Knight’s Shadow by Sebastien de Castell – Review

Published: March 5, 2015

Publisher: Jo Fletcher Books

Genre: Fantasy

Series: Greatcoats #2

Pages: 606 (Hardcover)

My Rating: 3.5/5.0

 

Synopsis:

Following his beloved debut, Traitor’s Blade, Sebastien de Castell returns with volume two of his fast-paced fantasy adventure series, inspired by the swashbuckling action and witty banter of The Three Musketeers. Knight’s Shadow continues the series with a thrilling and dark tale of heroism and betrayal in a country crushed under the weight of its rulers’ corruption.

A few days after the horrifying murder of a duke and his family, Falcio val Mond, swordsman and First Cantor of the Greatcoats, begins a deadly pursuit to capture the killer. But Falcio soon discovers his own life is in mortal danger from a poison administered as a final act of revenge by one of his deadliest enemies. As chaos and civil war begin to overtake the country, Falcio has precious little time left to stop those determined to destroy his homeland.

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I may get flogged for this but I didn’t like this book as much as I thought I would. So many people have shared their love for this series so I expected that I would feel much the same way when I read it…. Alas, that was not to be the case. While I thought it was a good book, I just didn’t LOVE it and actually have pretty moderate feelings toward it.

The plot is everything I should love in a book – a group of talented, weapon-wielding heroes trying to fulfill their dead king’s last command to save his heir. An evil and beautiful woman is trying to kill said heir and the heroes and take the throne for herself so obviously our three heroes must save her. The problem is, I don’t actually like the heroes that much. I think Falcio is a self-righteous, naïve idiot. He continually frustrated me because he just couldn’t seem to get anything right! For someone who rose to the rank of First Cantor of the King’s Greatcoats, he makes remarkably poor choices. Brasti is definitely a skilled archer and he’s kind of funny. Kest is probably my favorite of the trio because he’s level-headed when he’s in control rather than his sainthood. He’s the greatest swordsman alive and he proves it, but without excessive bravado. But seriously, I could go on for several more sentences about what I dislike about Falcio. There are things I can admire about him as a character – he’s fiercely loyal, he’s got some mad luck on his side, and mentally he can withstand SO MUCH. Valiana is the most recent addition to the Greatcoats and she’s a decent sort overall, especially considering her circumstances.

The plot had its ups and downs in my opinion. Some parts where intense and totally gripped my attention, but others were not quite so interesting. The assassinations of the Dukes were most mysterious and gruesome and I liked hypothesizing who the culprit(s) could be and what could possibly happen next. The sudden upheaval in the countryside was also a good side-quest type plot point, but by far the most interesting parts were when the Dashini made their presence known. It was stunningly intense because, you know, they’re master assassins who may or may not have murdered a whole bunch of important people recently.

Overall, I wasn’t particularly enamored with this book, though it was an interesting read. I think part of the reason I wasn’t a huge fan of this was the audio format – the narration was good, but I think I prefer reading the physical book for some reason. That’s probably how I’ll try the next book and I’ll see if it makes a difference.