The High Lord

In this book, Sonea, a novice at a university for magicians, continues her studies and also fights against sinister powers. There are mysteries, plots, spies, and the reader meets the characters from the previous books. I just love the world Trudi Canavan created and was happy to meet my favourite people, such as Dannyl and Rothen. There are some really surprising twists and overall, this is my favourite installment of the trilogy. I couldn't stop reading and enjoyed it so, so much. However, the are also two aspects I did not like - SEVERE SPOILERS AHEAD: To me, while I was fascinated by Akkarin's development, the romance between him and Sonea felt forced and I was a bit uncomfortable with it because of the power balance. I was also show more disappointed because of the ending. While I see some sense in Akkarin's death, the ending came to sudden for me. I would have liked to see him redeemed by the guild and missed his funeral with some acknowledgement that he was right. I would have liked to know more about the plans to rebuild the city and to witness more of Sonea's grief. The epilogue, which is rather uplifting in parts (including her pregnancy and the meeting with Jonna) did not at all match my mood so shortly after reading Akkarin's death scene. Therefore, I had to lower my rating to four stars from four and a half or possibly even five stars. I am looking forward to reading the other books in the Kyralia series, though. show less

I was dying to read this book after the huge cliffhanger in the second book. The first and middle parts of this book were absolutely awesome; I was completely glued to this story. Unfortunately the ending absolutely sucked in the most sucky of sucky ways.

I listened to this on audiobook and the narrator did an amazing job. I highly recommend listening to this series on audiobook.

This is one of those books that is tough to review without spoilers; so I will put a spoiler header in here further down.

The first part of the story focuses on Sonea as she deals with being Akkarin’s apprentice. Akkarin reveals some truths to Sonea in very convincing ways. This leads Sonea down a difficult path along Akkarin’s side.

The story is well written show more and flows nicely. I loved the characters as well. The story really focuses on Akkarin and Sonea; although Dorian, Robin, and others still play a big role in the story as well. Akkarin is the best character in this series so I was excited to have him feature so much in this story.

Things end up coming together nicely and I loved how all the factions of the city (commoners, dwells, thieves, and mages) had to band together to face a larger fault.

Now for the spoilers….

-----------BIG SPOILERS START-------------------------
I loved how Sonea stuck up for her beliefs and what she thought was right. The fact that she stands steadfastly by Akkarin’s side for the sake of the kingdom and her own believes showed amazing strength and also showed how much she had matured as a character and magician. Even when Akkarin wants to take the fall by himself and leave Sonea out of it, Sonea refuses to make things easy for herself and the Guild and instead does what is right.

Sonea and Akkarin falling in love and becoming a couple was perfect. They complement each other so well; neither one will let the other falter and they both temper each other when either start to go down a path that’s too dark. I loved that they had started thinking about ways to change the future of Imardin and improve it for future generations. I was so looking forward to seeing Sonea and Akkarin come back and help the city improve and really put energy into taking care of the city they loved so much.

So...well screw that! said Canavan...I have a better idea let’s f%^&% kill Akkarin right at the end of the battle. Because you know neither Sonea nor Akkarin has suffered enough personally throughout this series. They only both lost all their friends and their home trying to save this stupid city, so right when they get to the pinnacle of victory let’s kill off the best character in this book.

As if that’s not enough let’s take this awesome, beautiful, and strong new person Sonea has become (despite all her previous trials and tortures) and crush the emotional fight out of her once and for all. Nope, no happiness for this girl. In fact let’s pour salt in the wound and make her pregnant too! That way she can be a perpetually sad woman, who is shadow of herself and continues to be ostracized by the guild for not only being Black Magician left but for being pregnant with a potentially powerful child as well.

I don’t get it, why take a great story and give it this awful and contrived ending that does nothing but destroy the best characters in the book. So depressing and sad and anti-climatic.
-----------BIG SPOILERS END-------------------------

Overall this was a great series and this book definitely wraps it up...but not nicely. The majority of the book is fantastic and engaging, the world and characters are amazing. The ending sucks big time and kind of made me sad I read this series at all. I don’t plan on reading anymore of Canavan’s books because the ending to this series angered me big time. show less

I didn't like Akkarin, even after a lot of explanations were made. He was always made to seem like this aloof old guy and the attempts to humanize him failed, at least from my perspective. It was nice to see Cery and Sonea grow into themselves; I liked them much better as adult-ish people than as kids. It was a good story that made me want to continue reading. There's another series that comes after this one and I am definitely reading it.

