The Shadow Throne

I thoroughly enjoyed The Thousand Names, the first book in this series so was looking forward to this. Whilst it doesn't quite reach the heights of the first book for me it was still a fantastic read. This is very different from the military fantasy of the first novel and that does make it quite hard to compare

In the Shadow Throne we are brought back to the capital of Vordan, where the King is ailing and revolution and plots are afoot, particularly to try and counter the Machiavellian plotting of Duke Orlanko, head of the Ministry of Information who is intent on being the puppet master for the future queen, Raesina.

Our link to the first novel comes through Janus bet Vhalnich, Marcus d'Ivoire and Winter Ihernglass, who are fresh off the boat back from their campaigns in Khandar and plunged straight into the plots and political maneuverings of the capital.

The revolutionary aspect (with a strong French Revolution influence) is well done with the pettiness and distrust within the plotters beautifully orchestrated.

The main reason why this is only 4 stars to me is mostly based on just how much I enjoyed the foreign legion stylings of the first book, and as a direct comparison the revolutionary setting is less interesting for me. This is still a really good book!