Summary
As a child, Maya Burningblade was taken in by the powerful Twilight Order for her potential with magic. When her brother Gyre stood up for her, the Order took out his eye. Since, they've found themselves on opposite sides of a struggle for power and freedom, respectively. Gyre, now Silvereye for his magic augmentation, has taken up with the 'ghoul's the Order is doing its best to eradicate.
Review

I hate starting a series in the middle, but sometimes circumstances require it. Sometimes it works out. This book is an example of why it sometimes doesn’t and why I really wish I’d read the first book first. There’s a good recap of the previous one included here, but it’s so complex that I got lost just within the recap; there’s just too much going on. More important, I liked this book, and wished I’d been able to enjoy the first one too. I may still go back and do that.

Wexler has created a really interesting world, with two kinds of magic, and what looks to me like a real chance it will turn from fantasy into science fiction at the end. But if it doesn’t that may be even better. It’s got a carefully thought out magic system that focuses more on concepts and origins than on the mechanics of magic – there’s a fair amount of wand (haken) waving and things just happen. But it’s also pretty cool.

Wexler has been careful to set up an interesting coterie of distinct and interesting characters, though Maya and Gyre, brother and sister, are clearly at the center. It’s all well done, and the characters are a key part of why the book works well and flows smoothly. At the same time, there’s a certain distance to it all that kept me from being quite as submerged in the book as I’d have liked. Perhaps that’s a result of not following the characters from the start, being involved in all their history. Yet, there seems to me to be too often a slightly clinical, perhaps constructed, tone to it all – as if it has all been carefully planned out, without quite enough organic growth to hold it together. There’s nothing specific I can really point to, but it’s there, and it’s why the book doesn’t get that extra star or half star.

All that said, I really liked the world, will certainly pick up the next book, and there’s a good chance I’ll get the prior one as well. I’ll likely check out some of Wexler’s other books as well. I haven’t enjoyed a new fantasy series like this for a while, and it’s a nice feeling.

I will say that, in ebook form, I found the included map useless – the fonts are so stylized and jagged, and so small, that I couldn’t make anything of it.

I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review.

The basic premise of this series is: what if Jedi weren't all so great? What if Leia had become a Jedi and Luke became Han Solo? And what if Leia the Jedi Knight was part of the Empire, which maybe wasn't totally evil but wasn't totally great?

In this second book, we explore more of Maya and Gyre's (Leia and Han's) world. Both siblings travel separately, draw different conclusions, and solidify their partnerships with their friends and close allies. There's not much drama between Maya, her girlfriend and artificer Beq, and her scout Varro as they are sent on missions to remote parts of the world removed from Order control. Gyre forges a team with Sarah, one of his old crew who's an artificer herself, and the ghoul Elariel who has been changed to appear human and is a master of the biomagic called dhaka. In addition, Kit, Gyre's former girlfriend, has had her consciousness transferred to an AI system and interacts with the world through a number of constructs, mostly shaped like spiders. There's not nearly the interpersonal drama with this team that you might think. Sarah gets along with Elariel (who is of a race that's sort of a bogeyman for the entire world) almost too well. Kit, who was an avatar of chaos and self-interest in the last book, behaves herself the whole book except for complaining about being bored. Maybe the author wanted to focus more on moving the plot along than on character drama, but there was almost a dearth of it here.

I'm not the biggest fan of travel stories and this book is mostly a travel story. Also, the story beats were pretty obvious. In the last book, Gyre trusted the ghouls a bit more than he should have. In this book, Maya comes across a way to communicate with a Chosen (a being from a race whose war with the ghouls almost destroyed the world and who are thought to be all dead). This Chosen has a favor to ask of Maya and Maya does not exactly do her due diligence with thinking that favor through. She even gets Gyre on her side by telling him part of her truth but never considers that the Chosen may be doing the same to her.

