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A review by rubeusbeaky
A Vow So Bold and Deadly by Brigid Kemmerer
3.0
I flew through this book with my heart in my throat, taking "anxiety breaks" along the way because I was so concerned for the fate of these characters. The strongest part of this series has always been its characters: They are emotionally complex, loving and respectful of one another even when their points of view pit them on opposite sides of a /war/, and from modest (or even traumatic) roots they grow into noble heroes.
But in hindsight... I realize my excitement in reading this book was to race to the finish and see what would happen... and unfortunately the answer was: Not a lot. :/ The last 30 pages knocked two stars off this read. Spoilers ahead:
The first 2/3 of this book were friends who don't want to go to war fretting internally about how they're going to war. But these friends are not foot soldiers being /forced/ into an undesirable situation. They are /powerful/ people, kings and queens! If you don't want to go to war... don't! Call a summit! Sue for peace! Send a negotiator or an ambassador! Draft up an alternative contract to atone for past crimes (like sending Harper and Nola Virin to swap places for a year). Or, you know... capitulate! Rhen knows he owes Sylh Shallow money... Send them money! Give them their trade route access! Grey doesn't want to be king, he just wants to protect Lia Mara... So yield! Forsake your claim to the Emberfall throne, and be Lia Mara's husband! (Which would not quite be a king, since their monarchy is slightly different, but it's close enough!) Hey, why not even change the rules?! The entire older generation of rulers is dead, you can reshape the kingdom however you want! If Narnia can have two kings and two queens, why not The empire of Embersylh? Reigning in my rant, what started as necessary exposition to set up the perspectives of each main character slowly became a slog of redundancy. Nobody wanted this war, I was always convinced that they were going to make peace... but nobody came up with a creative solution for what that peace should look like, instead moping and doubting for 200-300 pages. By the end of which, characters seemed to be repeating themselves and sticking to their bad choices purely out of spite. (Grey swearing Rhen was never his friend?! Psssh, as if! Rhen promising Lilith he would kill Grey, again?! Come on already!) For every revelation and step towards emotional maturity, the author would yank the characters back three steps, just to keep the will-they-won't-they alive. It was disingenuous and annoying after so much reading time invested.
The reader has also been teased with a wider world: The mostly annihilated magesmiths, the anti-magic terrorist group building in Sylh Shallow, and the scravers of Iishellasa who are missing their king and crown prince. NONE of these factions play a significant role in the climax of the book/series; they may as well collectively be known as Sir Not-Appearing-In-This-Series. Maybe they were established to setup a spinoff? Or a standalone novella? But it was EXTREMELY unrewarding for a third (or fourth!) party not to swoop in and disrupt our heroes' plans (or provide an unlikely alliance to turn the tide of battle!). In fact, it is /astonishing/ that none of the minor characters were somehow involved in a double-cross. (Bloodthirsty Nola Virin consorts with an Emberfall spy who is /also/ an anti-magical terrorist, and Nola Virin doesn't pull a bloody coup?! Shenanigans! Tycho goes missing for most of the book, and he's not found rallying magical refugees, or writing to Iisak's kingdom for reinforcement?! Blasphemy! Lilith pops all over the darn map, and she's not revealed to have been a minor character in disguise all along?! Seriously?!) This book had a HUGE waste of potential.
So, the plot trudged and had no major twists... Well, except maybe one: Spoiler alert, Rhen eats Lilith. He turns into a dragon again, and rips her to shreds... If he had the power to do that ALL THIS TIME, why didn't he?!?!?! What is all this nonsense?! Two books' worth of Rhen making terrible choices he thinks are for the greater good, because he can't see a way around doing Lilith's bidding, when he could have EATEN HER and been done with her!!! This plot point feels like a betrayal to the readers. All the setup about Grey fostering his own magic, or Rhen finding a magical weapon powerful enough to slay Lilith, or Lia Mara's insistence that there must be a non-violent solution, or literally /anyone's/ ability to sympathize with Lilith's being the alleged sole survivor of a /genocide/ and choosing to punish her crimes in a more just way, or a more /karmic/ way!... Nope, witch gets eaten. Shrug. And the ultimate betrayal is that there is nothing /thematic/ about Lilith's downfall. It's not about the inner strength Harper or Grey has cultivated, it's not about Rhen facing his abuser and conquering his fears, it's not about a ragtag group of heroes rallying around love and friendship and refusing to play her games anymore... Nope, magic beats magic, the end.
Speaking of thematic arc, and circling back around to characters... I feel that every single character arc was done dirty in the end:
- Rhen - A privileged prince who becomes the victim of abuse, and who - through this traumatic series of events - learns to be humble, honest, and trusting... In this book, is sad and scared and remains sad and scared. Grey doesn't even throw him a bone and offer Rhen a new station as Chief Advisor or Grand Marshall; Rhen is left wallowing and purposeless in a world which no longer needs or wants him. Way to do a primary protagonist dirty, B.K.
