Review of 'Seeds of Betrayal (Winds of the Forelands, Book 2)' on 'Goodreads'
3 stars
This is 3.5 stars. I don’t think it’s as strong as the first book, but it did come through for me overall.
I love the slow, complicated political intrigue here. Coe has found his audience in me. That’s true for the first book, too. But the first book had a much better story arc of its own in Tavis’s predicament. If I had to pick out a story arc for this book, I think I’d have to say maybe Keziah’s change of role. But that’s very specific to her - it’s not something that impacts other stories in the book. Whereas Tavis’s plight in book one felt like the major focus for the whole book. I had been hoping that since book one had such a strong arc of its own, that the later books would do the same.
My other disappointment remains the characters. I see other reviewers praising …
This is 3.5 stars. I don’t think it’s as strong as the first book, but it did come through for me overall.
I love the slow, complicated political intrigue here. Coe has found his audience in me. That’s true for the first book, too. But the first book had a much better story arc of its own in Tavis’s predicament. If I had to pick out a story arc for this book, I think I’d have to say maybe Keziah’s change of role. But that’s very specific to her - it’s not something that impacts other stories in the book. Whereas Tavis’s plight in book one felt like the major focus for the whole book. I had been hoping that since book one had such a strong arc of its own, that the later books would do the same.
My other disappointment remains the characters. I see other reviewers praising Coe’s characterization, but I don’t see it. There are a few strong exceptions for me - at this point Tavis, Keziah, and Aindreas feel like they have some strengths and weaknesses, some personality (likable or not). I don’t add Grinsa to the list, despite his story importance, because he feels so generic Good Guy to me. There are a LOT of characters, and I think part of the problem with keeping track of it all is how much the nobles and ministers blur together. The series could really use more non-plotty conversations between characters so that we could get to know them better. Coe does do some GoT style character killing, but it doesn’t have the same impact when I barely remember who a character is.
However - the last 100 pages of the book felt strong and introduced some interesting new plot points. I also felt that multiple women characters got to come to the fore, and I didn’t feel frustrated by how they were written. I am currently shipping Gershon and Keziah, but feel I may be disappointed on that front.
