Thursday, December 17, 2015


Luck in the Shadows

Stalking Darkness

Traitor's Moon

by Lynn Flewelling

Such sweet agony!!!! Reading the Nightrunner series is simultaneously thrilling and maddening. So much build up and so much action left until the last 50 pages, the plotting of the stories could drive one crazy. But that's the hook, isn't it — that slingshot ride, along with the two characters in whose lives I've become so invested. (Okay, maybe I'm  a little in love or lust with one or both of them.)

In some ways, the series is fairly typical fantasy stuff: magic people, not-magic people, in-between people; queens, kings, horses, ships; war, intrigue, enemies; the lovable rogue and his protégé; etc. Good world-building, as they say in the fantasy biz, along with intricate plots and discreet foreshadowing.

But this book also has a special appeal for me, one that I almost don't want to mention. Hints are dropped early on, but the super–slow-burning tension takes almost two whole books to ignite, in a tender moment so perfect I wept with joy (and posted on Facebook about it). In book three, the relationship is obviously passionate but always tasteful and never explicit.

On the one hand, I'm tempted to tear through the whole series; on the other, doing that might make me nuts. I just checked out the next book, but I'm hesitant to jump back into this world without a break. Also, there are now even more books in the series since I last looked: Shadow's Return (checked out today), The White Road, Casket of Souls, and Shards of Time.


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