A pretty good politics-infused fantasy series. This is the second book, which builds on the foundations of the first and is generally an improvement. I enjoyed it, but I didn't *love* it (maybe it was my mood?). If you like your fantasy with political and court intrigue, interesting characters, and good writing, then you should give this series a try.

Lady Amalia never meant to become a Falconer—though technically she isn’t. She never meant to become an agent of her government, either—though here she is. Her last mission, though things didn’t go as planned, was considered enough of a success that she now has the mixed blessing of being noticed, both as a possible key to the Cornaro fortune, and as a possibly power broker. Neither of which pleases her.

When Falconers and their mages begin to show up dead, and the Witch Lords begin consolidating power, Amalia is sent as an envoy with her mage Zaira to try and put out the flames of war. Trouble is war may be inevitable unless they can figure out a way to best the Witch Lords at their own games.

I read the first book, The Tethered Mage, and enjoyed it enough to want to read the sequel. However, I have to say that I enjoyed this second book even more than the first. The settings are similar as in the first book, though the descriptions of the various Witch Lord territories really worked well and seemed to fit their various personalities. Frankly, there are a couple of them that I’m not sure I would want to “visit” even as a reader—they would be terrifying. Such is the power of Caruso’s descriptions.

The characters really were the best part of the story. With those who we remember from the first book, we learn more about their motivations, how they’ve grown (or not) as the stories progress, and we even get a few lingering questions answered. With the new characters—and there were many—none of them come across as caricatures or fake. The biggest challenge, I would think, would have been to create the various Witch Lords and make them distinct personalities, without overdoing their fear-factor or their beauty or what have you. Caruso did a great job here. I found myself open-mouthed at times, sort of shuddering at others. It is also very nice to have two strong female main characters who are totally distinct personalities.

The story this second go-round moved at a quicker pace, probably because so much of the back store of Amalia and Zaira and their partnership was already explained in book one. Once it starts, it just thrums along at a nice pace, and never really quits. As mentioned, we do get some questions answered, and yet there are so many more that are discovered. Once I started reading this, I really didn’t stop (except to make dinner) until I had finished it—which meant I was up WAY too late on a work night. It’s been a while since I’ve done that, so that speaks volumes right there.

I’m glad I gave the second Swords and Fire book a chance and I am really VERY excited about book three. Without any spoilers, there are games and romance and intrigue aplenty in The Defiant Heir, and it will be fun to see how some of the lingering and new unanswered questions get their answers.

The previous book in this series, The Tethered Mage, proved to be a delightful discovery in many ways: the magic system, in which people with peculiar abilities, or Falcons, are bound for life to a sort of companion/guardian, or Falconer; the background, where the Serene Empire of Raverra reminded me strongly of 18th Century Venice, complete with shady political maneuverings and complicated plots; and the characters, of course, mainly young Amalia Cornaro, the heir to a very influent Raverran family and the unwitting Falconer to equally young Zaira, a Falcon gifted (or better, cursed) with the rare ability to master balefire, a powerful, dangerous weapon that might prove useful in the brewing war against Raverra’s enemies. Following their journey, as they got to know each other while trying to unravel a threatening conspiracy, was a charming experience, but with this second volume of the series both the narrative stakes and my enjoyment of the story took flight toward new heights.

The action starts several months after the events of book 1, and while Amalia and Zaira can now work together on easier terms, moving with baby steps toward a better understanding of each other if not actual friendship, the political situation has taken a turn for the worse: their Vaskandar neighbors, ruled by a caste of skilled magicians called Witch Lords, are once again on the move to expand their territory, threatening the Raverran Empire. Amalia finds herself in the role of envoy first, as she is sent to reassure the Empire’s allies and muster their defenses against any possible attack, and of ambassador later, when she is invited to the Conclave, the Witch Lords’ assembly that will decide whether to start a war with Raverra. To say that pace and tension keep increasing with each page would indeed be a massive understatement: where The Tethered Mage was more of an introduction to this world and what made it tick, The Defiant Heir takes us into the heat of battle, and it hardly matters that it’s one fought with words and cunning and magic rather than conventional weapons, because the outcome is just as uncertain and bloody.

