Valor

It's rare for me that a book lives up to the hype but this one is such case. Gripping from the beginning to the end.

The boring slow paced worldbuilding of Malice is gone, replaced by constant action and emotion. I gave Malice benefit of the doubt because its finish was great and the story was promising. Here Gwynne builds upon what he set up in the first book to deliver one of the best paced books I've ever read. Seriously, this is masterfully paced and exactly what I was hoping this series would be before I started it based on raving reviews.

Characters go through hell. I thought it was actually a bit much because until the last 100-150 pages everything goes wrong for the good guys and everything works out for the villains. It was too obvious but it did work as I couldn't stop reading. Another thing that annoyed me but works for the book's benefit are short chapters with cliffhangers. It's annoying to read three pages only to leave me hanging for another 20 until the author decides to return to that POV or location. Not a fan of short chapters. But... they work.

Next two books are allegedly even better so I can't wait to dive back into Banished Lands but first I think I'll take a break for a bit with something shorter.

This one took me so long, it's not even funny. Not because it was bad, it wasn't, but there were certain elements that made it a bit... more difficult to read.

By now we know for sure Corban is the good guy and Nathair is the bad. It's obviously.
So his group needs to escape, to find a safe place while war is going on.

Here is the thing, this book did really feel like a kind of middle one in a series. Why do I say that? So much of it is about setup. Forming the big factions, the characters travelling around, trying to get in position.
Also, a lot of new characters are introduced, which is one of the things bogging it down; book 1 already had a LOT of story lines and characters and things going on. Individually, they are all great. I don't think there are any characters I dislike (other than them being bad people, but even then, they are well-written). But because there is so much going on, I don't think every single one can shine.
The format also doesn't help. The chapters are short. So short that often I felt like I wasn't as invested as I should have been, because I only got a few pages of a character and then we skipped to someone freaking walking on some mountains and I KNEW it was going to take a long time to circle around and get back to this person.
The parts with action and stuff going on were fine, great. But it wasn't easy going. I still liked it a lot, I jsut hope the next ones will be a bit more fluid. Even with the deaths, we still have too many people around.

Still quite enjoying this, though it is not as good as Malice. First, it wades too much into YA territory for my liking, especially because of a new character, Coralen, which I absolutely hated (not in the good way, like the Lannisters, for example, but for being a badly written one and purely annoying). Second, each ruler in this world has an advisor and each advisor is secretly a traitor - which gets really boring and unsurprising. Third, there's a lot of evil being done by some characters, yet all those around them, in their thusands, are all incredibly dumb and never even have doubts, which is not believable. Also, the magic is just a deux ex machina to force forward some moments. On the good side, I still love the writing, and some characters do evolve or devolve, which is well done. There's also more giantish POV, which I liked, and more about the Vikings, sorry Vin Thaluns, which are much more credible antagonists than Nathair (that seems rather dull and not too smart in this volume). Hope the next book in the series is better and with less (everybody) running around.

3.50/5.00 If there is any justice in this world, Owain and Rhin will kill each other. She snorted to herself, knowing the only justice she would get would be the one she made. With a sharp knife.

Valor, the second book in The Faithful and the Fallen series, is promise fulfilled. This book delivers of the promises made in the premise of this series. Valor is action packed, filled with unexpected twists and turns, great characters and plot. The world of banished lands also feels more real this time around, while still being quite limited in the grand design. Valor is not without its flaws, especially what is sub-standard dialogue in my opinion and an annoying writing choice, but overall this is a good book.

Emotional Impact -> I had a lot more fun in this book (slightly better than book 1). There are several action packed moments, even some slice of life moments that feel very consistent with this world. The twists and turns are great, and so is the plot. For me, the biggest weakness of this story is again, the writing. Worldbuilding is the next weakest.

