Fantasy Buddy Reads discussion

Buddy read starts 28th February.

In :-)

In like Flynn.

In.

In

Oh yay you guys, glad we're all doing this one too :-)

I am dying to start this one early.

Yeah...so I stealthily started this a week or so ago and just finished yesterday...don't be mad!

Haha! How was it!

I'm mad. You didn't post thoughts for us to open later!

Lol :-) Yes, spill your thoughts about this one!

Ha! Well, much like last time, I'll keep my thoughts very general. Nothing here is an actual spoiler, but I'm still going to mark it that way in case someone doesn't want to know my impressions of the book until after they're done, too.

(view spoiler)[Overall this was one of those 3.5* books for me, which I mentally debated for a long time whether to call it a 3* or 4*.

Things I liked:
-The ending. I'm sure many people will disagree, but for me the last 30 pages were a really nice way of concluding the series.
-Pacing was again a strength. Other than in Book 2, I feel like pacing was nearly perfect throughout the series.
-The banter. Kest and Brasti are still Kest and Brasti :)
-I've grown to love this cast of characters, so a fourth installment was going to be enjoyable no matter what

Things I didn't like:
-Felt a little anti-climactic. After such an ambitious plot in Book 3, I was curious how de Castell would continue to escalate things. IMO he didn't
-Most of the big reveals were extremely predictable
-Some of the big questions of how this world works were never actually answered. With this being the last book in the series, I feel like de Castell's biggest weakness was a lack of clear world-building...he just never really fleshed some of his ideas out

(hide spoiler)]

I'm so ready to start this :-)

Up to chapter 20 - it's fun to be back with the Holy Trinity of Preposterous Heroics :-)

So far: (view spoiler)[de Castell's trademark banter continues to amuse me :-)

Falcio and the lads have managed to find another 'Greatcoat', Chalmers, who seems to be quite likable, feisty and full of sass.

Brasti dreams of a future where he Falcio and Kest retire from being magistrates and become pirates!

We witness a sad and very strange trial, where the accused is already dead.

Falcio bemoans the fact that it is now very difficult to invoke the saints when cursing, as the old ones are dead and he doesn't yet know the new ones, haha.

'What in the name of - ? I paused and turned to Kest.
'Eloria-whose-screams-draw-blood?' he offered.
'Which one is she?'

Poor Valiana has a very awkward intimate experience. What a gutless wonder Pastien turns out to be!

The council of Dukes continues to be repellent and make things tough for Aline. They feel that at the age of 14, it's high time she got married and produced an heir. My daughter is 15, if anyone ever dared suggest such a thing to her, I would stick a fork in their eye!

Valiana cleverly arranges a secret meeting with the people she trusts, in the Tailor's accommodation of choice - the dungeon. Here Falcio, Brasti and Kest are happily reunited with Morn, another Greatcoat who has returned from his spying mission, sporting a rather impressive beard. Morn has news about war bands massing in Avares and evil bitch Trin.

And now Falcio, Brasti, Kest and Morn are off on an adventure to capture Trin and collect songs, because the messages in music are really important. No arguments here - I love Spotify! (hide spoiler)]

Up to chapter 43 - gosh, the reveals are flying thick and fast!

To recap: (view spoiler)[Turns out that Morn is actually The Warlord of Avares - the great Magdan. Not only has he united all the Avarean warriors, he has gathered all 42 remaining Greatcoats to his cause!

Morn believes that the chaos that is Tristia would be better served by the rule of the Greatcoats with himself as First Cantor. He challenges Falcio to a duel and wins easily, due to the altitude sickness that Falcio is experiencing.

Falcio, Brasti and Kest are placed into a cell for safekeeping, when who should they meet but Trin! And she has a friend with her - a young man by the name of Filian - another of King Paelis' charoite's! Filian is one year older than Aline and therefor the rightful Heir to the throne of Tristia!

This motley crew all escape together and we are left to conclude that, despite everything, Trin does actually have at least a few redeeming qualities. In fact, it is possible that her mother, Patriana, also had some admirable strengths. Falcio starts to question some of his deeply held beliefs.

Aided by Gwyn, possibly the last remaining true Rangieri, the group make it back to Castle Aramor, where a ragged band of volunteer soldiers are massing. And guess what? Captain Feltock (from book 1) is still alive, although missing an eye and a limb.

Aline recognises her brother right away and welcomes him home. (hide spoiler)]

Some good twists! Looking forward to finding out where it's all going :-)

Haha, I only finished Chapter 4, I was a little confused by the beginning and what's going on there :D

I'm going to have to kick myself into gear to get started on this!!

