- Title:
- Avempartha (The Riyria Revelations, #2)
- By:
- Michael J. Sullivan
- Pages:
- 331
- Rating:
- 3
THE SECRET IS IN THE TOWER. THE PROBLEM IS THE BEAST. THE ANSWER IS TWO THIEVES.
When a destitute young woman hires two thieves to help save her remote village from nocturnal attacks, they are drawn into the schemes of the wizard Esrahaddon. While Royce struggles to breech the secrets of an ancient elven tower, Hadrian attempts to rally the villagers to defend themselves against the unseen killer. What begins with the simple theft of a sword places the two thieves at the center of a firestorm — that could change the future of Elan.
I enjoyed this more than the first in some ways, because we already have familiarity with the characters. Not to say we don’t learn more about them, of course!
Sadly, it’s not, to my mind, fantasy you can believe in. I get the way it’s written is supposed to be light and easy and all that, but sprinkling character’s speech with colloquialisms lends the whole thing a sense of being told about this fantasy setting by an American in a bar somewhere, rather than being involved in the story. If that weren’t enough, the author’s supreme fixation on the United States and the American reader in the interview at the end of my edition of books 1 and 2 was almost sickening in its utter disregard for readers who don’t live in the land of the free. I might well read more, but then again… I might not.