- Harper - A muggle girl from our world who finds herself thrust into the magical, cursed realm of Emberfall. Initially brazen but self-doubting, Harper learns - both through training and through the friendships she cultivates along the way - that she is stronger than she seems, nobody's burden, and her greatest strengths are her compassion and ability to see from another's perspective. In fact, her empathy is SO strong, she alone of all the heroes never loses faith in Rhen... NONE of Harper's heroic qualities will be of help in the finale. She will be shunned as a lying, sneaky traitor by everyone except Rhen, she will not face Lilith in some epic Muggle vs. Enchantress boss battle, and she will get an uncertain denouement. Does she stay with Rhen in Emberfall? Do they become official members of Grey's court? Do they go rogue, exploring the lands, helping hither and thither like little Robin Hoods? Do they remain a couple at all? Does Harper return to the muggle world? Does Rhen go with her?! So many questions, none answered. This is the primary female protagonist, and the central love interest, of the first book, and she gets NOTHING!
- Grey - Raised as a farm boy who later joined the royal guard, Grey learns that he is actually a bastard prince, and a magical one to boot... A secret he intended to take to his grave, because he didn't want to take the crown from Rhen, which mattered so much more to his friend than it did to Grey. When Rhen takes a series of reckless, belligerant, violent actions - mostly in response to the threat of Lilith - Grey feels his hand is forced, and for the good of the realms he must claim the throne. But he doesn't want it! It's one of his cornerstones: He doesn't know how to rule, he wasn't raised for it, he has no desire to subjugate people, he is a protector and not a politician... But this book ends with him deposing Rhen and then trying to get the courtly cheat sheet from Rhen over a few drinks. I touched on this before, either Grey should have abdicated, or he should have made a more respectful show of inviting Rhen, officially, into his inner circle. If this series was a bromance between these two boys, then it wasn't enough to end - Sopranos style - in a tavern cracking jokes about the barmaid's boobies -___-. Because eventually... that lunch break ends... And Rhen is still depressed, and Grey is still a reluctant ruler.
- Lia Mara - Soft-spoken and shrewd, Lia Mara's greatest strengths have always been her intelligence and diplomacy. Unfortunately, she was born to a kingdom which values brute strength and ruthlessness. Time and again Lia Mara is told she is too meek to rule. Eventually, Lia Mara learns to stand up for herself, and to publicly stick by her convictions... But, learning to shout orders at people who disagree with you is not the same as learning how to move the pieces of your court so that they best /serve/ you. Nor is it learning when to listen to and when to lecture to your advisors. And what good does Lia Mara's new loud voice do her? She flees her castle because it's riddled with assassins, and she follows a path Grey has already cleared, so she doesn't have to rally anyone to battle. Her cleverness could have been extremely helpful in tracking down the hive of assassins, but she outsourced that job to her sister. And the book threatens a major battle in the passage Lia Mara takes, but it never occurs, so her ability to rule is never /really/ seen... And THEN (ugh, because we can't have a YA Fantasy without someone getting knocked up) Lia Mara learns she's pregnant, and will probably have a magical baby, and afterwards her ENTIRE character is wrapped up in worrying about how to keep magic-baby a secret. For starters, she doesn't plan on going back to Sylh Shallow. You know, where the PLOT is. An intelligent, brave, untested young ruler... side-lined with a stay-at-home mommy story. Lame!
I hate to say it... But the worst thing about this book is that it's not creative enough :/. That's not a review you want to give a FANTASY finale. But it's not, it's not creative. Characters stagnate, setups fizzle out or come to nothing, no big moves are made to change the structure of the world to /avoid/ friend-versus-friend again in the future (or to avoid genocide of magical beings in the future), and after Xhundred pages it just... ends. Complain about something fixable, complain about something fixable, fix it in a bandaid way, grab a beer, fade to black, ignore the ladies in the background it's their collective time of the month or something I don't know this is a book about manships now.
So sad to see the wasted potential :'(.
But in hindsight... I realize my excitement in reading this book was to race to the finish and see what would happen... and unfortunately the answer was: Not a lot. :/ The last 30 pages knocked two stars off this read. Spoilers ahead:
The first 2/3 of this book were friends who don't want to go to war fretting internally about how they're going to war. But these friends are not foot soldiers being /forced/ into an undesirable situation. They are /powerful/ people, kings and queens! If you don't want to go to war... don't! Call a summit! Sue for peace! Send a negotiator or an ambassador! Draft up an alternative contract to atone for past crimes (like sending Harper and Nola Virin to swap places for a year). Or, you know... capitulate! Rhen knows he owes Sylh Shallow money... Send them money! Give them their trade route access! Grey doesn't want to be king, he just wants to protect Lia Mara... So yield! Forsake your claim to the Emberfall throne, and be Lia Mara's husband! (Which would not quite be a king, since their monarchy is slightly different, but it's close enough!) Hey, why not even change the rules?! The entire older generation of rulers is dead, you can reshape the kingdom however you want! If Narnia can have two kings and two queens, why not The empire of Embersylh? Reigning in my rant, what started as necessary exposition to set up the perspectives of each main character slowly became a slog of redundancy. Nobody wanted this war, I was always convinced that they were going to make peace... but nobody came up with a creative solution for what that peace should look like, instead moping and doubting for 200-300 pages. By the end of which, characters seemed to be repeating themselves and sticking to their bad choices purely out of spite. (Grey swearing Rhen was never his friend?! Psssh, as if! Rhen promising Lilith he would kill Grey, again?! Come on already!) For every revelation and step towards emotional maturity, the author would yank the characters back three steps, just to keep the will-they-won't-they alive. It was disingenuous and annoying after so much reading time invested.
