Rating: ★★★★
Review for book one: Spellslinger. Another wonderful entry in this series. Sebastien de Castell is quickly becoming one of my favorite authors.
We pick up where Kellen left off, on the run with Ferius Parfax and Reichis the squirrel cat, wandering the Seven Sands and just trying to keep his head on his shoulders. Out in the desert he meets another Argosi, The Path of Thorns and Roses, who has a girl in her care, Seneira. Seneira, not even a mage, is also suffering the Shadowblack.
The twists and turns in this book were excellent. A large part of the suspense is the mystery here, so there are fewer fight scenes than I am used to in a de Castell book, but the ones that are there are golden. You get this feeling when you read them, the author just has so much fun writing his stories, you can’t help but smile when reading his books.
I loved the western feel of this. It’s more pronounced in Shadowblack than in Spellslinger. They meet more wanderers on the road, trade what little the have for what little they can get. The battles are sort of quick draw, quick action which give the feeling of a frontier showdown.
The characters continue to delight, full of flaws and quirks. We meet a few new ones, that didn’t particularly stand out as anything especially great, but there are enough eyeball eating, thieving threats from Reichis to keep you entertained.
I highly recommend this to anyone who enjoyed Spellslinger, and I can’t wait for Charmcaster.
Hamlets & Hyperspace 