Review: Devlin's Justice is an only okay ending to the Sword of Change trilogy (SPOILERS)

Click the links to read my reviews for the first two books, Devlin's Luck and Devlin's Honor.

First off, let's talk about that cover. The only thing accurate about the cover (besides the title, author's name and such, obviously) is the Sword of Light, which matches the description of it in Devlin's Honor. Everything else isn't remotely accurate, including the blurb. "His own magic"? Aside from the Geas spell that binds him to his duties as Chosen One, Devlin has no magic whatsoever. I feel like whoever did the cover didn't read the book beforehand. But that's just the cover, let's talk about the book itself.

It's only okay. Going by the blurb on the back of the book, I was expecting a lot of excitement, drama, and adventure. Unfortunately, expectations slammed into reality like a race car into a wall at 190 miles per hour. Devlin's Justice felt rushed, as if Ms. Bray was just trying to get the thing done and out the door or she was trying to meet a specific word or page count. As a result, a lot of meat was left on the bone. There were so many ways the story could have been expanded or enhanced and none of them were used.

Before I go on, let me tell you what happens in this book. Devlin is returning to Kingsholm after successfully retrieving the Sword of Light in the previous book. Upon returning, he's betrayed by King Olafur of Jorsk and handed over to the Selvarat Empire as part of their deal to send "aid" to help the Kingdom of Jorsk stave off an invasion by an unknown enemy, along with like a third of the kingdom itself as it turns out. So Devlin spends a good chunk of the book imprisoned and tortured by the main antagonist while his friends believe him dead and struggle to find a way to save the kingdom from both the Selvarats (who, "shocker", are the unknown enemy) and the king himself. Four of them - Drakken, Stephen, Didrik, and Oluva - are forced to escape the city and go in search of Devlin once they discover that he is in fact still alive. Devlin eventually escapes, joins up with the others and the rest of the book is them leading a guerrilla campaign against the occupying Selvarat forces and setting things to right.

All of that sounds exciting, but as I said, a lot of meat was left on the bone and what we got instead didn't live up to the potential. For example, there's never an explanation given for why King Olafur did anything he did. Yes, he was led to believe that there was a major threat to the kingdom and yes he had a big legacy to live up to, but betraying Devlin and giving away a huge chunk of the kingdom for aid just doesn't make any sense and there was no indication that he was being manipulated by the Prince Arnauld, the main antagonist of the series or anybody else for that matter. It also doesn't explain his slide into despotism which is both sharp and sudden.

There are other examples I could point out but I don't want this post to run too long, so we'll leave off them. The other thing that I found disappointing is the lack of a big finish. I was expecting to see Devlin and Arnauld face off in a big fight, but it never happened. It was a letdown given that Arnauld was the mind-sorcerer that had been plaguing Devlin since the first book. Instead, he's brushed off like some mid-level villain and we're denied the payoff that should have been.

The ending was also lackluster as it felt rushed. Olafur commits suicide just before Devlin arrives back at Kingsholm to confront him and Devlin names himself regent until Olafur's daughter is old enough to rule in her own right. He also marries Stephen's sister which comes straight out of left field and makes about as much sense as Olafur's actions. Devlin also secures the independence of his homeland of Duncaer which I liked.

All in all, I found Devlin's Justice a letdown. It had a lot of potential that was largely squandered. I would rank it as the weakest of the trilogy.

Rating: 5/10.

You can('t) go home again: Devlin's Honor by Patricia Bray (The Sword of Change #2) (Spoilers)

This review took longer to get around to than I had expected. Add to it that my memory is piss poor, and this shouldn't be a long review.

Devlin's Honor is the second book in Patricia Bray's Sword of Change trilogy and while a good story, it doesn't quite match-up with its predecessor, Devlin's Luck. Still, it's worth reading.

The story picks up four months after the events of the previous book. Devlin has spent those months trying to shore-up the defenses of the Kingdom of Jorsk against the threats that he feels are imminent. Unfortunately, he hasn't had that much success and every attempt at strengthening the kingdom is a struggle due partly to the usual power plays and politics you see in most any fantasy novel, but with the added invective that Devlin is still looked down upon because he's a member of a conquered people and not a Jorskian. He later discovers via one of his few friends, the minstrel Stephen, that his very status as Chosen is questioned in the Jorsk circles of power because he lacks the Sword of Light (the sword on the covers of all three books and a pretty accurate description to boot).

