Four friends from the
small town of Barca's Hamlet have found themselves, along with their friends
Tenoctris - a wizard out of her own time - and Liane - a daughter of a noble
line - drawn into political intrigue that could forever alter the course of
their world.
The Queen of the Isles, a powerful wizard, plans
to use Garric and Sharina, the last descendents of the true royal line, to
find an ancient throne and claim its power. Her husband, King Valence, has
his own plans. Fearing his wife's power, he has his wizard summon a creature
of magic through human sacrifice. He also plans to eliminate Garric, who he
views as a potential rival to his throne.
Scheming nobles have also heard word of Garric's
lineage and plan to use him to free them from both the Queen's evil and the
King's weakness.
My main complaint about
the last book I read was that not enough
happened. This book is the opposite in that I feel too much happened - and
most of it was pointless.
The first couple of hundred pages of the book
seemed like an endless string of obstacle after obstacle being thrown in the
path of the 6 main characters, but without any consequence as the characters
easily overcome one before moving on to the next one.
Garric's story finally gets to the point and
focuses on the main plot, but Ilna, Cashel and Sharina's stories spend way
too much time before finally meeting up with Garric's plot.
I also didn't really enjoy the endless
repetition of, "just a shepherd from Barca's Hamlet", "just an innkeeper's
daughter", "a wizard of insignificant power." There has to be other ways to
describe the characters, or other aspects of their personalities.
I was kind of bored by this book, which is just
disappointing because of how much I remember liking book 1 and how long I
spent tracking down all the other books in the series.
Grade: C