a disappointment. They were either beta reads whose authors would ignore the feedback they had asked for or were published works written with making money in mind.

I’m not saying there is anything wrong with writing as a career —I would love to write as a career someday! but I do think that writing to sell should be a secondary focus to writing impactful stories that stay with the reader in a positive way.

May 1st, 2021, Calligraphy Guild appeared as a beta reader document in my email inbox. I read the first chapter before breakfast the next day but ended up pushing it to the back burner as May, June, and July were such crazy months for my family. I tried to pick in up again mid-July, but I didn’t have much faith in storytelling at that point and it was another two weeks before I picked it up for a third time.

But third time’s the charm, right? Something finally clicked into place. Books weren’t all bad; this one definitely wasn’t!

Where most books are either very modern or very fantastical, Calligraphy Guild is a perfect mixture of the two. It has the elements of a high fantasy novel, but it also has the lighthearted, slow pacing of a spring time contemporary novel. Archer’s style is very clean, clear, and vivid and it all flows together beautifully!

The themes of Calligraphy Guild are as varied as the characters are themselves, but the main ones are betrayal, forgiveness, family, community, and finding the strength to get up again and again when life knocks you down. Archer does an amazing job tying each of these themes together into a cohesive story that pulls readers in and stays with them long after they have read the last page.

I love how each of the guild members are given their own story whether on-screen or, as in Masaki Chaska‘s case a bit of-screen. They all feel like the main character of their own tales rather that the supporting cast of Duyên‘s story.

Duyên is an amazing protagonist! While most main characters have a little too much emotion at times, Duyên doesn’t. She struggles to express her emotions to anyone, including herself. During the course of the book, she is also afraid of being driven insane due to the dragons’ voices in her head the same way that her grandmother was. That detail adds more depth to her character and I love it so much!

But Tora is my favorite character by far! She is the strong female character that most authors get wrong. She is weak, but she is strong in her weakness. She doesn’t let her chronic illness get in the way of her duty or her family life. She is loyal, persistent, and passionate and she even a strong warrior when the time calls for it! But she isn’t perfect. She lets her emotions get the better of her and she hurts others with her words when she says exactly what she is thinking at the wrong times. Archer really outdid herself when it came to Tora's side of the story! It’s one of the best things about the Calligraphy Guild.

The plot, though slow in pacing, was clear and easy to follow. It’s a fact that I don’t cry over books, but Archer almost had me in tears at one point. The ending is such a beautiful, bittersweet conclusion to the story. It wraps up most of the loose threads while still leaving one or two small ones out to give the characters room to grow past the pages of the story. This is something I’ve never seen in a novel before and I love it! This is a technique I’ll definitely be keeping in mind as I write my own stories.

The world building was amazing as well! Archer puts so much thought, time, and love into every world she creates (and you can learn how to do the same by taking her $15 course here!) and it stands out so well. Her worlds are kind of like Tolkien’s in the sense that you can tell that she does what she does because she enjoys it and not just because she feels like she has to. I never got the feeling that Virilia is only a half world like so many story-worlds of today. It felt fleshed out and real and unique.

Overall, this book is amazing! Calligraphy Guild was brought into my life in a time when I really needed it. I couldn’t see how any novel I might write would be the life changing story I’d always thought they should be. But Archer showed me differently. Calligraphy Guild gave me hope for the future. It showed me that there are authors out there who really do care about what they bring to the world. There are still stories to tell and they can be told in such a way that it gives readers permission to hope and dream and love.

When I needed stories in my life, I was give Calligraphy Guild, and I don’t think I have ever loved a story in the same way that I love this one!

You can find R. M. Archer's newsletter here to receive the first chapter of Calligraphy Guild and the link to order Calligraphy Guild is here.