Blood of the Fold

by Terry Goodkind

Reviewed by Coral

After the five Sisters of the Dark escaped from the Palace of the Prophets, the Sisters of the Light were left mourning Prelate Ann and Nathan as dead. Only Verna knows that things will quickly go from bad to worse for the Palace if she isn't able to somehow ferret out all the Sisters of the Dark still hidden in shadow. The only person she can trust is Warren. But with Emperor Jagang on his way to the Palace and a sudden appointment trapping Verna behind a desk, how can she ever manage to separate the guilty from the innocent before all is lost?

Richard has a lot to learn about what it means to be the Lord Rahl; thankfully the Mord-Sith Cara and a few of other Mord-Sith and a couple of soldiers from the First File have come to Aydindril to protect him and to teach him what it means to be their magic against magic. He's going to need their help, because not only does he intend to win back the loyalty of the D'Harans who've joined with the Imperial Order, he intends to carry on with the war Kahlan declared on behalf of the Midlands. To do that he will follow in the footsteps of the Lord Rahls before him; Richard has decided to conquer the world!

Now a war between the Old World and the New World is upon them. With the barrier that had long separated them down, there is nothing to hold back the armies of Jagang. And his power is growing. Jagang is a dream-walker, with the ability to see into the unconscious thoughts of others, using this ability to terrorize, subjugate and seduce people to his side.

One of these people he's won to his side is Tobias Brogan, Lord General of the Blood of the Fold. For the Blood magic is the taint of the Keeper and it is their job to destroy magic, in the name of the Creator. General Brogan has a nose for spells and while the rest of the world may believe that the Mother Confessor was executed he does not. Now he is determined to hunt her down and kill her himself.

I'm glad I decided to re-read the series before moving on to the newest books because I remembered absolutely nothing about this book.

I had mentioned in my review of Stone of Tears that I sort of hated all the dropped plot lines and characters over the course of the series. I knew I was probably getting ahead of myself and in the case of Gratch I was. I didn't remember him being in this book or what happens with him in it. But again, I was only one book ahead of myself, because I'm pretty sure he doesn't make a return appearance in any of the subsequent books.

The only thing, not really wrong, but off about this book was the Blood of the Fold. Their belief is supposed to be centered on destroying magic to rid the world of the Keeper's taint. They, of course, have no problem with using as tools people with magic that they can control. As presented, I can understand them. I also get that in their mind no one is innocent of being a servant of the Keeper unless they comply completely with the Blood. What I don't really understand is how they can use spells and stuff and not see the hypocrisy in their actions. Their characterization got a little confusing for me.

But other than that I still loved this book on the second go round. It had a few surprises that were still surprising, because I hadn't remembered them, and one that I had remembered, so I can't be sure if it was surprising the first time. Oh well.

Grade: B