C.L. Clark

The Faithless

4.5 stars
it's so damn satisfying when the second book in a series is even better than the (also great) first book

The middle book in a trilogy is always tricky. It has to live up to - or improve upon - the first book, and it has to set up the final instalment in a satisfying way. The Faithless largely succeeds at both of these aims.

I write this from the perspective of someone who did not love the first book in the series, The Unbroken. I gave that book three stars because, while well-written, I didn’t find the characters enjoyable to read about. I found Touraine in particular frustrating and in my review I wrote that she “never met a bad decision she didn’t like.”

This time around, while Touraine does still make plenty of bad decisions, the narrative seems to know that she is politically naive and impulsive, something that was missing from the first book in my opinion. Her relationship with Luca made more sense to me this time and developed in a way that was fairly satisfying. Again, this is in contrast to the first book, where I felt that the assumption of their attraction was unearned.

The setting moves in this book to the capital of Balladaire and into the intrigues of the Imperial court. Luca is desperate for allies in her attempts to rediscover Balladairian magic and to ensure her succession to the throne. This is where Touraine comes in, functioning as an ambassador for the newly independent Qazali nation.

What follows is a chess game of move and countermove (the book is structured like a chess match and chapter titles make frequent reference to chess pieces and strategies.) I found the first quarter of the book somewhat slow moving, but after that the plot started to move along at a decent rate, and I enjoyed the addition of each new layer of complication.

I finished my review of the first book by saying that I probably wouldn’t continue the series. If I hadn’t received an arc of this (thank you to the publishers and NetGalley for this) I probably wouldn’t have done so. However, this book has changed my mind. I am looking forward to seeing how the series will conclude.

Wonko the Sane

The middle book in a trilogy is always tricky. It has to live up to - or improve upon - the first book, and it has to set up the final instalment in a satisfying way. The Faithless largely succeeds at both of these aims.

I write this from the perspective of someone who did not love the first book in the series, The Unbroken. I gave that book three stars because, while well-written, I didn’t find the characters enjoyable to read about. I found Touraine in particular frustrating and in my review I wrote that she “never met a bad decision she didn’t like.”

This time around, while Touraine does still make plenty of bad decisions, the narrative seems to know that she is politically naive and impulsive, something that was missing from the first book in my opinion. Her relationship with Luca made more sense to me this time and developed in a way that was fairly satisfying. Again, this is in contrast to the first book, where I felt that the assumption of their attraction was unearned.

The setting moves in this book to the capital of Balladaire and into the intrigues of the Imperial court. Luca is desperate for allies in her attempts to rediscover Balladairian magic and to ensure her succession to the throne. This is where Touraine comes in, functioning as an ambassador for the newly independent Qazali nation.

What follows is a chess game of move and countermove (the book is structured like a chess match and chapter titles make frequent reference to chess pieces and strategies.) I found the first quarter of the book somewhat slow moving, but after that the plot started to move along at a decent rate, and I enjoyed the addition of each new layer of complication.

I finished my review of the first book by saying that I probably wouldn’t continue the series. If I hadn’t received an arc of this (thank you to the publishers and NetGalley for this) I probably wouldn’t have done so. However, this book has changed my mind. I am looking forward to seeing how the series will conclude.

The Faithless

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