A review by vigil
The Fall of Waterstone by Lilith Saintcrow

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

I received an E-ARC of this book from NetGalley.

This book took me way longer than I would've like to finish (through no fault of its own) but I'm happy to say its finally done, and I enjoyed it! This book is still slow like the first installment, but I think it is also a major improvement for pacing on all fronts. Especially in the final 100 pages, which is definitely the best part of the book as a whole. 

I enjoyed the jaunt to waterstones, even if it was fairly obvious how doomed it was.
I do however think the author is overly relying on a formula in some aspects. Like the first book, the plot formula follows as
perilous travels -> enter city -> tentatively welcomed -> Solvieg is lied to / tormented -> city falls -> rinse and repeat.
I don't necessarily dislike this, but I think the book does some of its best work when the author is throwing curveballs at the audience. I hope the next book will step outside of this somewhat, or focus more heavily on
whatever the hell is happening to solvieg's body and magic, as well as the mysterious enemy lurking in her dreams.


Because this is an E-ARC copy, I won't dock any stars for this aspect, but I noticed that the repetitiveness in the plot has gotten better, but in the prose, has gotten worse. This was much less of an issue for me in the back half of the novel, but the front half..... how many times does Solvieg need to remind the audience she's a volva? We haven't forgotten in the last 2 minutes since you said it. 

For the dynamics, Sol and Arn are still the heart of this story and I sincerely hope it stays that way. In the previous novel
I considered Sol and Aeredh, but I can firmly say now he needs to never be in her presence again. Great character, but leave her alone.
Sol and Eol on the other hand got some great moments in this book and I hope that continues.
They honestly have such a fraught dynamic but also a very tender one. I assume with Arn killing his father in defense of Sol will likely only add to both these aspects in book 3 and I'm excited to see it. I am NOT excited to see Arn and Efain however, which is more of a specter of something than a concrete dynamic, but either way I'm not really fucking with it at all. Woman uninterested in men until she just finds the right one is probably my least favorite dynamic of all time. If Arn wants to be a single misandrist, that's fine!
 
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