Valor

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.