I did really like Endor- I mean Khirkaz, the forested province where Maya and Gyre meet in conflict yet again. I do like that the characters aren't overly angsty, but they are so accepting and mature about accepting things that most people would probably find terrifying that I did wonder if attention should have been paid to processing some of those things.

In the climactic scene, the story beats were especially predictable. Two characters decided to fight out their differing opinions instead of having a mature conversation( after all the maturity in the rest of the book) and the action scene careered toward an irrevocable decision and disaster. In true Jedi fashion, someone loses a hand. You've seen this movie before, trust me.

I am interested to see how the powerful beings who broke the world once will be defeated by our ragtag crew. I genuinely like Maya despite her naivete and liked Gyre more in this book as well. But I'd also like a plot that doesn't run on rails quite so much.

A solid sequel to the first in this trilogy. I will finish reading this series and will buy them both for my library.

Excellent follow-up to an excellent book.

I loved book 1 of Burningblade & Silvereye, *Ashes of the Sun*. It had a lot going for it. The two protagonists were both likeable, compassionate, and compelling; being both siblings and on opposite sides made it really something great. The worldbuilding was both original and deep, with lots of fun eldritch abominations and ancient ruins and all that good stuff. And the story was just plain *fun*.

We get much the same in *Blood of the Chosen*. Gyre and Maya have gone their separate ways after the end of the first book, but still stick to their convictions. Maya believes that the Republic and the Centarchs (of which she is one) preserve civilization and keep people safe from plaguespawn. She’s still correct. Gyre views the Centarchs and the Republic as a tyranny, keeping humanity beholden to the vision of a race long dead and allowing no challengers to their power. He is also still correct.

Things aren’t quite as perfectly balanced as in the first book, largely because Maya is on the trail of corruption within her order. Necessarily, things aren’t quite as even-handed when Maya is looking at the Centarchs askance herself. But the overall balance remains: Maya wants to deal with the corruption and keep the Order to its purpose, while Gyre still wants to bring it down. He doesn’t want to cause chaos and mass death while doing so, but his determination remains.

Maya and Beq are still adorable. Varo is still hilarious. Gyre has the same goal, but a new plan to get it. (As an aside, I find the trope of rebel factions squabbling amongst themselves over the most petty things when they should be focusing their efforts on their collective enemy endlessly hilarious. How much Gyre wanted to tear his hair out over it just makes it even better).

My only real complaint is the ending. Not that there’s anything bad about the ending - quite the opposite, it was awesome - but because I don’t have book 3 yet.

Highly recommended.

Blood of the Chosen is the sequel to Ashes of the Sun and the second in his epic fantasy trilogy "Burningblade & Silvereye". The series is heavily inspired by Star Wars, featuring an Order of warriors who wield an energy force (which manifests often as blades made of light and fire) who are taken...by force...as children from their families to be trained to serve and maintain order for a Republic, although it seems like some of those warriors, Centarchs, have less noble goals in mind. As you can probably guess from the series title, it follows two characters - siblings: a brother Gyre Silvereye who had his eye cut out by a centarch when they took his sister and has vowed to destroy the Order and its corruption and that sister Maya (Burningblade), now a young centarch, as she attempts to maintain order and fight for justice....which years later leads them into conflict. The first book in the trilogy ended with the two characters parting ways still resolved towards their own goals, and was really enjoyable, so I was excited to get an early copy of this.

Blood of the Chosen is a solid second installment, if a hundred pages shorter, which continues the story in an enjoyable way....albeit in ways that are very typical of a second installment in a trilogy. And so the story marches towards a cliffhanger for the finale, as Gyre and Maya try to achieve their own objectives and eventually come back together for another conflict....or perhaps alliance. It's a lot of fun, and Wexler writes his characters and action scenes really well, so despite the book still being nearly 500 pages (as opposed to 600 in book 1), it never drags, and I definitely look forward to book 3 to see how things finish off.

Note: In a really rare but nice gesture, this book comes with a summary of Book 1 at the start, so readers will not need to reread book 1 to remember what happened there. It's a big help and I suspect most readers will appreciate not having to reread a 600 page book.