The increased rhythm is mirrored by a widening of our perspective of the world of Eruvia, as we are led first to Callamorne – Raverra’s closest neighbor and ally – where some of Amalia’s relatives live and where we learn a few details about her past and, more important, her bloodline: a discovery that will prove instrumental in the unfolding events and might have interesting ramifications in the future. The journey to Vaskandar is instead imbued with danger that does not come only from the prospect of an invasion and a war that the Empire might very well lose, but from the magic wielded by the Witch Lords, who are able to extend their control over beasts and plants alike: the instances where trees take on a semblance of life (and quite hostile life at that…) attacking Amalia’s party, are among the most terrifying scenes one could imagine, and will stand in your mind just as much as the Lady of Spiders’ dress, which is enough to give nightmares to any arachnofobe…

However the characters and their development remain the most fascinating feature of the story, starting with Zaira who still retains her more evident abrasive qualities and intolerance for regulations, but has also learned to look beyond her immediate wants and needs to take into account the well-being of others, or the possibility of employing her terrifying powers for the common good. Although she still dreams of her freedom, she has come to understand that there are worse situations than being bound to Raverra and her Falconer, and that outside of the apparently stifling world of the Mews there are people who don’t think twice about exploiting a Falcon’s powers, with or without their consent – and more often than not, without. Zaira is learning the basics of compromise, and that sometimes you have to give up something to obtain something of even greater value, but more than anything else she is learning that friendship and loyalty are more than worthy of some sacrifice: she has just begun to travel on that road, and her feet still move reluctantly, but it’s a joy to observe her progress and the way the discoveries she makes along the way change her, little by little.

Amalia, for her part, evolves much more quickly and palpably: gone is the bookish girl who wanted nothing else but to study the intricacies of artifice, and in her place a skilled politician is growing slowly but surely. As it happens for all growing processes, this one is not exempt from pain: her infatuation for Captain Marcello Verdi had to be put aside in favor of the possibility of a politically advantageous marriage, and even though the relationship hardly had any time to truly coalesce, the feelings Amalia and Marcello share are strong and difficult to ignore. This situation is further complicated by the appearance of the Crow Lord Kathe, a Vaskandran who might be an ally: when Amalia accepts his courtship she is torn between her yearning for Marcello and the undeniable attraction toward Kathe, with whom she plays an interesting game of subtle double entendres and dangerous flirting, never fully knowing whether this Witch Lord is truly a potential associate or someone who will knife her in the back, but still feeling the pull of Kathe’s mercurial personality.

What I appreciated about this not-quite-triangle is that rather than focusing on the turmoil of indecision and angst, it showcases the crossroads where Amalia stands: Marcello represents the security of her old life, the potential for quiet happiness and scholarly pursuits, while Kathe carries with him the danger and uncertainties inherent in the new role of political player and influencer her mother is steering her toward – and the undeniable attraction exerted by the proverbial bad boy. And this is not the most difficult hurdle Amalia must overcome, because terrible choices lie in wait for her in the course of the dangerous mission she’s been assigned, decisions that teach her the kind of price one must pay for playing the role she so reluctantly accepted: how this dreadful awareness will factor in her future decisions is something I’m eager to discover in the next book (or books…). If the narrative progression I observed between the first and second book keeps up, I know it will be an amazing read.

4 & 1/2 STARS

Loved this book - even better than the first one! It picks up fairly quickly after book one, but with so many more intrigues and entanglements. Already excited for book 3!

Full review to come on vampirebookclub.net

Out of the frying pan, into the balefire! Amalia Cornaro & Co. are back, and the stakes are higher than ever. After averting a civil war and treading a thin line of political deception, Amalia Cornaro has begun to accept her role as her mother’s heir – and all the responsibilities that come with it. Her role in the court of Raverra requires her to be many things, not the least daunting of which is the Falconer to her uniquely dangerous and sometimes unpredictable fire warlock, Zaira.

