“You know who you are. Be true to that instead.”

THE FAITHLESS is the second in Clark’s Magic of the Lost series, a military fantasy saga that tackles colonialism on a scale both vast and intimate. The story centers on Touraine (a former conscript to the empire of Balladaire and now ambassador for her home country of Qazāl) and Luca (the princess and heir to the throne of Balladaire). This installment is just as gripping as THE UNBROKEN, with all of the same complex politics, rebellious plotting, tense fighting, and a mysterious, multifaceted magic system unfurling for us bit by bit. The first half was a little slow for me, but the second half more than made up for it. Clark is a master of making us suffer through the slow burn of Touraine and Luca’s relationship and I am, apparently, a glutton for punishment. I love the moral ambiguity of these two characters and their relationship as they are faced with increasingly impossible choices in the face of a brutal empire that their own histories are bound up within and the dire needs of peoples devastated by colonial greed. The disability representation is amazing; Luca and her cane only get more fierce as this story progresses, without neglecting the ways her leg injury factors into her daily life. And the sheer number of thirsty, pining sapphics in this book! I wouldn’t have believed it if you’d told me. Sabine and Pruett are both favorites. This story is bursting with queer desire, angsty glances, and hot women fighting with swords; Clark clearly has our best interests at heart. I can’t wait to get my hands on book three. Thanks to Orbit Books for the eARC!

Content warnings: colonialism, racism, fighting/violence, kidnapping, torture, murder/death, human sacrifice/cannibalism

This is the sequel to the Unbroken which I reviewed a couple months ago and I’l be honest, I’m kind of glad I waited to almost read these back to back because it was just so fun that way to have all the information and lore and relationships between characters readily available in my brain. Of course keeping this spoiler free but the tension between the 2 fictional countries this story focuses on is higher than it ever has been before.
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This is a book that certainly doesn't suffer from second book syndrome. i was hooked from the start, obsessed w this world and it's rebellion.. i'm not usually a military fantasy gal but i will keep coming back for more. anything CL Clark writes PUT IT ON MY LIST. the only thing is i wish i was routing for the characters more. i didn't feel as connected to them as i would like.

a stunning follow-up to one of my favourite reads of 2021. The character development was phenomenal, and the plot was heart-wrenching.

Thank you to Netgalley and Orbit for an ARC of this in exchange for a review!

I absolutely loved The Unbroken, and The Faithless did NOT disappoint! This book begins right where The Unbroken left off, with Touraine trying to figure out how to help lead a newly-sovereign country and Luca navigating the complexities of royal politics over a contested throne. I would highly recommend reading C.L. Clark's summary of The Unbroken on her website before reading this, if you do not remember the details of the ending of The Unbroken.

This book is incredibly deep in its exploration of the harms of colonialism, the responsibility of those in power to right their wrongs, and the idea of a white savior. The characters are so complex, and it's extremely intriguing to see how their convictions and emotions lead them in such different directions. Clark writes her characters in such a way that you truly know them inside and out. I loved getting to know these women, and the characters alongside them, and I cannot wait to see how their story concludes!

Also, the sapphic yearning is very much there, in an amazing way.

Thank you, NetGalley and Orbit Books!
Fantastic, absolutely fantastic! I was so excited to receive the second book in the series and I absolutely flew through it. This book does a great job on building up some of the best things about the first book. I think this is an extremely strong sequel and was so excited it held up to the first one. One of my favorite aspects is getting to see the relationships in the book become more detailed and prominent. The characters become even more nuanced and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Holy shit, Goddamn. Firstly, I am very gay, secondly, my heart is in pieces, thirdly someone get me book 3 *now* please.

Like the first book in this trilogy, The Faithless features a bunch of people being hot messes and making terrible decisions. Sometimes, this is fun to read, and sometimes it's a slog.

Tonally, this is definitely a consistent sequel to The Unbroken. The story continues, and the politics of the book - and the decisions that the complex situation of this world demand - remain realistically messy and heartbreaking. Despite the fantasy world and the magic, there's something about this book that feels deeply entrenched in the real world, meaning it's not really much of an escapist read. Over and over, it reminds us that war and colonialism and revolution are messy and complicated and terrible - and that they have a cost, regardless of what choice you make. This is both the book's greatest strength and, for me at least, the thing that makes it occasionally difficult to read. The politics are well-considered and thoughtful, but that doesn't mean that those long chunks of book where people are plotting and scheming and making decisions are enjoyable.

I did think that the romance element of this series finally came into its own towards the second half of this book. Like everything else, the love story between Touraine and Luca is complicated, but it finally achieves a sort of bittersweetness in the latter half of The Faithless, making me actually like both characters more. What can I say? I'm a sucker for a love story.

All in all, I finished this book with mixed feelings, because it's a good book but not necessarily enjoyable to read. I do look forward to the final installment though, because I truly want to know how everything wraps up.

