5 Day challenge Day 2 (late)

 So after struggling to get through the book for day 2 I managed to barely finish it the third day. It might have been faster had I only one book to read but I did have to finish the previous one and the corresponding for the current day, so I do pat myself on the back. I did great!

One thing at a time. Let's review the second book for this challenge.

Title: Knight's Shadow

Series: Greatcoats #2

Author: Sebastien de Castell

Genre: Fantasy

Original publication date: December 8, 2014

Book description: 

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.

Thoughts:

Warning: There is mention of rape, torture, and a lot of killing.

This starts off pretty strong on feelings, but slow on everything else. I had a bit of a hard time getting into the story. We already know the characters and have fallen for them. Their lives are more chaotic now though. 

With the discovery of the new Greatcoats, the Tailor trying to make guerrilla against Trin, Aline trying to figure out a way to stay alive long enough to be crowned Queen of Trista. there is a lot of fighting. But we continue to see a lot of political maneuvering. 

Falcio is sent by the Tailor to several places, his companions are not too happy about following the orders from her but they follow Falcio.   New characters are introduced to the story. Some are not that appealing at the beginning but by the end, you end up liking them anyway. 

There are crazy stories about Falcio going around in the small villages. The common folk are fired up and a few sparks get a rebellion started. Falcio does not wish to start a civil war. He wishes to preserve the country in the most peaceful way possible so it's easier for Aline to rule once she has the Dukes' support. During their mission to get Duke's approval, well that does not go according to plan. But when does it ever?

While they fight to stay alive, not start a civil war and try to make peace with some of the men who have been trying to kill them. Each one of their crew faces their own inner demons. 

Falcio is still trying to be honorable. He carries the guilt of his past, the burden of the responsibility the late King assigned him. Worse off, the man he worships like a God (the King) was not a saint and he struggles to accept that.

Kest- after becoming the Saint of Swords, nothing good has come off it. He has no idea really what he is doing but his sense of responsibility and loyalty to Falcio makes him refuse the help of the people who might be able to aid him.  In the end, he is forced to accept he can't ignore his Sainthood. 

Brasti- he is one of the most bizarre people in the story. He is always such a laidback and funny person. But he does have a very tender heart. He speaks as if he didn't care about the King as much as the rest, which makes him one of my favorite characters.

For a lot of the story, I was angry, stressed out. They are reckless and sometimes do not see what is in front of them. Sometimes it was impossible to see the light at the end of the tunnel. They had to face plot within plots, lie, manipulate and others did the same to them!

Believe me, this is one of the books where you can't put it down. At some point, I had to stop reading for a few minutes, get myself in check, and go back to reading. Byt the day the story starts off by making reference to the Greatcoats Lament. You forget as the story goes on, that it was the first thing you wanted to find out. It comes into play when it had slipped your mind but when it does it's impactful. I was not expecting the different phases of it. 

By the way, the magic here is not very explained or explored. I have a hard time wrapping my mind around how it works. But we do get everything from Falcio's perspective and he hates magic and has never attempted to investigate it so that makes sense. 

100% recommend this series.