200 Words or Less: Knight’s Shadow (The Greatcoats #2) by Sebastien de Castell

Welcome to 200 Words or Less, a weekly Friday feature here on The Tattooed Book Geek where I will bring to you reviews/thoughts of 200 words or less from the books I read before I started blogging. We all have them, books that we read and loved or even read and hated before we decided to start blogging and what better way than a quick fire review of 200 words or less to share your thoughts on them.

My Choice:

The Greatcoats have found the heir to the throne . . . but now they must keep her alive, against all the odds.

Tristia is a nation riven by intrigue and corruption – its idealistic young king is dead and its heroes, the Greatcoats, have been disbanded and branded traitors – but that doesn’t mean Falcio, Kest and Brasti no longer have a mission.

Falcio Val Mond has completed the final task given to him by King Paelis: he has found the King’s Charoites (well, one at least), and now he, Kest and Brasti must protect the girl from those her want her dead.

That would be simple enough, if it weren’t for the Dashini, the legendary assassins, getting in their way, not to mention the Dukes, who are desperate to hold on to their power at any cost, or Trin, the daughter of the ruthless Duke of Rijou and the cruel Duchess of Hervor, who is determined to be Queen of Tristia. Of course, the fact that the heir to the throne is thirteen years old doesn’t help, nor the fact that Falcio is slowly dying of poison.

And then there is the Greatcoats Lament . . .

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Knight’s Shadow (The Greatcoats #2) by Sebastien de Castell.

Being the second book in the series we already know most of the players but they are further characterised as de Castell goes deeper with them giving some unexpected layers. Take Brasti for example, he’s the archer and was the comic relief in the first book, always cracking a joke and having a quip at hand, but in Knight’s Shadow he shows surprising depth and emotion, not just the laughable fool we imagined but a fully rounded character.

The world building is once again top notch, exploring in further detail both The Greatcoats past and Tristia’s history. 

The book is also slightly darker in tone than the first, with the revelation of the truly horrifying and sinister cruelty that is The Greatcoat’s Lament. With the darkness we still have the underlying humour from the trio that made the first book such a great read, fantasy Three Musketeers y’all!

Takes everything that was good in Traitor’s Blade raises the bar and improves on it, no second book slump for de Castell with this one, more plot twists, more character development and even better writing make this a magnificent continuation of the Greatcoats story and another entertaining, swashbuckling and surprisingly emotional must-read.

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Quotes from Knight’s Shadow:

“Nehra frowned. “Do you always run headlong into certain death?” “Sometimes he walks,” Dariana said. “Occasionally he shuffles. Once I’m pretty sure I saw him amble into certain death.” Nehra rolled her eyes. “You risk your lives on foolish odds.”

“He’d told me the world could be the most lovely place you could imagine, so long as your imagination was fueled by love.”

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Find my 200 Words or Less post for Traitor’s Blade (The Greatcoats #1) !!HERE!!

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