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Title: The Shadow Roads
Title: The Shadow Roads
Series:
Swan's War #3
Author:
Sean Russell
Rating:
4.5 of 5 Stars
Genre:
Fantasy
Pages:
464
Format:
Digital Edition
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Synopsis: |
Hafyyd, having made his deal with Death, now faces Alaan and Elise and unleashes his fury. He wants to deliver his father, Wyrr, who is sleeping in the river, into Death's hands. The other two thwart him in that and so Hafyyd returns to the normal land and begins his conquest.
Tam is given an arrow with a magical
jeweled head and instructed to shoot Hafyyd in the eye and that that
will kill him. This is accomplished and the Rennes and the Wills
start trying to figure out a way to have peace between their
families. The most promising way looks to be through intermarriage of
Lord Caral and Lady Lynn.
It turns out that everything was
precipitated by a magical Black Swan who fell in love with Tusival,
Hafyyd, Sainth and Sianon's grandfather. She had 3 children by
Tusival, 2 sons (Wyrr and Aillyn) and one daughter. The daughter was
taken by Death in a bid to to gain the Swan's Love. That lead to Wyrr
and Aillyn walling Death up which further led to the Swan trying to
gain her daughter back by any means necessary, including selling out
Tusival, her sons and her grandchildren.
With Hafyyd dead, Alaan begins
researching the spell to wall Death in and to strengthen it. Elise
retires to a small island on the river to watch over 2 children who
have been possessed by Wyrr and the Swan's dead daughter but who now
are their own. Tam, Baore and Fynnol return north.
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My Thoughts:
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A lot gets packed into this book. First book deals with the Rennes and the Wills and the introduction of the Children of Wyrr. Second book introduces Wyrr and Aillyn and now in this book we deal with Death incarnate and everybody's magical Grandmother. It went wicked deep into Fairytale territory.
Russell's style of writing took some
mental adjustment on my part. I couldn't race through. I had to read
at the pace he set. It was this way with each book and yet each time
it came as a surprise.
I think my only gripe is that the 3
young men from the North, Tam, Baore and Fynnol, were not main
characters. They were important secondary characters, but the story
had moved beyond them and I missed having the bulk of the story from
their view. They were the Everyman of the story. The Rennes and the
Wills were nobility. Hafyyd, Alaan and Elise were all possessed by
magicians. It was hard to relate to any of those, whereas Tam was
just a young man suddenly thrust into an adventure far beyond his
imagining.
I would sum up this trilogy with the
word “Melancholy”. It wasn't depressing, it wasn't necessarily
sad but everything was tinged with Melancholy. The pacing of the
story definitely added to that feeling. To finish, I thoroughly
enjoyed this re-read as much as the first time and suspect I'll enjoy
it as much again in another decade or so. Definitely worth owning the
hardcovers.
★★★★ ½
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