Falcons and their Falconers are being murdered across The Serene Empire. Amalia suspects Lord Ruven, the powerful skinwitch and one of the seventeen Witch Lords of Vaskandar. With a new Witch Lord Kathe courting her, Amalia learns of the holding of the Conclave – a rare meeting of all seventeen Witch Lords to decide the course for war or peace. With the fate of the missing Falcons and Falconers weighing on her shoulders, Amalia and Zaira make a plan to infiltrate Vaskandar and learn the hidden secrets of the Witch Lords.

Though I definitely enjoyed The Tethered Mage, The Defiant Heir is a much more well-rounded and interesting book than its predecessor. I feel like Amalia has really come into her own as a true power in Raverra and unto herself, making many challenging, difficult decisions throughout the book. And I loved loved loved Zaira’s character progression in her relationship with Amalia and her romantic interests. Saucy stuff.

Seriously, The Defiant Heir has literally everything I wanted and then some. Badass, scary Witch Lords. A love triangle that I ended up enjoying. A panoply of interesting settings (did anyone else get a French Alps vibe from Callamorne?). Rich, interesting characters that made decisions that mattered. The characters are all witty and smart, which makes them very fun to read. Also, the ending was wonderful/scary and did a lot to develop Amalia as a character. Spoiler-free though 🙂

The Defiant Heir is an enjoyable read that pays off a lot from The Tethered Mage, then changes the game. Hats off to Melissa Caruso for somehow reading my mind and putting exactly what I wanted in The Defiant Heir. Phenomenal sequel!

I am going to Europe next week, so I felt like reading about pseudo-fantasy Venice as I was packing. In order to scratch that itch, I am back with a review for the second book in Melissa Caruso’s Swords and Fire series, The Defiant Heir. Also, while we are on the subject – I realized in book two that the reason the series is called “Swords and Fire” is that it’s about trying to accomplish things while using neither. It is an interesting choice for the series title, and it makes me slightly dubious that the characters will be about to accomplish their goals by just talking.

I reviewed the first book in this series here and, despite some mixed feelings, came out feeling positively. I didn’t think I was that invested in the story of The Tethered Mage, but it turns out that Caruso sunk her talons into me deeper than I knew (this is a falcon pun that makes sense if you read the first book, which you should, so you can see how funny I am). My curiosity was piqued, so I jumped into The Defiant Heir and found that Caruso brought her A-game.

At the end of the first book, our lead (Amalia) had foiled a dastardly plot, brought a rogue city state back into the empire, fallen in love with someone beneath her station, and built up a friendship with her hot-headed falcon partner. The awful antagonist from book one, the witchlord prince Ruven, is still running around unchecked and has a new plot that involves enticing his country to go to war against Amalia’s. In order to sabotage Ruven, Amalia enters a political courtship with another witchlord, Kathe, and she travels to the witchlord realm to try persuade them to not go to war. The plot is awesome, and I felt myself much more invested in the story and its characters than I was in book one. The pacing of The Defiant Heir is excellent, with the story constantly pulls you back in for one more chapter. I found myself up reading way later than I should multiple nights until I finished it, a surefire sign of a great book. While I didn’t have major issues with the characters in the first book, the entire cast feels more complex, likable, and relatable than they did previously. Amalia and her falcon Zaira in particular were a lot more interesting and I loved spending time in Amalia’s head as she made hard choices.

One of core issues I had with The Tethered Mage is its setup and first chapters felt a little far fetched. The Defiant Heir addresses this issue in a number of ways. First, because the book picks up an already moving plot, it doesn’t suffer from the ramp up period that The Tethered Mage did. Second, Amalia feels like a much more flawed and believable character, which helps her power through some truly Mary Sue moments. I am not exaggerating when I say you find out that Amalia is an UBER-princess in this book. It is casually mentioned that she is basically related to every single monarch in every single country in this book – which sounds like a recipe for a terrible lead. However, Caruso makes it work spectacularly because of her emphasis on a key theme in the series – the price of power.

