Recommendations: Pick this up as a fun snack between other books, but don’t expect it to move you like the first one. Here we meet a loving and lively cast of characters, all with their own interesting lives and stories.

Feeling less foul, she limped toward the door, but each thud of her heel against the floor pulsed black at the edges of her vision. This book left me with such a warm, happy, comfortable feeling, which you don't always expect from a book with orcs, necromancers, skeletons and mercenaries, but that is the wonderful thing about this series.i just loved this book completely, and, the epilogue of this book is a six star read all on its own. It is a prequel, so we don't get to revisit the characters we loved as they're not in Viv's life yet, but don't worry, there are plenty of new characters to fall in love with. I don't know if I can explain it, but watching you read what I give you, putting a book in your hands and seeing what happens to you once you put it back down .

It does the impossible: showing us a character twenty years before her story, and making us hold our breath to see what happens next. Unfortunately, I only somewhat enjoyed the first half of this prequel, and once it hit about the halfway point, I stopped being even remotely compelled to continue. decidedly warm and cozy" despite the "hint of danger in the wind," summing up the story as "[w]arm and wonderful.

this book starts out with viv and rackam (and their mercenary group - the ravens) in battle against a necromancer’s skeleton army! It always has a bittersweetness because of the inevitability of the narrative but it’s sweet and warm nevertheless. i feel very obliged to make this comparison dot in this review, and it truly means a lot to me and my heart: i started to read this when baldur’s gate 3 was dropping, and i couldn't help but really see the connection of how these characters we are kind of recruiting based on trust and friendship and how these explorations with them feels like discovering this seaside town’s map completely with each new quest.