The Exile

This is the second novella in The Bound and the Broken series. It's technically about Dayne's time before Of Darkness and Light, but the author suggests reading it after book two. I would agree for the reader's enjoyment. 

The author yet again does a fantastic job making a novella feel like a full length novel. Also again, there is amazing emotion, locations, and action, much like The Fall. From paragraph to paragraph your blood may be pumping, or your eyes may be tearing up, or sometimes both! Dayne has lived through some stuff. 

I love how the author gives us this character's background and struggles. And I hope he continues giving us novellas throughout his writing. I'm impressed in his ability to mix short and long fiction with the same success, and for the same series.  I believe this is his best work yet. 

Most of the time I think novellas as “nice to haves”, sort of optional extras to a series, but The Exile is absolutely vital reading in this series.

In this novella, we follow Dayne as a young man when his home and people are destroyed by the Empire. We follow him as he exacts his revenge on certain people and meets a very interesting character who we meet in the main book.

Dayne is a really interesting character when he's introduced in Of Darkness and Light but there's so little backstory I felt quite disconnected from his storyline. This novella is exactly the backstory we needed but I can see why the author didn't include it, it would have just gone on too long and distracted from the other major storylines.

If you're unsure if you need to read this as part of the main story then I would say absolutely yes.

This novella is very different from previous works since it follows only one perspective, that of Dayne's. Dayne was introduced in Of Darkness and Light as a prominent character and this novella adds depth and fleshes out Dayne. The Exile is a book packed with action from start to finish and wonderful character developments.
However, it feels like the backstory of such an important character should have been explored more in the main series and maybe expanded in the novella.
Nonetheless, The Exile is an engrossing tale about vengeance, familiar love and persistence.