Knight's Shadow

Sebastien de Castell has managed to find a wonderful niche within fantasy with his Greatcoats series. The best description of it is the Three Musketeers but fantasy. His world is well developed, even if the villains are a bit of caricature at times, but then if you look at real history those caricatures can seem remarkably apt. The Musketeers style setup allows for a fantastic buddy relationship to form the heart and soul of the books and the character relationships really are the highlight of the stories.

Knight's Shadow follows on immediately from Traitor's Blade, with our heroes trying to unite the rest of the Tristia against the northern dukes but end up caught up in some larger conspiracies. The commentary on class system inherent in the original Musketeers is still present here, along with some interesting musings on the right to rule. Knight's Shadow keeps up the excellence of the first book and drives the story along very satisfactorily. I look forward to continuing my exploration of Tristia with the next book!