3.5/5

I enjoyed this book. It’s an interesting political setting and uses the fantasy genre well to explore different types of relationships (e.g., political, religious, social, romantic). There are several prominent queer characters, and their relationships are handled well overall. However, this book is a sequel, and it can be difficult to fully follow all plot points and character building as a result. I would still recommend it to people to read, but with the caveat of starting with the first book.

The second book in CL Clark’s “Magic of the Lost” series brings just as much political intrigue, romance, and incredible world building as the first. Clark continues Touraine and Luca’s story by setting them, for the first time, on more equal footing with Touraine acting as ambassador for the newly freed Qazal colony. Touraine must face Luca, the woman she loved and betrayed who loved and betrayed her in return, and ally herself with her once again as Luca battles her uncle for Balladaire’s crown, despite the crown being the very reason that Touraine was torn from her family and raised to be a soldier for the country that colonized her home.

As in the first book, Clark masterfully weaves a story about magic and fantasy but also about the impact of colonialism and the forced assimilation of Indigenous people into the colonizer’s culture. Touraine and Luca’s relationship has moments that make readers swoon but also never lets readers (or Touraine) forget the reality that Luca and Touraine will always have to contend with the fact that Luca’s family and country are the reason Touraine’s people are struggling and why Touraine was ripped from her mother as a child. Clark does not pull any punches with this dynamic or with the realities of colonialism which makes for an engrossing and epic sequel about love, loss, and revolution.

I wrote a long review on this book, which I then promptly lost because my account got automatically logged out. That's probably for the best. I like sapphic romance and I like C. L. Clark and I want this book to succeed and be there for anyone who would enjoy it. Unfortunately, it ended up not being for me, and that's my own fault for expecting it to be about anything but the relationship between Touraine and Luca.

Ultimately, the problem was this: In The Unbroken, I liked the stuff about Qazal, the rebellion, and Touraine's relationship with her country of origin, her mother, the freedom fighters, and her identity. I was massively uncomfortable with Touraine and Luca's relationship because of the implicit power differential and Luca's inability to move beyond her colonial mindset. Is this what was supposed to make it compelling? Yes, I'm sure, but I also wasn't convinced that they had the chemistry to make me root for it.

In The Faithless, the things I liked were pushed to the back, and the things I didn't are at the forefront. The book is in Belladaire and it's full of frustrating politics involving terrible people, inappropriately timed flirting, and unending slow burn romance that really seems like it's not the most important thing at hand. I had a hard time not getting frustrated with the characters, and I also had a hard time engaging with the plot when there were so many mentions of how both Touraine and Luca find each other irresistibly sexy all the time (and so does everyone else, apparently).

To sum it up, it's not the book, it's me. I shouldn't have expected it to be anything else, and I have no one to blame but myself that I couldn't get into it like it deserved.

DNF @ 22%

Although, this book is well written, it just isn't for me. I decided to give the second book a go, although I had issues with the first in the series. I think the pacing is a bit off for me, as well as the characters. I had issues with Touraine's sudden shift in allegiance and actions that were never really explained in the first book. I was hoping to come into this book with maybe some inkling that would be brought up in the beginning of this book. However, it's just explained that Touraine's been with the rebels for sometime after the war and she's now being sent back to the empire in order to take advantage of Luca, quickly after the book starts. Maybe I'll give this book another chance in the future when the third book is out and I can see if the full series works out for me. But as of right now, I'm simply not enjoying this read.

This follow up to "The Unbroken" was a lot of fun. I think the expansion of the politics and the main characters' roles in the revolution were well thought out. I think the romance was super entertaining and believable, and overall this was just an enjoyable experience.

The Faithless takes place shortly after the events of The Unbroken. Touraine is being sent to Balladaire as the new Quazali ambassador, as the new council of leaders in Quazal hope to use her prior relationship to take advantage of Luca. She reluctantly goes, and when she gets there, she finds that Luca’s uncle has made a bid for the throne. It’s up to Luca and Touraine to oust him from the throne so she can take her rightful place, all while political shenanigans are going on all around them.

I liked this one quite a lot. Touraine is still a really easy character for me to cheer for, because she tries her best to do what she feels is right, even if the consequences are sometimes not very great. Luca is still…. Luca. On the one hand, I did enjoy reading about the relationship between Luca and Touraine, but on the other hand, fuck Luca.

With some very nice prose, and a story that kept me reading into the wee hours, I liked this one probably about the same as I liked The Unbroken, which is always a good thing! I didn’t feel that this one suffered from second book or middle book syndrome. I’m excited to see where the story goes!~

All told, if you liked The Unbroken, you should have no trouble enjoying The Faithless. Can’t wait for more!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This was one of my anticipated releases for the year. After reading the opening book in this series I was very intrigued to see how the story would develop and where things would go given how things ended.

We pick up a while after the events of book 1 and our main cast of characters have move on many ways. We see new locations in the world and we get to follow new perspectives as the author begins to open the world further. I enjoyed the newer perspectives and would have been happy to spend more time with these characters. I thought the prose was of good quality overall though nothing in particular stood out to me either in the writing style or in the narrative structure.