The Sword of Light is one of the badges of office of the Chosen, but was lost during the conquest of Duncaer, Devlin's homeland. We get a brief rundown of how the conquest happened: Basically, the Caerfolk practiced a form of elective monarchy where a woman would be elected queen for a term, then either re-elected or replaced with another queen when their first term ended. Duncaer's final queen was a two-termer who wasn't going to get a third and so she went full asshole and "invited" the Jorskian army for a *ahem* visit. It's explained that only one city, Ynnis (or Yniss, I can't remember the proper spelling) resisted the invasion. That's not because the Caerfolk were a docile people but because the rest of the country was more focused on waging a bloodfeud against this queen and her entire family tree. And man, I'm not even exaggerating about that. Caerfolk are dead serious when it comes to blood feuds and the resulting conflict really didn't end until every single member of Queen Asshole's family going as far as distant relations were six feet under.

2017 was not a very good year

And that's putting it mildly. I read like a demon last year with a grand total of thirty books by year's end, but the number of those books that were in my beloved fantasy genre number...five. YEAH. I was fine everywhere else, especially on the SF front where fully half of that thirty was science fiction, and the rest being mysteries, thrillers, and classic lit. I can only describe it as a drought and pretty severe one at that. How bad? There's a five month gap between the second and third books. Yikes.

Here's the list:

1. Assassin's Apprentice - Robin Hobb.

Loved it and can't wait to read Royal Assassin this year.

2. His Majesty's Dragon - Naomi Novik.

Surprised me because I thought the premise - dragon-based air forces during the Napoleonic Wars - was more than a bit silly, but it turned out to be a highly enjoyable and fun book.

3. The Baker's Boy - J.V. Jones.

It was okay. It bothered me that the eponymous Baker's Boy (I forget his name) and Melisandre (I think that's how her name is spelled) didn't play much of a role in the book's plot. All of the action revolved around a few other characters and that's fine, but the boy and Meli were all but irrelevant.

4. Devlin's Luck - Patricia Bray.

One of those books that you don't think will be all that good because of the cover but turns out to be very good. Loved it.

5. Devlin's Honor - Bray.

Honestly, this was weaker compared to Devlin's Luck, but it wasn't bad. It felt more like one of those filler episodes that TV shows do sometimes. Having said that, I didn't regret reading it.

So there you have it, five books in twelve months. I have no idea why I hit such a dry spell, but it happened and I'm going to try and get around it. I'm currently reading The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin and should finish that by the end of next week, so that will hopefully get the motor running. After that, I don't know. I'm looking at The Warded Man (which I started reading last year, but never finished it) or maybe The Witcher series. Hopefully last year was just a fluke.

Devlin's Luck (The Sword of Change #1) by Patricia Bray (spoilers)

This year has been a tough one for reading fantasy. I've spent most of 2017 in a slump that for some strange reason, only dulled my interest in fantasy fiction with almost every attempt to jump back into it turned into a route. Thankfully, I've finally managed to break the slump, thanks in no small part to Devlin's Luck, the first book in Patricia Bray's The Sword of Change trilogy. I'd seen the book on the shelf at the local public library several times, but always ignored it because of the slump. Then about two weeks ago, I had the sudden impulse to take it home and damn near devoured it I would have torn through it like dysentery in a medieval army camp if not for the fact that I was reading a Jules Verne book at the same time, but once I was finished with that, I turned my full attention to this tome and finished it off in double time.

So what is Devlin's Luck about? It's a story of a man broken by tragedy who desires nothing more than to make amends for a past tragedy and die with dignity. At the beginning of the book, Devlin arrives in Kingsholm, the capital of the Kingdom of Jorsk, to take the office of Chosen One. It's a bit hard to explain what the Chosen One is, but essentially, they're the kingdom's official problem solver. If something needs to be investigated, for example, the Chosen One could be dispatched to do it. The same goes with quests and any situation that may require their services. The position itself was quite prestigious in days past, being equal to King's Champion and subservient only to the ruling monarch.

But those days are long gone. By the time Devlin arrives to take the oath, the office has declined into largely a ceremonial position so undesirable that the kingdom has to offer ten gold disks¹ in order to get anyone to take the job. Why? The office is seen as certain death because all of Devlin's immediate predecessors have lasted less than a year, each typically dying during or after their first quest.

And that's exactly why Devlin wants the job. As I said, Devlin is a man broken by tragedy. I don't count it as a spoiler since you find it out pretty early, but Dev's grief stems from his wife, their daughter, his brother and his son being killed by creatures called banecats. Even though he avenged them by hunting down and killing the banecats, he still blames himself both for their deaths and not being there to defend them. By the time he recovered from fighting the banecats and returned to civilization, he found himself named kinslayer by his sister-in-law and forsaken by all of his kin, a major thing in his people's culture. He goes into exile shortly thereafter and literally walks all the way to Kingsholm to become the Chosen One.