Darkening Skies – Juliet McKenna
Darkening Skies(Book 2 of the Hadrumal Crisis.) -Juliet McKenna (Solaris Books)
Captain Corrain is hailed as a hero but he knows all such praise would turn to anger if certain people knew what had really happened. The wizard who supposedly saved him and his comrades has merely claimed the island of the corsair’s for his own. No one knows what this enigmatic newcomer intends to do next. Corrain has good reason to fear the worst, as he confides in Lady Zurenne of Halferan. He knows he can trust her now that still more perilous secrets bind the two of them together. This disastrous turn of events cannot be concealed from Hadrumal’s powerful mages. The Chief Mage Planir’s leadership is now openly questioned. Surely he will enforce his authority by crushing this upstart? But the Aldabreshin warlords act first. The warlords are watching the ominous skies as a once in a lifetime conjunction of the stars approaches. Will the warlords be content to drive this solitary wizard out of the Archipelago or has the time come for them to destroy all magic?
A follow on that’s very much a follow on, this book would make little sense without its predecessor and as with the previous book, there’s just a bit too much going on for my liking, that’s not to say it is all bad, the concept is very good and I loved the fact that, as the reader, you follow the characters thoughts and emotions and can easily see how they got where they are, but I did find it hard to stick with the book. As I said in my review of the first in this trilogy, although McKenna has made a start on a completely new body of work, it feels like the worlds politics and prose are already firmly set in place and without having read all of her previous novels, I often felt a little lost. Cleverly written novel but unfortunately, it didn’t hook me. Gav