Recensione completa qui: http://thereadingpal.blogspot.it/2016/11/recensione-30-il-segreto-dei-maghi.html


Nell'antica tradizione poetica di Kyralia, la luna è conosciuta
come "l'Occhio". Quand'è spalancato, l'Occhio allontana il
male o induce alla pazzia chi commette cattive azioni sotto
il suo sguardo. Quand'è chiuso, e solo una falce bianca ne
indica la sonnacchiosa presenza, permette che le imprese
segrete compiute dal bene o dal male passino inosservate.



Allora... Vi giuro che se non lo avete letto non potete minimamente capire il mio assoluto amore per quest'ultimo libro della trilogia. Non. Potete.
Sonea è cresciuta, è cambiata da quando l'ho conosciuta la prima volta. Ormai è una donna, con delle responsabilità che lei non esita show more ad addossarsi, se sono necessarie a proteggere il suo paese e le persone che ama...
Come avevo presupposto, Akkarin non è ciò che sembra. Anzi, è tutto il contrario, e Sonea lo capirà, seppur con titubanza, e lo aiuterà nella sua missione segreta. Ciò porterà a conseguenze che la giovane non aveva neanche immaginato.
La Corporazione è in pericolo, i maghi di Kyralia sono troppo deboli per contrastare il nemico, e dovranno arrivare ad un compromesso sofferto ma necessario. Molti personaggi sono morti, e molti sono sopravvissuti, durante lo scontro che, proprio come ne L'apprendista del Mago deciderà le sorti dei maghi Kyraliani. Ho sofferto e gioito con loro.
La lettura non è stata del tutto piacevole perché, leggendo tanto, ormai tendo ad indovinare le cose che accadranno, e purtroppo ci prendo sempre. Odio questa cosa, ma non posso farci nulla. Ho dato comunque cinque stelle perché l'universo di Trudi Canavan, così come i suoi personaggi e il suo stile di scrittura, sono per me praticamente perfetti... E io non riesco a smettere di leggere e di volerne ancora e ancora!
Ho amato Akkarin e Sonea, come anche Dannyl e Tayend, in un modo in cui amo pochissime coppie nei libri che leggo, ed anche questo è un punto a favore della Canavan
So che c'è un'altra trilogia che penso segua il figlio di Sonea... e di qualcuno che non dico per non farvi spoiler, e io l'ho ordinata su Libraccio usata sperando che mi arrivi in buone condizioni. show less

This final volume in the trilogy is a mixed bag. The surprise is the change in the character of Akkarin, who has been a complete horror especially in book 2 - forcibly reading the minds of his oldest friend Lorlen, and Rothen and Sonea, then threatening each with what will happen to the others if they tell anyone he uses black magic, that is, the draining of power from others. He also callously pushed Sonea into the path of 20 bullying novices by ejecting her from the secret tunnels she was using to escape victimisation. Yet early on in this book, he starts to take her into his confidence about the traumatic events which happened to him when he ventured into the neighbouring land of Sachaka, and was captured by one of the outcast show more magicians in its wasteland. This is the start of his transformation, not totally successfully, into a sympathetic character. And the alarm bells rang for me when Sonea overhears a couple of female fellow pupils discussing his potential as a love interest. At that point, I became convinced that Sonea was going to fall for him despite the way he has intimidated her and her friends, and her fear of him up to now.

Sure enough, Akkarin draws her in, and we discover he has a good reason for his actions - protecting the country, city and magicians from the threat from Sachaka, while keeping secret that he has to use a form of magic once commonly used but now banned under the most severe penalties and called black magic, following tragic events centuries ago. The Sachakan magicians are all users of such magic and each is far stronger than dozens of guild magicians due to their constant draining of energy from slaves with magical potential.

Sonea's involvement eventually leads her to petition Akkarin to let her learn it and join his fight, and she ends up killing one of the Sachakans who are coming to the city to try to kill Akkarin prior to invading. A surprise is that about halfway through the book, she and Akkarin are found out and banished to the homeland of the enemies. Their colleagues come across as pretty dumb - they don't believe they can execute Akkarin or keep him locked up for the time it would take to find out if his story is true. So, despite him and Sonea being the only ones who can defend everyone if they are telling the truth, they send them into the arms of the people who want to kill them for precisely that reason!.

