Take a photo of a barcode or cover
A review by phoenixs
Norroway Book 2: The Queen on the High Mountain by Cat Seaton, Kit Seaton
4.0
A very solid second volume! Kit and Cat Seaton have a really good balance of writing characters whose bratty or stubborn behaviour with each other doesn’t detract from your enjoyment of the plot. I think that's the beauty of when you really know most of a cast of characters from the inside out - even when they might annoy the hell out of you, you know that everyone is (hopefully at least) growing and learning from their mistakes over time. These characters are dynamic as hell.
And funny enough, it's because of these dynamic protagonists that certain new additions to the cast didn't do it for me (yet). Gilly I assume is set up to come back in a future volume, but to be honest it felt like she had too limited of an introduction. I know the broad strokes of Gilly and her dynamic with Sibylla, but it felt like that was all I got. I guess I have some small issues with the transition from volume 1 to 2; if Gilly was going to be an important development to Sibylla's connection to the Norroway curse, I feel like she should've had more page time to establish how they met. The two make a cute couple, but because I barely saw them together I didn't really have it sink in fully that they were each other's "true love". My impression of them after the first quarter of the book was that they were definitely lovers, but not necessarily soulmates. Despite all that, I'm happy for the LGBTQIA+ representation, just wish that I had a stronger sense of how they grew close beyond the obvious broad strokes. Also, I think it went completely over my head that Sibylla was lesbian or bisexual in the first volume, except the fact that she kept mentioning that she was not the one to break Brom's curse and not wanting to marry the Goose Boy. But I just assumed that had more to do with the reluctant hero trope, as there hadn't really been other moments that clearly signified that she might be lesbian or bi in the first volume. Not that there had to be, but I guess I'm just reiterating that I would have liked Sibylla and Gilly to have more page time for the establishment of their relationship.
Overall, I'm happy there will be a third and maybe final volume of Norroway. I kind of felt like this could've been a duology, but I love these characters enough that I'm looking forward to one more adventure with them.
And funny enough, it's because of these dynamic protagonists that certain new additions to the cast didn't do it for me (yet). Gilly I assume is set up to come back in a future volume, but to be honest it felt like she had too limited of an introduction. I know the broad strokes of Gilly and her dynamic with Sibylla, but it felt like that was all I got. I guess I have some small issues with the transition from volume 1 to 2; if Gilly was going to be an important development to Sibylla's connection to the Norroway curse, I feel like she should've had more page time to establish how they met. The two make a cute couple, but because I barely saw them together I didn't really have it sink in fully that they were each other's "true love". My impression of them after the first quarter of the book was that they were definitely lovers, but not necessarily soulmates. Despite all that, I'm happy for the LGBTQIA+ representation, just wish that I had a stronger sense of how they grew close beyond the obvious broad strokes. Also, I think it went completely over my head that Sibylla was lesbian or bisexual in the first volume, except the fact that she kept mentioning that she was not the one to break Brom's curse and not wanting to marry the Goose Boy. But I just assumed that had more to do with the reluctant hero trope, as there hadn't really been other moments that clearly signified that she might be lesbian or bi in the first volume. Not that there had to be, but I guess I'm just reiterating that I would have liked Sibylla and Gilly to have more page time for the establishment of their relationship.
Overall, I'm happy there will be a third and maybe final volume of Norroway. I kind of felt like this could've been a duology, but I love these characters enough that I'm looking forward to one more adventure with them.