Stones of Light

First of all, check out that cover!! Damn.

This book is better than its predecessor in every single way. Some intense stuff went down at the end of Voice of War, and it really allowed the opening up of the world and characters. I'm surprised at how much Argyle is able to fit into a pretty small (350ish pages) book. SoL once again follows three POVs, and my biggest complaint about the first book was POV layout related- but this time I was equally invested in all three.

Chrys is the focus of book 1, but he takes a bit of a backseat here to let Alverax shine. Chrys's POV is instead used to provide more insight into the magic, different cultures, regions, and religions of the world. Laurel's chapters flesh out some of the villain's goals and also deals with some of the mental and physical fallout from book 1. Also...PSYCHIC WOLVES. We need more things with psychic wolves.

I think Argyle really shines when dealing with relationships between characters. My favorite scenes tend to be just two characters bonding over something. I also think it's worth mentioning that he writes very good female characters, something I hear a lot of complaints about regarding male authors. The ending was also explosive and surprised me several times.

My only negatives here are the constant usage of “Stones” as a curse word (wouldn't different people have different curse words? I digress) and that the magic system, while interesting, doesn't make the fight scenes very dynamic. It's not a very combat heavy book, though, so this wasn't a big deal.

9.5/10