Warlord, Elizabeth Vaughan
first off, i liked the titling of this book. appropriate when taken in context with the events that occur in this final installment, which is nice.
secondly, the cover does seem to finalize, somehow, so kudos to the coverart designer too. at first glance i'd thought it cheap and subpar, but it takes having held the book in hand for hours before realizing what effort went into the coverart. so there's that.
as for the quality of the writing and plotting itself, i'd have to say i was biased because of how the second book left me feeling, but this book did not disappoint in the slightest. it could be argued that i only emerged from this book liking it because i had low expectations thanks to the second book, but i do feel there are definite aspects of this that improved on the characters. we see lara's worth more in this, as opposed to being someone out of her element, and swept by fate however it chooses. that's how i like my protagonists, to be able to strong and actually be able to do something. we do get some minor form of closure about gils, as well as isdra. gils surprised me, but isdra was to be expected, so if she was hoping to surprise there, it failed.
lastly, i found myself strangely sad about iften's outcome. i'd really wanted him to emerge from this unscathed, despite the bastard that he was--he'd shown some shred of humanity toward lara earlier on in the book. everything leads me to think he's just misled in his way of thinking as opposed to being a bad person. i really didn't think he deserved what he got, but the characters and the author seems to feel otherwise.
there were certain passages in the text that were very repetitive, and i think only some of it is repeated in the interest of a deeper meaning behind the words. there were certain facts or notes of surroundings that keep being repeated for no other purpose, and i suspect the author isn't aware of doing it, so that could've been better. other than that, i'd say this was actually a quite decent novel, and not a bad way to finish things off. granted, keir's fate could be elaborated on a bit, maybe with an epilogue or something? the situation with the warrior priests wasn't much resolved either, since it's been acknowledged that they tend to abuse their power, but what happens of it? where's the change? the author did also keep repeating that change is slow, and will take time. but then why introduce it in such a fashion as to almost promise the change to the reader? it's a good way to lead to a letdown.
plus, we also never got to see marcus reunited with his bonded, or any sort of resolution in that area. okay...
maybe it wasn't as complete as i'd thought, but it's not a bad read. definitely better than the second book, and equal in quality to the first. i'm not sure how to compare it to dagger-star, but from what little i remember i'd say it's better. hopefully the upcoming second book in the series with dagger-star will prove to be as good, or hopefully, better.
