English language
Published 2023 by Cengage Gale.
I have to admit I forgot a lot about the shades of magic series since I read it like. six years ago. But still, extremely fun, exactly what I cam here for
While the book held a good story, it also held a lot of padding. Calling this "book 1" of a series is wildly misleading, as it is clearly a sequel to a previous series (the Shades of Magic). In an effort to relieve the reader of the need to finish the earlier books, The Fragile Threads of Power is overloaded with exposition in the form of multiple layers of flashbacks. Perhaps this would have worked better as Shades of Magic book 4, instead. At least then the reader would have assumed they'd need some familiarity with the previous work, and the author could have trimmed about half of the verbiage from this tome.
OK, that out of the way - it's an interesting concept, with the four parallel "worlds" with different magical strengths. Many of the characters are interesting, particularly Tes, but most of the named characters have some …
While the book held a good story, it also held a lot of padding. Calling this "book 1" of a series is wildly misleading, as it is clearly a sequel to a previous series (the Shades of Magic). In an effort to relieve the reader of the need to finish the earlier books, The Fragile Threads of Power is overloaded with exposition in the form of multiple layers of flashbacks. Perhaps this would have worked better as Shades of Magic book 4, instead. At least then the reader would have assumed they'd need some familiarity with the previous work, and the author could have trimmed about half of the verbiage from this tome.
OK, that out of the way - it's an interesting concept, with the four parallel "worlds" with different magical strengths. Many of the characters are interesting, particularly Tes, but most of the named characters have some intriguing depth to them. I kind of saw the big reveal coming long before it was written, but that didn't remove any of the interest. I still want to know why.
I love all of Schwab’s work. This continues the story set up in The Shades of Magic series.
That series got a teeny bit muddled by the end for me, but Schwab’s growth as a writer is evident here. Except for the monarchy, which I’m just more impatient with these days in my entertainment, (enough of the in-born virtue of royals), such a pleasure to re-visit this world and characters.
