Good Week for Trilogies!

 

    Here is my review of the first book in the trilogy, A City of Brass.

 https://barbpruittwrites.blogspot.com/2023/04/i-start-another-good-trilogy-mistake.html

    The middle is the most challenging book to pull off in a trilogy. The author has to move the plot forward, solve enough of the conflict to feel satisfying, but keep enough mystery to bring people back for the final book. The characters created in the first book must retain their essence, but also evolve. The Kingdom of Copper by S.A. Chakraborty is fairly successful. My biggest disappointment is how it ends on a cliffhanger, and I still have ten weeks until the final book is available to borrow! But at least it's out there, and I may get it sooner. 

🤞

    Chakraborty made the bold choice to move five years into the future, and I liked it. The characters had gained experience and skills. It made sense. Chakraborty uses Middle Eastern folktales and myths as the scaffolding for her tale. This gives her book a blended feel of mystique and reality. The engine driving the plot is a love triangle between Nahri, Prince Ali, and a Djinn named Dara. Chakraborty continues the tension skillfully, and even though the book is long--532 pages--it goes quickly. 

🐫🧞‍♀️🏝️🧞🐪

Here are my reviews of the first two The Cursebreakers series books:

A Curse So Dark and Lonely beauty-and-beast-retold-and-ancient.html

 A Heart So Fierce and Broken  lots-of-villainy-villains.html

    The second hardest book of a trilogy is the final one. I have invested hours, literally, into the characters and story, and I want a rewarding ending! A Vow So Bold and Deadly by Brigid Kemmerer mostly delivers. I perused some reviews, and not everyone agrees with me. Kemmerer is excellent at plotting and unanticipated twists. She explores the psychology behind her main characters, Rhen, Harper, Grey, and Lia Mara deeply, but doesn't sacrifice action. Harper questions staying with a man who can have a friend whipped for information. Rhen feels like a poster child for the aphorism, hurt people, hurt people. Lia Mara wants to not be like her mother, but doesn't know how to be strong and kind. Grey lacks flaws other than he needs to trust himself. I wonder if Kemmerer has a therapist in her life that she bounces ideas off of. It makes sense that Harper is examining things through the lens of 21st-century sensibilities, but the others have grown up with different influences. I like that the ending wasn't everything solved, and they all lived happily ever after. It felt genuine to the characters.

👸👑🪄👑🤴