As Kyrus Hinterdale and Brannis Solaran work to understand the intricacies of their Twinborn connection, they must also analyze and unravel the game Jinzan and Denrick played to get a step ahead of them. While planning a war, and coming to terms with Juliana’s impending wedding to Iridan, Brannis knows that he needs to feed Kyrus more advanced magical knowledge and training if they ever hope to keep the Kadrin empire from destruction.
However, just as plans are starting to come together, a spell of Kyrus’ goes very wrong, and the two find themselves in an even bigger dilemma than ever. With the help of other Twinborn, they struggle to gain the upper hand in the war, and set everything back as it should be.
In full disclosure I received a
free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Holy crap this book is even more
amazing than book one of the series! How is that even possible? The concept is
original and just like book one it is perfectly executed.
There are a lot more twinborns in
this book. The plot is more complex than the first book, with multiple story
threads, points of views and plot. The truly amazing thing about all this it
that even though it is complex, with so much going on, it really should make
the reader’s head explode, but the author is so talented at explaining what is
happening it rarely gets confusing or hard to follow. Not only does the author
explain the story in such a way that it is easy to follow, but it is done in a
natural way and it doesn’t feel like an explanation.
About the only time it could get
confusing, was a result of having so many twinborns I had a hard time
remembering who some of the secondary character’s twin was. They were usually
named but sometimes I found I would need more detail to help me remember
exactly who they were, especially early on. But this really was only a minor
problem and for the most part the extra twins made the story even more
interesting.
The descriptions are once again
perfect, they are of high detail, allowing the reader to visualise the amazing
worlds in the story, but not to the extent that it slows down the pacing or
becomes boring.
The pacing and balance of the
story was better than the first. Because of the nature of the first book, which
was primarily focused on the Brannis/Kyrus point-of-view, and only switched
when one of them fell asleep, it would occasionally spend too much time on
action or too much time on a slower plot point then was natural. But because of
all the extra characters in this book, this didn’t happen and the flow was much
better.
The characters are once again
fantastic, they have amazing but believable personalities. With the strengthening
bond between Brannis and Kyrus their personalities begin to merge. But they
still manage to remain individuals. The thoughts each character has, and the
emotions they have are amongst some of the strongest writing in this amazing
book.
Just like the first book, no-one
is completely good or evil, they are much more complex than that. The good
people have bad traits or sometimes do bad things, and the evil characters have
good traits and sometimes do good things. Just like real-life, no-one see’s
themselves as evil. Also there are plenty of people who you are left uncertain
whether they are good or evil.
There are a couple of love
triangles going on (possible better described as a love square), this is made
even more complex as some of the characters involved are twinborns and share at
least some of the feelings of their twin.
There are many very clever and
well thought out ideas, some of them are large pieces of complex plot, but
others are small details that help make the story more realistic and its
characters more believable.
As well as Brannis and Kyrus
personalities merging, their two worlds also are starting to blend. Magic is
becoming more prominent in Kyrus’s home and technology is more prevalent in
Brannis’s world. The two blended in such a way that there are things that
incorporate ideas from both worlds (such as flying ships)
Sometimes it was clear what path
a plot point would lead, but it was still exciting to read about as you want to
find out exactly what happens once it gets there.
This book is even bigger than it
appears, the edition I read had 445 page, but it also has a fairly small print
and so much happens in this story it easily feels like a book with twice as
many pages, but in a good way.
The book has a more epic feel to
it, and you get to see more what is happening in the two worlds.
The book does continue the plot
from the last one, and does develop the series wide story leaving some plot
open for the final book in the series. But it doesn’t suffer with the normal ‘middle
book’ problems, and is a strong story in its own right and doesn’t leave too
many threads open.
One of my few real criticisms for
this one was that at one point the characters are able to send messages to
their twins while awake. This seemed inconsistent with the first book and most
of the second and it wasn’t how I had perceived how the two worlds worked.
If you enjoyed the first book
then you will love this book as well. It is even better (and I thought book one
was close to perfection.) The story is more complex but the author skillfully
writes it in such a way that it is never confusing. How he was able to keep up
with everything while he was writing without leaving massive plot holes or
without his head exploding I will probably never know. The characters expand
and continue to impress on every level. The concept is original, something hard
to do these days with any fantasy novel. I am eagerly awaiting the final book
in the series, but also a little sad, because once I’ve read it this amazing
series will be over. I really hope the author has more great ideas, either for
the two worlds featured in this series or a new one.
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