Sadar's Keep

After enjoying book 1 of this trilogy I looked forward to the next volume, but found it rather hard going sadly. I suppose it suffers from the 'middle book of a trilogy' syndrome, at least for me, as a considerable part of it dealt with people getting to where they needed to be with not a great deal of actual plot development. We were also introduced to a lot more characters so I found those sparsely developed and even main ones from the first book had less airtime. Some of the characters were so 'similar' that I sometimes couldn't remember who somebody was when they came back into a scene. I also found some of the character quirks which were all right in the city context such as Jobber's pigheadness became a little wearing when the show more character did not appear to grow, though I could see why this was as the old rivalry between the Fire Queen and her Earth sister is revived through Jobber and the new character Shedwyn who has the Earth gift.

The story starts to gather momentum from the point where Kai, who stayed behind in Beldan, runs into peril. Once things start to build to a battle between the main forces of the 'goodies' and some of their opponents, the book began to interest me more. We also learn what lies behind the history of the Burning and what caused the Fire Queen to turn into the evil tyrant she became. The final showdown with her and another main villain will be the subject of book 3 I assume.

Since reading the book, I have become aware that this series has been republished, by a different publisher than the edition I have, and targeted for young adults. It definitely was not intended as such in its original 1990 publication and this volume not only contains quite a lot of swearing and graphic violence but also has a couple of explicit sex scenes. I suppose the later publisher's view was that quite a few characters are in early adolescence. However, I should just add this as a warning that it definitely is a bit strong, certainly for early teens.

As with the first volume, the writing is a bit clunky here and there. That didn't matter much with book 1 as the story had such interest. However, given the boredom I struggled with in the first half to three quarters of the story, I can only give this 3 stars. show less

Following up on the events of "New Moon" and the remains of Beldan, the voyage that began onboard Faul's ship reaches its destination and we are introduced to the third member of the Queen's Quarter Knot. And the story culminates at the ruins of a fortress known as Sadar's Keep.

The sea voyage with former Firstwatch of Beldan's troops, Faul, aboard the Marigold is not the easiest thing for Jobber and her element of Fire. Her connection with Lirrel grows through Lirrel's element of Air and atunement to thoughts. When they sail to their destination, the town is much emptier of residents but full of Silean troops who have also seized Faul's family lands. The group escapes into the surrounding marsh.

Meanwhile, we meet Shedwyn and her show more paramour, Eneas, son of a Silean lord on whose lands Shedwyn works. They, too, face assault and possible capture by Sileans and they, too, escape into the marsh where Shedwyn's connection with the element of Earth keeps them safe.

In her palace in Beldan, Fire Queen Zorah is feeling the movement of these elements and inserts herself to cause dissension between Earth and Fire, Shedwyn and Jobber, just as there was friction between herself and her sister, the Earth element Huld. Fortunately in this group of young women, there is Lirrel, sworn to the peace of the Ghazali peoples.

The wanderers journey to the lands where the New Moon have come together in the Avadares mountains. As refugees and rebels, they must rely on what the land has to give them for nourishment and what they can teach one another about fighting. Eventually, the group heads to Sadar's Keep where the final battle with the Silean Guards takes place in the last few chapters. show less

This is the second book in the Oran trilogy by Midori Snyder. Different characters are being followed. The group fleeing from Beldan, an Oran farm girl and her Silean boyfriend, queen Zorah, and of course the New Moon. The situation in Beldan is terrible, there is not enough food or water, the taxes are high and all is going to Silea and the Silean war effort against the Oran. Meanwhile the children with magic, Jobber and others, start realizing how important they are to bringing change to Oran.
Snyder did some short recaps in the beginning of the book which were nice for those for whom reading part one has been a while, but were unnecessary for the whole of the story. The story itself is pretty fast paced and exciting. The Dutch edition show more did have some editing errors which were annoying, but the story was good. show less

Dit tweede deel sleepte me vanaf het begin mee en ik ben daarom meteen doorgegaan in deel 3.

Enjoyed the first book in the series.
This one seemed a bit slow and, well....., not much seemed to happen.
But expecting a bit to happen in the final book of the trilogy.