2020 fantasy, last of its trilogy. Queen Everleigh Blair decides to
take the fight to the enemy: the king of neighbouring Morta, who with
his sister orchestrated the massacre that put her on the throne and
continues to try to assassinate her.
What an odd conclusion to the trilogy. Some things have been
well-foreshadowed for some time (such as the eventual fate of Maeven,
evil sister of the Evil King). Others, like the weird pseudo-Venice
that serves as the primary setting, have never been mentioned before.
And there are plenty of hooks left dangling for potential future
books. (A sequel series is set some years later, dealing with a
character who's a child here.)
Which I suppose is realistic in its way – not everything gets neatly
wrapped up at the same time. But this doesn't feel like a concluding
volume: if there were to be an immediate volume four, it wouldn't be
superfluous, because there are plenty of things that just haven't been
explored yet, and another author might have reserved them for other
books or settings where they could be more fully used rather than
putting them in here.
Anyway, there's a periodic festival called the Regalia (no regalia are
involved), a series of athletic and martial contests. All the rulers
go there. So this seems like a great opportunity to assassinate the
king of Morta…
Wait, is this a setup of post-Westphalian states? I mean we have
railways for goodness' sake. Apparently if the queen just marches up
and stabs a neighbouring king that will start a war, but if a
mysterious cloaked figure (who is not at all part of the queen's
regular retinue honest) murders him with a poisoned crossbow bolt that
should cause no trouble at all even though she's known to be the main
person with a grudge against him. I never felt I really had any sort
of grasp on just what was regarded as an acceptable action and what
wasn't, other that what the plot required at the time.
She tries to build alliances, but again it's never really been quite
clear what these countries have to offer each other beyond vaguely
defined trade agreements. The alliance-building mostly consists of
saying "look at that guy, he's an obvious nutter", and the Mortan king
obliges by doing everything he can to look like a power-mad idiot.
Meanwhile the great romance story that was trying to anchor the first
two books has been resolved: they're a couple now, they enjoy sex, and
Estep clearly finds this boring because there's really no link between
that and the rest of what's going on; and there's a flashback showing
Everleigh using magic as a child that contradicts something that was a
major point in book 1.
Is it plausible that Everleigh, who's only really been exploring her
powers and learning to fight in the last year or so, should be able to
beat someone who's been doing these things for a couple of decades?
Does it make sense that a faction that's been a major consideration up
to this point should be wiped out by a single heroic action? Probably
not. But Estep leaves me almost believing it; and it's really the side
stories, particularly the plots swirling round Maeven, that make this
interesting.
Not up to the standards of the first book, but nor is it the let-down
that the second one was in places.
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