RogerBW's Blog

Rebel, Jenny Schwartz 28 May 2025

2021 SF, third in a five-book series. Nora's new wealth has made her a political player, whether she wants it or not.

But while there are incidents here, I got very little sense of pace; Nora is much more being moved from problem to problem and reacting to them than she is trying to take control of the situation—much the same problem as with Lydia in The Shadow Wing, which I reviewed in April.

The ongoing incidents are fine, as various secrets come out and factions that appeared to be monolithic turn out to have their own internal divisions. But part of the problem is that there are obvious ways to move forward and get the society out of its stasis, but in terms of the narrative it's not time to do those things yet (we are after all in the middle volume of a five-book series).

Like all of Schwartz's work I've read so far, this is quite a short novel, and I suspect the usual way to buy it is in an omnibus edition. Even so, I didn't find it the easy and fast read that I've had with previous books; this is definitely the weakest Schwartz I've read.

[Buy this at Amazon] and help support the blog. ["As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases."]

See also:
The Shadow Wing, Sarah Painter

Previous in series: Doubt | Series: The Adventures of a Xeno-Archaeologist

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