It's looking more and more likely that I'm going to have to miss this buddy read. I have a readathon starting at the beginning of April and I don't want too many books half finished come April 1st. I'm sad because it'll mean missing out on the buddy read points but needs must.

If anyone else is behind and wants to buddy read this at the beginning of April or even in May let me know :-)

Hailee wrote: "It's looking more and more likely that I'm going to have to miss this buddy read. I have a readathon starting at the beginning of April and I don't want too many books half finished come April 1st...."

No worries at all, completely understand - enjoy this book when you get there :-)

Oh no Hailee :/ Even without it being a BR, you should still come and tell us what you think in April :)

I'm taking a break right now... (The “e“ Thing :D) But I'll continue on Thursday and hope to make good progress!

Finished :-) Oh the plotting and political machinations in the last part of the book!

Final summary: (view spoiler)[The reveals continue! Turns out that the Duchess of Ossia is actually Filian's birth mother. Afraid of what sort of King her son will have become under the tutelage of Duchess Patriana (and the on going influence of Trin) she takes it upon herself to end his life. Only to be thwarted by Aline who loses her own life to save that of her brother.

The Duke of Rijou surprises us with an act of valor and loses his life also in this attack. Before he dies he admits that he is actually Valiana's real birth father (so she was actually Tommer's real half sister). Valiana is now the rightful Duchess to Rijou.

Falcio spends a great deal of time feeling very devastated and angry about the loss of Aline - mixing it up a little, with a bit of philosophical melancholy.

He and those that remain of Tristia's old Orders; the Trattari, Bardatti, Honori, Rangieri, Dashini, Cogneri, Sancti plus a representative of the common folk, must decide whether Tristia should be saved. Once decided, the question is - how can this possibly be done?

Well, Captain Feltock is returned to his, once upon a time, status of General. And Falcio realises that Paelis' dream was never about some paltry 144 magistrates with their swords and cloaks, but about the jurors: ordinary men and women armed with nothing, willing to sacrifice themselves in a seemingly hopeless war, for the common good.

Falcio requests of Filian; that if there is anything left of Tristia after war with the Avareans, he will sign a Charter giving the citizenry of Tristia a voice in his rule. Hooray!

Vastly out numbered by the Avarean's, those willing to fight for Tristia march to their likely deaths. However, Falcio and co. have a few last ditch tricks up their sleeves - of course - and ultimately the war is won by 'seven against one thousand'.

Falcio's 'performance' seems to strike a chord with the Avarean sense of honor - a 3 generation truce is called.

The final chapters of the book are sort of sad and thought provoking in some ways.

Filian admits his love for Trin but wisely sends her away from his side. Aline is buried next to her father. Monster re-appears with some foals in tow! Chalmers is to be the new First Cantor of the Greatcoats. Valiana prepares to take over Rijou. Darri plans to re-establish the Dashini to what they were originally intended to be. Brasti plans to join the Rangieri. Kest plans to restore the Honori.

And what of Falcio? Well, he will finally get some well deserved rest. He is going to need it - Ethalia is going to have a baby! (Sleep deprivation in a whole new way :-)

Finally, it looks like some good things are headed Falcio's way! (hide spoiler)]

I enjoyed this installment - not quite as much as book 1 and 3, but almost!

@Andrew - my rating agrees with yours; 3.5 stars rounded up to 4 stars :-)

Glad you enjoyed it too, Shae! It was a very fun series. I will probably read the author's other series once he finishes it.

Oh forgot to mention, according to his website his other series is set in the same world, but on a different continent with other magical styles. Either series can be read alone, but it sounds like eventually there may be some tie-ins for fans that read all of his stuff. So kind of the Brandon Sanderson Cosmere approach, where technically everything is related but still able to stand on its own merits.

@Andrew - that does sound interesting, I would definitely be keen to check his other series out at some stage :-)

You two can join our Buddy read, should be in the same folder as this one, we start with Spellslinger this month :)

Anni, do you know when he plans on finishing the Spellslinger series? I don't want to start it until the final installment is about to be released. I already have too many open series to keep them all straight :)

Yes, there are 6 books in the series and the last one will be out in October 2019, the Buddy Read Schedule is one book a month, so we only need to wait 2-3 month for the last one to be published :)

Intriguing! We'll see. I may give it a go.

I’m going to start that series this weekend. Going to miss ole Brasti so hopefully the series will join up at some point

I should be finishing up my current read tonight which means I'll start Tyrant's Throne tomorrow.

