Book Review: Valour by John Gwynne
Genre(s): Epic Fantasy
Book Synopsis:
The Banished Lands are torn by war as the army of the High King Nathair sweeps the realm challenging all who oppose his holy crusade. Allied with the manipulative Queen Rhin of Cambren, there are few who can stand against them.
Meanwhile, the young warrior Corban flees from his conquered homeland with his exiled companions, heading for the only place that may offer them sanctuary. But to get there they must travel through Cambren, avoiding warbands, giants and the vicious wolven of the mountains. And all the while Corban struggles to become the man that everyone believes him to be—the Bright Star and saviour of the Banished Lands.
Embroiled in struggles for power and survival, the mortal world is unaware of the greatest threat of all. In the Otherworld, dark forces scheme to bring a host of the Fallen into the world of flesh to end the war with the Faithful, once and for all.
Review:
I’m going to honest here; I struggled with this book at first due to the sheer number of characters involved, but it was still a good read.
There are even more points of view to keep track of in Valour than there were in Malice. There are still the main few—Corban, Veradis, Maquin, and Cywen—but some of the less predominant characters, like Fidele or Uthas, sometimes had chapters spaced hundreds of pages apart. (There are eleven POVs total, which is a ton, even for epic fantasy.) What I’m trying to say is there’s a lot to keep track of in this book. I don’t recommend reading Valour while trying to read anything else.
But the thing is, every one of those POVs was necessary to tell the whole story. There are so many moving pieces between the politics, the two supposed chosen ones, and the war itself that each character’s story was integral to seeing the whole picture. There aren’t many authors I can think of who can weave so many storylines together so seamlessly, but Gwynne is turning out to be one of them. I’m excited to see where the series goes from here.
The character work has been excellent so far too. There are both those I’ve come to love (like Corban) and those I wish would meet their end now (like Lykos), but there are also many that fall somewhere in between. Each one has a distinct personality, a unique role to play, and they all bring something special to this story.
As with the first book, there was plenty of action and intrigue, and while there weren’t any surprise twists for the reader, one of the characters got one at the end. I’m very interested to see what he does from this point on. Will he embrace the truth, or will he hide it from those closest to him?
Needless to say, I’m enjoying my time with The Faithful and the Fallen, and will be moving on to book three soon.
Author’s Amazon Page: John Gwynne
Amazon link: Valour
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