Tower of Thorns

Wrote an entire review, and Goodreads crashed....

I wanted to love this book. Dreamer's Pool was one of my favorite books last year. Juliet Marillier creates beautiful worlds. They remind me of old ancient Irish folklore. The fae are tricky and appear when they want something. The main characters, Blackthorn and Grim are worn out and flawed. Their journey began in the dungeons/cells of Mathuin of Laois. With the help of Conmael, they excape. Blackthorn is bound to a 7 year sentence. She must help anyone who asks of it.

Tower of Thorns is the second book in the series. We are given brief glimpses into the life of the characters from the first novel. The focus is on a new character, Lady Geleis. She has a monster in a tower who howls every summer from dawn until dusk. She's reluctant to tell the truth, yet she wants her problem solved. Readers are also introduced to Flannan, a childhood friend of Blackthorn. He wants to bring Blackthorn south to stand up to Mathuin. That could mean breaking her promise with conmael and leaving Grim behind.

Gileis never directly asks Blackthorn for help. Therefor Blackthorn is never obligated to help. She spends most of the novel planning to leave with Flannan and use Geleis' story as cover. Their plan is frustrating to the reader. There is so much back and forth between Blackthorn and Flannan that it becomes too much. It's as if Juliet needed to reach a page quota. She expanded on Blackthorn, Grim, and Gileis' thoughts so much that it was boring. At times I'd put down the book with no desire to pick it up again. At once point I even started to skim some paragraphs. The last 1/3 of the book is the strongest. Readers learn about Grim's past and Blackthorn finally agrees to solve the problem of the Tower of Thorns. Grim was by far the strongest point of the novel.

Overall, this felt like a typical second movie in a film trilogy. It was good. It had the characters I loved, but it didn't live up to the first one.