Review: Lord of Secrets

Lord of Secrets by Breanna Teintze
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Every so often I encounter a book that I enjoyed while reading it, but somehow had trouble remembering soon afterwards, and this is one. I can't put my finger on why.

It had some good elements, definitely. Motivated protagonist (his grandfather has been captured by the bad guys and is probably being tortured). Dynamic situation (there's a race on for an artefact that could unleash horrible undead warriors and plunge the world into war, or might save the grandfather, and the protagonist has clues to where it is and how to retrieve it). The protagonist is principled; unlike other wizards, he insists on bearing the physical cost of magic himself rather than pushing it off onto other people. He hates slavery, and will risk himself to free slaves, even one who has betrayed him.

The world is dark and troubled, the antagonists are a scary sociopath and a complete psychopath, and the protagonist has complexity and depth, imperfections and insecurities, courage and determination. His sidekick/secondary antagonist/love interest, the escaped slave, is her own person with her own thing going on; she also has a motivation, a captive sister. That's a bit too much reliance on fridged relatives for me to be absolutely happy with it, but at least the third in their party is coming along out of gratitude to the protagonist's grandfather. Both of them are courageous, intelligent, and resourceful.

Overall, I'd definitely read a sequel, but I'd have to hope that there was a good recap near the beginning.

I received a copy via Netgalley for purposes of review.

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