Review: The Heirs of Locksley

The Heirs of Locksley by Carrie Vaughn
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I was disappointed in this one, mainly because I know the author is capable of writing much better stories than this.

It's very short, leaving little room for character development or plot, and there's not much of either. What plot there is relies entirely on two big coincidences, and I'm not at all a fan of having coincidence drive your plot.

The first coincidence has the form, if not the content, of a Convenient Eavesdrop: characters just happen to be in the right place at the right time to observe something significant. In this case it's not a conversation, but an event, in which they intervene (so there is some protagonism, at least).

The second coincidence is a completely random meeting with someone who's been previously mentioned. As soon as the person came on stage, it was obvious to me who it would be, even though there was no non-narrative-driven reason for it to be that person out of hundreds of others.

Not at all up to the author's usual standard. The first book was slightly disappointing, but at least had some moving moments; this does not. If there's a third, I won't bother with it.

I received a copy via Netgalley for review.

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