Valor

3.50/5.00 If there is any justice in this world, Owain and Rhin will kill each other. She snorted to herself, knowing the only justice she would get would be the one she made. With a sharp knife.

Valor, the second book in The Faithful and the Fallen series, is promise fulfilled. This book delivers of the promises made in the premise of this series. Valor is action packed, filled with unexpected twists and turns, great characters and plot. The world of banished lands also feels more real this time around, while still being quite limited in the grand design. Valor is not without its flaws, especially what is sub-standard dialogue in my opinion and an annoying writing choice, but overall this is a good book.

Emotional Impact -> I had a lot more fun in this book (slightly better than book 1). There are several action packed moments, even some slice of life moments that feel very consistent with this world. The twists and turns are great, and so is the plot. For me, the biggest weakness of this story is again, the writing. Worldbuilding is the next weakest.

Prose -> The consistently irritating POV shifting is just F**KING ANNOYING. I am quite sure that each character POV in this book was written separately, but simply spread out in the book as it cycles through POVs in each chapter. This is totally unnecessary. I hate when authors do this, and John Gwynne is not stopping. Brandon Sanderson did this in TWoK, Peirce Brown did this in Iron Gold, and they both stopped it right away in the next books. Shifting POV every chapter does not make a great epic fantasy book. Bunch multiple POV chapters together, finish a section of the story and then move on to the next POV. We don't need every chapter to be cliffhanger. Learn from Robert Jordan, the granddaddy of epic fantasy who never did this unnecessary POV cycling.

ANOTHER problem I have is the sub-standard dialogue. This book is definitely an improvement from Malice, but we still don't get any good and memorable dialogue. Action scenes are very well written though.

Characters -> Great characters, just great. All characters are consistent with the worldbuilding and with the plot.

Plot -> Great plot overall, but I did not enjoy the Maquin plotline (super predictable and boring). Fidele's plot is good. Cywen-Veradis was honestly fun. Uthas plot was okay. Corban was great that one dream scene with Asroth was finally some good stuff Seriously, how stupid is Veradis ? How long is he going to take to realize what's going on ? I also think there are too many conflicts where the main characters escape without any harm and the most conveniently killable characters get killed.

World Building -> A step up from book 1. The author does a wonderful job of character consistency with the world and history. But I was still hoping to get some cultural development for the giants, which did not happen much. The Vin Thalun was good, but the surrounding plot was boring.