TL;DR Review: Higher stakes, deeper grimdarkness, bloodier battles, and messier characters—exactly what I want in a Book 2!
Synopsis:
“A civil war on that scale would make Harfal little more than a mass grave.”
“There would be death. There would be chaos. But this time there would be a lasting peace…”
Follow Cael, Emil, Merily and the others as they try to make sense of the world after the thrilling conclusion of The Traitors We Are.
Full Review:
We’re back in the messy, violent, blood-soaked world of the Keep and the Reach, and the story just keeps getting darker, twistier, and so much grander.
The Traitors We Are kept its focus mostly on the capital city and the events surrounding our main POV characters—Cael the eternally angry warrior, Erik the disabled former Knight of the Evertree, Emil the noble with delusions of grandeur hand-picked to keep the Reach in line, and Merily the unwilling bride married off by her (now-dead) father to cement the union between the two warring factions.
Now, in A Grave for Us All, the focus broadens and we get to see the world in much larger picture.
The war between the Reach and Keep may have ended, but the fighting never stops. This is a world where someone is always doing battle—and in this case, it’s a battle between the two Princes seeking to take over the Keep following the murder of the King. The two are absolute bastards that no one wants to sit on the throne (except them), but there are those who are willing to stir the pot to keep them locked at each other’s throats to allow someone better-suited to ruling a chance to gain power and drum up an army.
Inevitably, that someone is Emil. Currently the Governor of the Reach attempting to bring peace to the fractious clans, he finds his job is made all the harder by the Reach’s own in-fighting (a mirror to the warring Keep princes). Though he begins the story all shiny and golden in his own self-image as a heroic figure, we see him slowly descending into isolation, depression, rage, ruthlessness, and ultimately, tyranny. By the end, it’s clear he’s not much of a better choice to rule than the sadistic, simpering Princes—but he’s the one that certain power players have chosen to set on the throne, for better or worse.
Merily’s story is a sad one. Her marriage to Emil could have been happy, but circumstances—and their own natures—conspire to drag them ever-farther apart. Her psychopathic brother Kieron definitely doesn’t help. We see her descending into her own depression and isolation, cut off from her people and her family, spiraling ever-deeper into the darkness that is hell-bent on consuming the land.
Cael’s story begins in prison and pain. He is being held for the assassination of the King, and has spent months in chains, being beaten, starved, and left to die. Curiously, the one advocating for him most fiercely is Erik, the very knight he maimed on the battlefield—perhaps the most truly heroic character in this grim and gritty world.
But a new player comes into the mix: Xopa of Ghol, a dark magic-wielding sorcerer-assassin who is hunting for his daughter’s killer, and needs Cael’s help to get his vengeance. He adds a subtle horror undertone that serves to enhance the grimdarkness of the story, and drives both the stakes higher and the action more frenetic.
We also see the “Turindal”, an alliance of nations who are sick of the Keep’s iron rule over their lands and want to trade, worship, or grow free of the throne’s influence. They’re just one more player in the chaos that is spreading across the land, a new army to stir up trouble and bring more death and destruction.
Where Book 1 had a grimdark “light” tone, this one commits fully to the darkness, and doubles down on everything in some truly spectacular ways. The characters remain as messy and complicated as the world they inhabit, and every small bit of light and happiness is quickly snuffed out, leaving us with our heads in our hands despairing at—and desperate to know—what comes next.
The second Crown and Tide novel ups the stakes, deepens the characters, and spreads out the bloodshed and brutality in a truly spectacular way. The writing is stronger, the world better-developed, and the storylines threaded ever-more deftly.
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