Skip to main content

Den of Blades and Briars

 

5★ 3🌶

I finished Den of Blades and Briars by LJ Andrews.  This is book seven in the nine book series The Broken Kingdoms.  This book is fabulous.  This whole series is fabulous.  There are four kingdoms North, East, South and West.  There are Fae, humans and all other sort of creatures.  The magic system is very complex but is explained and compounded upon with each subsequent book.  The complex and detailed world that Andrews has built is really like no other fantasy world I've read about.  The Viking influence is very strong and apparent.  The fairy tale re-tellings take a back seat to the complex plots in each of these.  This book in particular follows Ari to the Southern Kingdom where he has been charged to oversee the preparation of vows between Gunnar and Eryka.  Gunnar is the son of Valen's sister and Malin's brother.  Eryka is from the Southern Kingdom.  All of these people and their stories are very intertwined in the best possible ways.  Andrews herself describes this series as Vikings (the TV show) meets Once Upon a Time.  In the previous book Ari was bonded to Saga who had fought against them in the battle.  They have a mutual loathing of each other.  There is much more to Saga than she lets on.  She had not willingly allied herself with the fallen queen Astrid, but she could not speak the truth to Ari so she must endure the treatment from the misunderstanding.  Ari doesn't particularly like the situation that Prince Bracken has placed him in with the bond so he pesters Saga relentlessly but never harms her.  The rest of the people in town treat her as a traitor and threaten her well being.  Despite his feelings of ill will he wont let any harm come to Saga and ends up defending her from a rabble of murderous dock workers.  For reasons neither of them understand they both start feeling things about each-other.  Then certain events happen that necessitate Ari fleeing for his life.  Saga goes with him.  There is forced proximity, an inn with one bed... all the fun tropes.  Eventually some of the truths come out and they both realize one has sorely misunderstood the other.  There interweaving theme in all these books is that no one can escape one's fate.  There was an entire prophesy if you will that was set in motion turns ago and all the pieces are falling into place one book at a time.  This book ends on what I would call a cliff hanger.  Luckily the series is complete so I can just jump right into the next book, which I have.  So to sum up.  It made me laugh, it made me cry, it made me squee with joy.  This book knocked it out the park, just as I suspected it would, because this author is one of the greats and I'd read her re-telling of the local phone book at this point.  If you haven't jumped into the Broken Kingdom series yet, what are you even doing?


-Q     

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

YOP: Week 36

     I didn't get any crafting done this week.  I did receive my swap package from the My Favorite Things swap.  Here's what I received: An ample stack of fabric squares.  Most are knitting related, the rest coordinate well.  A book that looks interesting, The Vampire Knitting Club, one of my favorite candies, a skein of Alpaca yarn in a glorious color and cat chair feet.  My daughter commandeered a couple of them already.  I'm going to put a set on the clothes chair in the bedroom.  All in all it was a fun swap.  I also signed up for the Halloween Mini and got my partner assignment.  I've got some ideas brewing for that one.      Since my knitting mojo still hasn't returned despite the change in weather, I picked up a book (kindle) series instead.  About two years ago I read an excellent science fiction romance; The Viridian Priestess.  I know I talked about it.  It was my favorite boo...
4 comments
Read more

YOP: Week 34

     I did some crafting this week, but it was all for the swap.  I was nearly out of interfacing so I ran over to The Quilt Shop in Watertown.  I'd been there once a couple of years ago and thought their prices were very good considering they are independent and Joanne and Hobby Lobby were both in Watertown at the time.  They have really expanded and have a tremendous selection.  They have more novelty type fabrics now, which is what I prefer for my bags, so I will be going there much more often.... probably too much.  I got interfacing and I found two prints that were perfect for my swapee.  I really wasn't expecting to find what I did.  I sewed a bag with those two prints and two of the fabrics I picked up from Walmart.  The Walmart fabric was acceptable.  Not groundbreaking, but decent enough that if I find cute prints I'll probably grab them.  I finished the handknit earlier today.  I want to steam block it yet, ...
4 comments
Read more

YOP: Week 35

    Not much to report this week.  I didn't do much crafting.  I finished the swap, got it packaged up and mailed out.  It should have arrived to my recipient yesterday.  I'll share what I made.  The theme was Favorite Things.  She likes the colors pale yellow and deep dark red and dragons, so I went all out with the dragons.  I chose  Dragon Scale Mitts  for the handmade item.  I used Madeline Tosh Sport in the Tart colorway.   My camera doesn't really do this colorway justice.  It has more depth in real life.  I think they came out nicely though. I was able to find dragon fabric at The Quilt Shop.  I made a reversible project bag. I paired each dragon fabric with one of her favorite colors.  Liara really liked the dragon fabric as well.  I'm probably going to get some more when I go again.  I also sent some stationary items and a bunch of Swedish Fish, which were also things she had req...
6 comments
Read more