An idea that is present in both books, but much more so in the second, is the idea that with power comes responsibility. As I mentioned, Amalia is a princess to three different countries – but what is expected of royalty in each of those places is vastly different. In one, it guarantees the right to rule, in another it gives you certain advantages as you start your career but not much else, and in the last royal blood is completely meaningless. Despite these differences, there is one key similarity that runs through all the countries – with power comes the burden of making hard choices. This is a theme that has been around for eons, but I honestly have not seen many people who handle it as well as Amalia. Amalia shatters her Mary Sue status by having to make hard choices that have no good answers. These choices have terrible fallout and Caruso does not shield her from the consequences of her decisions. It creates a compelling read about the price of power and makes me genuinely sympathetic to the aristocrats of old – a group of people that the fantasy genre has generally painted in a negative light. This is my second favorite part of this book, and my most favorite is indirectly related to this theme.

I cannot believe I am saying this, but my absolute favorite part of The Defiant Heir is the love triangle. I almost always hate love triangles, but Caruso avoids every single pitfall I usually hate about them. First, both the love interests are wonderful and you will adore them both. The first is Marcello, the soldier love interest from the first book, and the second is the witchlord Kathe who Amalia is courting for political gain. Second, the two men represent marriage for love and marriage for obligation, and Caruso gives equal weight to both. So many books you read with this sort of scenario feel like you are just waiting for the obligation guy to die or leave so that “true love can win in the end”. It is so damn refreshing to see someone treat the idea of a royal needing to marry for the good of the realm as a positive thing. Again, this comes back to the theme of “price of power” – Amalia lives a very pampered aristocratic life and there is a cost to that. Caruso refuses to give Amalia loop holes to let her have her cake and eat it to. This is what elevates The Defiant Heir over so many other books I have read recently. Each choice feels like it has weight and it pulls you into the story. Also, this is just my personal opinion, but I am TEAM KATHE ALL THE WAY. Other members of The Quill to Live are incorrectly on Team Marcello though, so we support both competitors.

I have a ton of other things I want to praise The Defiant Heir for, like the world building and culture, but I think at this point you get that this is a series worth your time. In particular, The Defiant Heir takes everything that was good about its predecessor and ads depth and weight to make it a more serious and compelling read. There was nothing lukewarm about my feelings for this book and I cannot wait for the next installment of Swords and Fire. Go pick up a copy and join me on Team Kathe after you realize his clear superiority.

Rating: The Defiant Heir – 9.0/10
-Andrew

I need to just start out with stating how much I love this book and series. It is a refreshing and lively fantasy that has characters that I just can’t get enough of. The entire concept of a non-magic user being tethered to someone with magic, with the ability to essentially turn their abilities on and off, and tying their lives to one another creates very interesting dynamics. Having Amalia, the heir to the Empire, also be a Falconer puts her in a really unique position. The throw in that Zaira, her falcon, is a fire mage, and things get really interesting.

In the last book, we saw Amalia’s relationship with Marcello both start to bloom, but also become stifled as the reality of her duty as heir made it apparent she had to remain open to suitors that could gain the Serene Empire a political advantage. In the Defiant Heir, her relationship with Marcello is further tested and strained as an opportune suitor presents her with enormous possibility politically. It is something she can’t just dismiss. The problem? This suitor is not a normal noble, but a Witch Lord from Vaskandar. Witch Lords are the things of scary childhood stories, with their ability to bend nature to their whims, using trees to attack. the are characterized as mad and violent. They are the things nightmares are made of.

But then we actually meet Kathe, and while he may not be who Amalia pictured as a suitor, there’s no denying there’s some level of chemistry. It’s not the innocent wholesome type of love she feels for Marcello, but rather an exciting and electrifying relationship that offers something new and different. There’s something to be said about mystery and a bit of danger. It’s exciting and Amalia enjoys it (whether she will openly admit it or not).