@Anni - thanks for the info re Spellslinger :-) I'm very tempted! Just need to see if I can get through a couple of half finished books first :-)

Shae wrote: "Up to chapter 20 - it's fun to be back with the Holy Trinity of Preposterous Heroics :-)

So far: de Castell's trademark banter continues to amuse me :-)"

Wow, you nearly wrote a whole summary 😅 It's really nice to be back with Falcio, Krest and Brasti :)

Chapter 21 (view spoiler)[ Still, I don't enjoy it as much as book 3... I somehow miss a storyline here. It's more like a strange flow of (sometimes strange) events, it's not bad, but kind of random... (hide spoiler)]

Haha yes, sorry about the essay's :-) I've got a few books on the go and was having trouble keeping all the story lines straight, hence the copious note taking, lol :-)

I'm 5 chapters in and loved that whole reintroduction.

Chapter 27 (view spoiler)[ The moment Morn appeared for the fight, I knew he has to be rhe Magdan... Who else should have told the soldiers at the border that Falcio and Co are Grratcoats, they even waited for them! (hide spoiler)]

Sir Anni wrote: "Chapter 27 [spoilers removed]"

I totally agree. This is one of many examples of why I said "Most of the big reveals were extremely predictable" up in comment 12. I still really enjoyed the book, but a lot of the big reveals were spoiled by making the clues super obvious.

Andrew wrote: "Sir Anni wrote: "Chapter 27 [spoilers removed]"

I totally agree. This is one of many examples of why I said "Most of the big reveals were extremely predictable" up in comment 12. I still really en..."

That's true, some of the "twists" were incredible obvious
Up to Chapter 66 (view spoiler)[ for example that Dutchess being the mother of Aline's brother... Still I didn't see Aline's death coming, not at all! It was somehow sad, because Aline grew on me, but plott-wise I really liked that turn. Much better than Aline marrying her half-brother and everyone lived a happy life 😅 (hide spoiler)]

Sir Anni wrote: "Ch 21 [spoilers removed]..."

(view spoiler)[I know what you mean. I'm enjoying the banter between the three friends and liked our quick trip back to the castle to touch base with Valiana and Aline but so far the plot if unfocused.

It's feeling a bit repetitive too. Of course the boy was a trap, of course Falcio fell for it, of course the chapter leaves him with getting shot in the chest and naturally I expect the opening of the next chapter to be about how his greatcoat saves him by deflecting the arrow or something similar. (hide spoiler)]

Ch 36 (view spoiler)[While I truly wasn't sure if Aline was the only child of the late king still alive I was not expecting that to ever be answer. Huh! And of course he's with Trin. I hope she's dead by the end of this book. (hide spoiler)]

Ch 60 (view spoiler)[I didn't expect Aline to die either. That was well done. I assume this is the motivation Falcio will need to hold the country on trial and then go save the day. (hide spoiler)]

@Narilka - ah yes, that surprised me too, it was indeed well done :-)

I finished. That was fun. I agree with Andrew on most of his points above. (view spoiler)[My absolutely favorite part of this series is the banter between Kest, Brasti and Falcio. I love these characters.

The whole Falcio/Ethalia romance never really worked for me. I wish it would've been dropped after she became a Saint.

I agree that the overall plot for the book was a slight let down after book 3 in that it didn't seem like a bigger threat, though being invaded by your own magistrates is still pretty bad. It's kind of hard to escalate a plot about killing Saints and Gods though!

I truly loved the solution to the 3 day war. And I loved showing of the Bardatti power, that was cool. I'm also super glad that de Castelle trended away from the graphically described torture scenes!

I hope everyone read the Acknowledgements. The author works in little tidbits about the series :)

And of course the teaser that there will be more stories for our Greatcoats to come. (hide spoiler)]

Right now I've rated it 4 stars. We'll see if that changes when I write up my review.

I will probably pick up his second series after he's finished writing it.

Review posted: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

I've kept the 4 stars.

I finished it as well :) I agree with what everyone else wrote, not as good as book 3, but a nice ending for this series.

In the last scene, I was a little scared (view spoiler)[that there will be a stupid revive scene and Aline would go with Falcio and they would be such a cute and happy familie and blah, blah, blah... That would have been horrible and hee sacrifice somehow worthless... Like that it was nice somehow :) (hide spoiler)]

Sir Anni wrote: "I finished it as well :) I agree with what everyone else wrote, not as good as book 3, but a nice ending for this series.

In the last scene, I was a little scared [spoilers removed]"

Yeah that would've sucked! Glad it didn't happen :)