Crown of Shadows / C.S. Friedman

4 out of 5 stars

For more than a millennium now Erna’s humans have maintained an uneasy stalemate with the fae, that treacherous force of nature which feeds on the human psyche.  Adepts and sorcerers work the fae for their own profit, while the demonic creatures who feed upon such efforts rapidly gain in power and ambition. Now one of these demons, a Iezu called Calesta, has declared war on all of mankind.
 
Master of illusion, devourer of pain, he plans to remake the human species until mankind exists only to sate his unquenchable thirst for suffering, and omens of his triumph are already apparent.
 
Only Damien Vryce, warrior-priest of the One God, and his unlikely ally, the undead sorcerer Gerald Tararnt stand between Calesta and his triumph.  Nothing short of the demon’s absolute destruction will save mankind from his unholy influence. But no one on Erna is certain just what the Iezu really are and no man has ever succeeded in killing one.
 
Faced with an enemy who may prove invulnerable, Damien and Tarrant must risk everything in a war that will take them from the depths of Hell to the birthplace of demons and beyond—in a battle which could cost them not only their lives, but the very soul of all mankind.

A good ending to a very dark fantasy trilogy. Damien Vryce must come to terms with his role in the Church--running around with its demonic founder, Gerald Tarrant, has damaged his reputation and made the Holy Father very, very angry. Apparently saving humankind on the planet Erna does not give him special dispensation to associate with the Hunter. What did amaze me was that after his visit to Hell to rescue his demonic pal, Vryce continues to bellyache about conditions all along the way as they sought to confront the demon Calesta.

Counterpoint to Vryce is the Hunter’s last remaining human descendant, Andrys Tarrant, who is in Calesta’s thrawl and is well on the way to addling himself through drugs and alcohol. The Holy Father recruits him too and becomes similarly disenchanted with this substance dependent pretty boy.

I am a fan of the ambiguous ending, which made me very happy with Friedman’s conclusion to this book. The ending also explained to me the image that Michael Whelan painted for the cover. Who is this pretty boy in black leather pants, wielding a cold-fire sword, swishing his duster suggestively? You’ll find out in those final pages!

Book number 339 in my Science Fiction and Fantasy Reading Project.

Sorcery of Thorns / Margaret Rogerson

3.5 stars out of 5

All sorcerers are evil. Elisabeth has known that as long as she has known anything. Raised as a foundling in one of Austermeer’s Great Libraries, Elisabeth has grown up among the tools of sorcery—magical grimoires that whisper on shelves and rattle beneath iron chains. If provoked, they transform into grotesque monsters of ink and leather. She hopes to become a warden, charged with protecting the kingdom from their power.

Then an act of sabotage releases the library’s most dangerous grimoire. Elisabeth’s desperate intervention implicates her in the crime, and she is torn from her home to face justice in the capital. With no one to turn to but her sworn enemy, the sorcerer Nathaniel Thorn, and his mysterious demonic servant, she finds herself entangled in a centuries-old conspiracy. Not only could the Great Libraries go up in flames, but the world along with them.

As her alliance with Nathaniel grows stronger, Elisabeth starts to question everything she’s been taught—about sorcerers, about the libraries she loves, even about herself. For Elisabeth has a power she has never guessed, and a future she could never have imagined.

I was really looking forward to this second YA novel from Rogerson, having fallen hard for her first book, An Enchantment of Ravens. Perhaps I was expecting too much, because I didn’t enjoy this one quite as much.

There were obviously romantic aspects to both books and I knew early on in each which couple was destined to wind up together. However, I thought that Rogerson managed the relationship’s development with more skill in the first book. In this one, Elisabeth and Nathaniel get set up much more obviously, detracting from the romantic suspense, at least for me.

However, there were definitely elements that I loved: the Great Libraries, the sentient Grimoires, the secret passages that Elisabeth has rediscovered, her aspirations to become a Warden of the Library. Undoubtedly there were some Harry Potter elements to the story, what with all the evil adults that Elisabeth (and eventually Nathaniel) must defeat so that the Library can remain true to its purpose.

This is listed currently as a stand-alone book. But with this ending, a delightfully ambiguous final page, there is definitely a possibility of a second volume. I will be interested to see what this author produces next!