The Desert Spear by Peter V. Brett

Great bloody book. Peter V. Brett has provided the perfect foil for his first book by giving us the other side of the story and making us truly care about the characters and their plight, which I did not think was possible.

This was my reaction after I started reading and found out the first third of this book is entirely about the Krasians.

Pretty clear whose side I was on right? By the time 200 pages or so had passed and we checked in with the Scooby gang from the first book I was loathe to step out of the world I had immersed myself in. I found myself thinking ‘these guys are on point and getting their act together’ whilst getting a little bit fed up with the unlove triangle of Leesha, Arlan and Rojer. I loved that Brett was able to provoke and instigate this 180 degree turn and change of attitude and I find myself as interested in the ‘villains’ as our more obvious protagonists. It’s only when you have a truly worthy opposition that you strengths will be shown and Jardir and the Warded Man are certainly worthy of facing off and testing each others skills. Each one actually makes the other one better so I look forward to seeing how this plays out.

He did a great job of weaving the plots together and making the transitions seamless as I never felt rudely ejected from a scene but always like he was saving something for later. I was surprised to discover in the Readers Q & A at the back that there are 8 points of view in this book. It felt like half that and I think that is a massive testament to the quality of writing as each of the many characters had a distinct voice even when it felt like a lot of the characters, Krasians in particular, had similar sounding titles.

This book will take you through loads of twists and turns. You will be on one side and then another as your attitude shifts from person to person and I found myself seeing new dimensions to characters I had all but previously written off like Jeph and Garad. It is a magnificent set up and after reading the first two books I feel I am not completely in the world and ready to see how the real war progresses. I feel like the structure is up and ready to go and all we are waiting on now is the moment when the Deliverers meet. The build up has been immense but I fell the pay off will be mind blowing and I cannot wait.

There are some parts of this book that are definitely not for the squeamish. There is quiet a bit of rape and in the case of one viewpoint an absolute ton of horrifyingly grating incest. Rarely have I wanted a character killed so much and I got so little satisfaction or enjoyment from those scenes that I almost put the book down. In the same way that reading about fundamental religious nutjobs drives me crazy, the phrase ‘when it was over she…’ has now being a bit of a trigger for me. I appreciated the way Brett handled it by not shoving it in my face but all the same I can completely understand why some people, females especially, would be thinking, ‘Really? We’re still doing this?’

Peter V. Brett is published by Del Rey. The fourth book in the series ‘The Skull Throne” is currently for sale.

I wrote this review whilst listening to “Missing you” by John Waite and ’99 Red Balloons”. 80’s channel, thought you’d like to know.