Kathe loves to play games, and always keeps things very, very interesting. He’s a bit of a wildcard that brings anything but the expected. I always liked Marcello, but I have to admit to kind of rooting for Kathe at this point. I am really hoping to learn more about him in the next book and am quite curious where his relationship with Amalia is headed. It’s hard to deny the benefits for the Serene Empire to have Kathe on their side. Especially as war with Vaskandar is beginning to look inevitable.

I’ve focused quite a bit on Amalia’s relationships, but this book is certainly more than just that. Amalia and Zaira have landed an invitation to the Conclave in Vaskandar. It’s a gathering of the 17 Witch Lords where they vote on matters of the land, including going to war with the Serene Empire. This is the first time someone from the Serene Empire has been invited and Amalia is determined to make the most of it to try and save her people. After the events in the last book, the council takes Amalia more seriously, but it is still a huge amount of responsibility and she still has to prove herself to them.

And Zaira is still very much Zaira. She always livens any party and brings a refreshingly truthful and often humorous perspective on things. It’s hard not to love her.

My only very slight comment (or reader warning) that could be considered less than positive, is that there are some very convenient resolutions in places. You just have to go with the flow and not worry about that. I found it very easy since the characters and everything else are so exciting and fun.

This is an amazing and fun series so far. I wish I had the next book in hand so I could just go straight into it. Highly recommend these books!!

The Defiant Heir wisely takes a left turn from the first book, with a story that takes us from the urban to the wilds, all the while still maintaining all the complexities we so loved from the first book. Moral ambiguity, hard choices, personal sacrifice, all are still very much in evidence, even as Amalia and Zaira leave all they know far behind, risking everything in hopes of preventing a war.

Now when it comes to the relationships, I have to admit, for the entire length of the first book, I just wanted Amalia and Zaira to have more page time together. Their relationship, prickly and fractious and impossible, was my favorite thing about the first book – which is why I found it so very frustrating when the story chose instead to dwell incessantly on the doe-eyed romance. And where usually I am a girl all in favor of a good romance, I found in this case, all the calf eyes and beating hearts and, well, rather generic vanilla attraction just irritated me. Suffice to say, I was not feeling it – which is why I was so very excited to find in The Defiant Heir, the focus so squarely upon my favorite relationship: Zaira and Amalia. Their stumblings toward a true partnership, fraught with just as much difficultly as ever, are the heart and soul of this book, and I loved every second of it. Caruso doesn’t shy away from moral ambiguities, or political realities, and I loved watching both girls struggle to come to terms with their own power, and what they can and cannot do with it.

Furthermore, on the romance front, this book saw the introduction of a new player, a Witch Lord – and while his and Amalia’s relationship is purely political to start, it’s one Amalia cannot ignore the benefits of. And I loved that about her – how smart she is, reading the angles, playing the game, all the while trying to figure out just how far she’s willing to go. In fact I would say, if this book has an overall theme, it would be that no power comes without steep personal cost – and Amalia faces that reality head on. And as for the new love interest, frankly, as a character, I found him so much more interesting than Marcello that I was perfectly happy to have the new guy take center stage. And while yes, let’s call a spade a spade – and yet another love triangle a love triangle – the thing that saves this book from tiredly familiar territory is how always, always Amalia is smart enough to see all the angles, and strong enough to make her own choices. She owns all of it – and that I loved so very, very much.

And let’s not forget the plot! There’s a heap of danger and adventure in this story, as Amalia and Zaira find themselves lost in enemy territory – and this book really broadens the horizons of this fantasy world, taking us from Venetian style court drama to a world where gods (or close enough as to make no difference) walk among us. It makes for a fascinatingly different landscape to explore, one that is every bit as compelling as the first.

In all, The Defiant Heir is everything you liked about the first book, and more – and I liked this one even better.