Luca and Tourraine continue to have a contentious hot/cold relationship but it develops in a somewhat satisfying manner. I was pleased with where things landed by the end of the novel. I must say I wasn't all that invested in their relationship though. This general disinvestment on my part holds true for much of the novel. Even when major events took place, I was not attached enough to the characters to care about what happened.

I am sad to say I struggled with the book and seriously considered DNFing it at around the 50% mark. I found that the plot moved much slower in this than the first book and because the worldbuilding was minimal and the character development slow, I found myself having a hard time being motivated to pick up this book to see it through. After looking at reviews, I decided to push on. As they promised, the pacing improved finally at about 60% of the book and that is what kept me reading to the end.

My biggest hope going into this second book was that we would get to see more of the magic and that we would learn more about it either through lore or through practical magic on page. Neither of these things happened in a satisfying way to me. We got some magic, yes, but it is about as minimal as it was in the first book which was a massive let down for me.

The political intrigue was the main focus of this novel and given that this is usually my least favourite aspect of stories, I was not left with much to latch on to. I am honestly on the fence about whether I will read the third and final instalment of the series. I've spent around a thousand pages with this author in this world and I can't say that I am excited to go back. Some of the intrigue remains, again because of the ending of this novel but I don't know that the writing style, based on what I've seen thus far, is for me. I'm quite sad about it but I'm glad I got to experience what I did of this series.

Sequels are hard to do. They are hard to write (ask just about any author) and they can be very hard to read, even if you loved the first one. Commonly, authors feel compelled in a trilogy to tie things up in the first book in case a second isn't published, then blow that apart in the second, then mend it up in the third. I'm pleased to say that the long-awaited second book in the Magic of the Lost series doesn't fall into that category.

After the events of The Unbroken, Luca is thrust back into the political sphere of Balladaire, striving to secure her place as queen of the empire despite her difficulties in Qazal. Touraine is trying to build a political structure within the newly free Qazal, but as an outsider and soldier, she is struggling. On top of it, both are uncertain of what they mean to each other and whether they even want to revisit their budding romance. But Qazal needs a treaty with Balladaire, and Luca needs an ally, so the cards are laid to bring them back together.

Fair warning - this is much more of a political fantasy rather than a military fantasy like the first book. That aligns with my preferences, so I think I liked it even a bit more than The Unbroken. I also really enjoyed this expansion of the world, pushing not just to Balladaire but to other locations as well. The magic system continues to baffle. I definitely prefer a harder system with defined rules and while we started to get there in this book, it still wasn't far enough for my tastes. I also found some of the pacing in this to be an issue. How many times can the same people almost die? The answer is apparently quite a lot.

These issues lost this book a star, but ultimately I am VERY ready for the next book and still a fan of the series.

My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an eARC in exchange for a fair and honest review.

I'm always a bit weary of sequels when I love the first book in a series. HOWEVER, I am very pleased to say that The Faithless by C.L. Clark exceeded my expectations, and dare I say it, I may have enjoyed it more than the first book! We continue following Tourmaine and Princess Luca and their return to Balladaire to reclaim the throne. There was more character development which made me feel more connected with them - Touraine especially, although I admit that I am slowly warming up to Luca. The world building and the characters were more complex this time around, which I appreciated. Overall, I am happy with my experience with this follow up to The Unbroken and I cannot wait to see how this story concludes!

The Faithless is a story about compromises and sacrifice. It's about being thrust into leadership, responsibility, and figuring out what of us will remain when we're through. How Pruett, Luca, and Touraine have to reconile, rebuild, and seek retribution in the remnants of The Unbroken. Too often we are focused on a goal, only to arrive and wonder what next. For our characters, the hard work is far from over.

For Touraine, forced to become a weapon, who is she now in the ashes? If she leaves the land she fought so hard for, will she forget all she's learned? And for Luca, the power struggles that await her at home are more than she ever imagined as she is forced to balance necessary sacrifices with heartbreak.

I was really excited to read this because I LOVED the first book in the series when it first came out. My expectations were slightly lowered because after rereading the first book, I didn't enjoy it as much. But that being said, I still enjoyed it and had a fun time returning to this world! My biggest complaint is that it feels like I read a 500 page book where not much happened. I liked that you got to see the characters learning more about the world and discovering new to them creatures and foods. I loved when they saw the giraffes and zibras for the first time... it was so wholesome!

(3.75/5) The Faithless, sequel to The Unbroken, takes us back to the world of Luca and Touraine and jumps into court politics, unrest in Balladaire, more magic, and murder(s). I enjoyed seeing Touraine find her place in her new role as Quazali ambassador and step into her position. These characters are so complex and I loved the new POVs this book brought (Pruett especially). Each character has such a complex relationship with empire and colonialism and I loved that Clark continued to plumb those depths in this book as well as the first. I am now anxiously awaiting the third book in the trilogy because I have SO many questions which need answers!