Prose -> The consistently irritating POV shifting is just F**KING ANNOYING. I am quite sure that each character POV in this book was written separately, but simply spread out in the book as it cycles through POVs in each chapter. This is totally unnecessary. I hate when authors do this, and John Gwynne is not stopping. Brandon Sanderson did this in TWoK, Peirce Brown did this in Iron Gold, and they both stopped it right away in the next books. Shifting POV every chapter does not make a great epic fantasy book. Bunch multiple POV chapters together, finish a section of the story and then move on to the next POV. We don't need every chapter to be cliffhanger. Learn from Robert Jordan, the granddaddy of epic fantasy who never did this unnecessary POV cycling.

ANOTHER problem I have is the sub-standard dialogue. This book is definitely an improvement from Malice, but we still don't get any good and memorable dialogue. Action scenes are very well written though.

Characters -> Great characters, just great. All characters are consistent with the worldbuilding and with the plot.

Plot -> Great plot overall, but I did not enjoy the Maquin plotline (super predictable and boring). Fidele's plot is good. Cywen-Veradis was honestly fun. Uthas plot was okay. Corban was great that one dream scene with Asroth was finally some good stuff Seriously, how stupid is Veradis ? How long is he going to take to realize what's going on ? I also think there are too many conflicts where the main characters escape without any harm and the most conveniently killable characters get killed.

World Building -> A step up from book 1. The author does a wonderful job of character consistency with the world and history. But I was still hoping to get some cultural development for the giants, which did not happen much. The Vin Thalun was good, but the surrounding plot was boring.

This is the 2nd book in the Faithful and the Fallen, for sure a good improvement over the 1st book. I felt it had a bit more character focus than book 1, but did at times find my mind wandering and not keeping my attention

I did enjoy however the fighting pits, battles, characters etc.. overall a good read and enjoyable series

Very solid middle book. I felt it lost the tiniest bit of momentum depending on the POV. I'm all for having POVs, but to me some of them were definitely meh and felt like filler. Depending on the POV, I skimmed through whole chapters and I never felt lost. Not a huge deal, but just my experience
But once again, huge ending and I'm super excited to see where the 3rd book goes. Things are really picking up now

4.5 ⭐️

This book was way heavier then the first one and took our heroes and villains in directions that I didn't always expect.

We saw the old characters we loved and got to meet and follow some new ones. I did enjoy reading it, though some moments, particularly relating to Fidele and Maquin, were honestly difficult to read. And I have to give it to John Gwynne, he knows how to make me hate a villain with a burning passion. At one point I had to put the book down and pace a little bit. Well done!

If I have one complaint, it's that in my opinion, some of the chapters could've been cut. I can understand what the author was trying to build with them, but he could've done that in the course of other scenes by adding the needed dialog there.

At the end, the book delivered and I am so looking forward to seeing what happens next. Though to be honest, I am also scared for what the author will do to the characters I have grown to love.

I originally thought that I was going to give this 4 stars but the last bit of the book was just too good. I absolutely loved Maquin's chapters and I'm such a sucker for gladiator stories so that explains why he was my favorite character in this book. I gave this 5 stars but I probably would have enjoyed this even more if it wasn't on audio. The narrator does a great job voicing Lykos but there is just too much going on and I got side tracked a lot.

Favorite books this year so far:
1. Empire of the Damned by Jay Kristoff
2. The Dragons of Deepwood Fen by Bradley Beaulieu
3. The King Killing Queen by Shawn Speakman
4. Son of the Blacksword by Larry Correia
5. The Coward by Stephen Aryan

It took me less than 20 days to read Malice and Valor (and with a short graphic novel in between). I'm not a fast physical reader, so I say that to show how much I'm engrossed by this series. All I thought about when I wasn't able to read Valor was crawling into my comfy chair or bed to read Valor. This sequel was much stronger than the first book IMO. I loved everything about it. And all the “tropiness” didn't bother me one bit, I actually dig it. I think it's safe to say I'm now a Faithful and the Fallen fangirl.