I had problems with the book, hence only 3 stars. As I've said, I didn't find Sonea's drastic change of feelings convincing. Plus, her being barely 20 compared to Akkarin's being early 30s (younger than he came across as being in the first two books) and her having been afraid of him for about two years, convinced that he was evil, with his behaviour often confirming that, made it seem she had been brainwashed.

More minor issues included the introduction of a love interest character for Sonea's friend Cery (unlike volume 2, he has a big role in the book) from a rival faction of magicians in Sachaka, who does nothing apart from saving him at one point, as she is there just as an observer. From the reaction of one of the bad guys to her, it seems she is important - I'm guessing that she is the daughter of the Sachakan king, but we never learn anything more, her characterisation is minimal, and I found her scenes boring.

Similarly, Dannyl appears with his boyfriend, but does little in plot terms - he becomes involved in busting a secret ring of would-be magicians in the country where he is an ambassador, but that part of the plot doesn't come to anything. This is a shame because I found Dannyl an engaging character in the first two books, but he spends most of this one worrying that people will find out he is gay.
Rothen goes off to become a spy on the Sachakans, travelling with another new character, Raven, who gives him lessons in how to spy, but ends up recalled due to the main plotline, so that's another subplot that fizzles out. The villain from book 1 makes an underwhelming appearance, and Regin from book 2 a totally unbelievable repentance. Akkarin makes blood jems for himself and Sonea so they can stay in touch with each other, but never actually uses his. And the big climax where they confront the leader of the invaders is over in a few paragraphs. Plus, after the revelation that magic is stored in buildings and the Arena is an enormous power source to use against the invaders, why on earth don't they? It's as if they decided they didn't want to wreck the university. With that magic, of course, it's much more likely that both Akkarin and Sonea would have survived the battle. Canavan obviously wanted to kill Akkarin off, but it's not even as if Sonea is shown as devastated - there are a couple of mentions from Rothen about her being griefstricken, but in the epilogue, she seems pretty chipper as she faces up to motherhood in a conclusion that falls a bit flat.

The trademark annoying tendency in this trilogy for people to nod, chuckle etc is still present, even when a bloodbath has just occurred.

To conclude, after the much better volume 2, this one has dipped in quality because of the lack of conviction in the direction of Sonea's feelings and relationship with Akkarin and his with her, and the sheer number of subplots that don't deliver and even drag a bit. show less

I loved this book. Definitely the best book of the series. There are some slow points to the first two books, but this one really picks up.

Characters, dialogue, plot - all great. There were some characters that I wished had less focus, and the two main ones (Sonea and Akkarin) more focus, however.

I really got drawn into this book and was very fond of Sonea and Akkarin. For this reason, perhaps, I found the ending very short and sudden - a failing of a lot of authors! I think more time should have been spent here. After reading three books to get to the finale personally I think the author should really reward her audience with more than a couple of pages to finish!

Happily, the strongest book of the series is the third, in fact, they got better as the plot thickened and there was more going on. Canavan was definitely up to the task of keeping track of all the characters and the action. The first book dragged and creaked as Canavan tried to expand what was a simple situation: catch the rogue magician, with few hints of the larger richer plot. That said, the story has its tentative moments nonetheless, things that, in some way, make little sense (the role of the king, for example, strangely undeveloped and irrelevant, and yet they all obey his authority as the ultimate) and the wilful 'gotta follow the law' attitude towards black magic. The magic throughout is consistent, and while it did not have show more any truly original aspects neither was it annoying as some magic is (I'm thinking of the Sanderson books where the magicians manipulate metal). Also I'm always inclined to prefer magic that has moral consequences and issues attached to the using of it, and that tuckers out the magicians. I appreciate Canavan's inclusion of Dannyl's orientation story but there is no hint either that women might also have similar issues or what the attitude of the people of Kyralia had toward them which makes her choice feel oddly lopsided and a bit forced somehow, which might not be fair of me to say as I have no idea what she was thinking, only that to me, if you're going to include, you gotta go full steam ahead and include everybody. My biggest complaint is a stylistic one. Why couldn't an editor have told Canavan to lose 90% of the 'crooked smiles' and 'curving lips' - I know, I know, it is a convention of the romance genre, but there was just too darned much of that amid what was, otherwise, reasonably solid and occasional quite good writing. I think lovers of the fantasy genre would be inclined to give these four stars, but I can't give them higher than three and a half overall as the originality factor and the style ticks detracted. ***1/2 show less