The Blood Mirror (Lightbringer #4)

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Title: The Blood Mirror
Series: Lightbringer #4
Author: Brent Weeks
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: SFF
Pages: 704
Format: Kindle digital edition

Synopsis:

The Chromeria is under attack by the White King, the former Color Prince. Andross Guile and Kara, the Iron White, unite in the face of satrapies falling away. Kip is married and besides leading attacks on the White King and learning to be a leader, he is dealing with some serious marital issues.

Gavin/Dazin [I've given up by now trying to figure it all out, he's Gavin to me] is captured by Andross and kept in the same prison he kept his brother in. Lots of things about magic, and theology, are revealed.

Teia, now playing a triple role as Blackguard, the Iron White's assassin AND as a double agent in the Broken Eye group, comes ever closer to her breaking point.

And so much other stuff that a synopsis is pointless. Just read these books.

My Thoughts:

Much like the previous books, I had a hard time getting into this one. I didn't feel like I WANTED to read this book. That lasted for until about the 10% mark and then a switch flipped and wham, I was racing along again. This exact same thing has happened in all 3 other books, so something about how Week's writes is the culprit. When I do my re-read of his Night Angel trilogy next year I'll see if happens with that as well.

I was all over the place while reading this. So the good first.

This is epic fantasy with some hardcore action. Battles, invisible assassins, magic prisons, people growing up, people realizing that they're not done growing up, tying this into a Christian world view. If you aren't looking for that though, I don't know if one would see it. Weeks uses a Bible verse or two. He also ties Orholam, and mythical fallen creatures, to God and the devil in our world. I thought it was quite cleverly done and not all shoving preachiness down the readers' throats. Kip and Tisis growing together as a married couple. It was wicked nice to see them CHOOSE to love instead of letting their feelings set the tone. Feelings do follow, but they make that choice and it impressed me. You don't see that much nowadays, with all the teen/YA angst romance crap.

Unfortunately, that leads me into the less than good.

Tisis had some sort of condition that prevented her from having sex. Weeks actually addresses the condition in an afterward, but I didn't want to read about it. I'm a pretty private person about some things and intimate matters definitely falls into that area. So to read about those issues just made me very uncomfortable. It really added to the relationship but I didn't like it.

The other thing was the continued profanity. It has bugged me since Book 1 and it will until the end.

The final problem is that now I have to wait who knows how long until the next book. Thankfully, I've got a boatload of good books to keep me distracted. Weeks tells the kind of stories I like to read and I trust he'll keep putting out good stuff for years to come.