-------------------------------------------------Plot Summary-------------------------------------------------------
Maya Burningblade's life is in a whirl - her mentor Jaedia is in a coma after breaking free from the control of the black spider, and of course her long lost brother Gyre is an enemy of the Order, wielding ghoul who almost killed her and wants the Order destroyed...even if he did do the right thing and save her and the world at the last moment. She also knows that Nicomedi wasn't the only corrupt centarch within the order, but the only people she knows she can trust at this point are her lover Beq, her friend the scout Varo, and Tanax. And so when her other mentor Baselanthus sends her on a mission on behalf of another Order member who he believes to be corrupt, she has her eyes out to try and discover the truth behind the rot inside the order that nearly got her killed. Except what she finds is something far different than what she expects, not to mention monsters of a kind long thought forgotten.

Gyre Silvereye has a plan - although it's not a good one. If he and Kit, now embodied in the constructs of the analytica, can convince the Ghouls to help, they can arm one of the splinter factions fighting against the Order, and can inspire a larger rebellion against the Order and the centarch...to free humanity from the yoke. But Gyre's plan relies on a lot of unknowns, such as the splinter kingdom rebels being willing and able to help, and things so far away are also far different than what he expects....and will require all his skills, both ghoul-given and not, to survive.

In their quests, both Gyre and Maya will search for a path towards a better world - one looking to destroy the system, the other looking to save it. And their paths will cross once more, providing answers to their questions that will change the world forever.....
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This series isn't one that really does anything particularly unique or special, or hits hard questions on interesting themes like some of Wexler's and other author's works. There are themes underlying this novel of course (based in part on the Star Wars-esque setting and in part on more unique aspects) - so Gyre is fighting to break the system while Maya is fighting to reform it and both of them come across decadence and greed that shows how the system and other aspects of the setting allow injustice to thrive and grow - and both struggle with what their end goals may require them to do. But the story is too interested in where it's going to really do much of a deep dive into the philosophy of these themes, so if you were looking for such things here, you won't really find them here - not that any of this should be a surprise for readers of book 1.

But what this book remains is a fun exploration of this world, as both characters remain highly enjoyable as they go about their quests. First Gyre, joined by the now construct version of Kit (who is hilariously sarcastic at times), arcanist Sarah and ghoul Elariel, sets out for the other side of the world to try and use Ghoul weapons to unite rebels against the Order...and runs into trouble first getting there and then actually achieving his objective (the rebel commune has real People's Front of Judea energy). Gyre's a tremendously likable character, who's both smart in his approach to his objective and in his loyalties - he's even loyal in his own way to Kit as his former lover, despite Kit once having betrayed him and being completely unable to have sex in this form (and Kit encouraging to get some with someone else). And the rest of his team is a lot of fun too to follow as they grow alongside him.

And then there's Maya's team, which is more static since it developed last book - her and arcanist Beq, scout Varo, and occasionally Tanax, as they fight against more dark creatures, go on a heist mission (complete with a flying car scene that is hilariously fun) and the once again go on a mission that takes her right into a confrontation with Gyre (this isn't really a spoiler since the book is obviously heading in this direction). They're all highly likable characters and enjoyable as Maya, who is basically a young Jedi, struggles to find answers.

And again the action is really done well and the plot works and moves well enough, although the book suffers from second book in at trilogy syndrome, and thus winds up at a cliffhanger instead of a stand alone-esque conclusion like the last book. And the book does rely upon Maya being a bit gullible for the plot to work, leading to a twist that every reader will see coming for miles away - but it's done well enough for what it is, so I can't complain too much.

All in all it's a fun book with a solid epic fantasy setting, solid to great characters, and leaves things off in a way that will lead clearly to an interesting conclusion so yeah, if you liked book 1, I'd recommend this.

I requested this one because I wanted to sample and determine if it was a book I wanted to request for review. However, after reading the first few chapters I have determined that this book does not suit my tastes.