The reader has also been teased with a wider world: The mostly annihilated magesmiths, the anti-magic terrorist group building in Sylh Shallow, and the scravers of Iishellasa who are missing their king and crown prince. NONE of these factions play a significant role in the climax of the book/series; they may as well collectively be known as Sir Not-Appearing-In-This-Series. Maybe they were established to setup a spinoff? Or a standalone novella? But it was EXTREMELY unrewarding for a third (or fourth!) party not to swoop in and disrupt our heroes' plans (or provide an unlikely alliance to turn the tide of battle!). In fact, it is /astonishing/ that none of the minor characters were somehow involved in a double-cross. (Bloodthirsty Nola Virin consorts with an Emberfall spy who is /also/ an anti-magical terrorist, and Nola Virin doesn't pull a bloody coup?! Shenanigans! Tycho goes missing for most of the book, and he's not found rallying magical refugees, or writing to Iisak's kingdom for reinforcement?! Blasphemy! Lilith pops all over the darn map, and she's not revealed to have been a minor character in disguise all along?! Seriously?!) This book had a HUGE waste of potential.
So, the plot trudged and had no major twists... Well, except maybe one: Spoiler alert, Rhen eats Lilith. He turns into a dragon again, and rips her to shreds... If he had the power to do that ALL THIS TIME, why didn't he?!?!?! What is all this nonsense?! Two books' worth of Rhen making terrible choices he thinks are for the greater good, because he can't see a way around doing Lilith's bidding, when he could have EATEN HER and been done with her!!! This plot point feels like a betrayal to the readers. All the setup about Grey fostering his own magic, or Rhen finding a magical weapon powerful enough to slay Lilith, or Lia Mara's insistence that there must be a non-violent solution, or literally /anyone's/ ability to sympathize with Lilith's being the alleged sole survivor of a /genocide/ and choosing to punish her crimes in a more just way, or a more /karmic/ way!... Nope, witch gets eaten. Shrug. And the ultimate betrayal is that there is nothing /thematic/ about Lilith's downfall. It's not about the inner strength Harper or Grey has cultivated, it's not about Rhen facing his abuser and conquering his fears, it's not about a ragtag group of heroes rallying around love and friendship and refusing to play her games anymore... Nope, magic beats magic, the end.
Speaking of thematic arc, and circling back around to characters... I feel that every single character arc was done dirty in the end:
- Rhen - A privileged prince who becomes the victim of abuse, and who - through this traumatic series of events - learns to be humble, honest, and trusting... In this book, is sad and scared and remains sad and scared. Grey doesn't even throw him a bone and offer Rhen a new station as Chief Advisor or Grand Marshall; Rhen is left wallowing and purposeless in a world which no longer needs or wants him. Way to do a primary protagonist dirty, B.K.
- Harper - A muggle girl from our world who finds herself thrust into the magical, cursed realm of Emberfall. Initially brazen but self-doubting, Harper learns - both through training and through the friendships she cultivates along the way - that she is stronger than she seems, nobody's burden, and her greatest strengths are her compassion and ability to see from another's perspective. In fact, her empathy is SO strong, she alone of all the heroes never loses faith in Rhen... NONE of Harper's heroic qualities will be of help in the finale. She will be shunned as a lying, sneaky traitor by everyone except Rhen, she will not face Lilith in some epic Muggle vs. Enchantress boss battle, and she will get an uncertain denouement. Does she stay with Rhen in Emberfall? Do they become official members of Grey's court? Do they go rogue, exploring the lands, helping hither and thither like little Robin Hoods? Do they remain a couple at all? Does Harper return to the muggle world? Does Rhen go with her?! So many questions, none answered. This is the primary female protagonist, and the central love interest, of the first book, and she gets NOTHING!
- Grey - Raised as a farm boy who later joined the royal guard, Grey learns that he is actually a bastard prince, and a magical one to boot... A secret he intended to take to his grave, because he didn't want to take the crown from Rhen, which mattered so much more to his friend than it did to Grey. When Rhen takes a series of reckless, belligerant, violent actions - mostly in response to the threat of Lilith - Grey feels his hand is forced, and for the good of the realms he must claim the throne. But he doesn't want it! It's one of his cornerstones: He doesn't know how to rule, he wasn't raised for it, he has no desire to subjugate people, he is a protector and not a politician... But this book ends with him deposing Rhen and then trying to get the courtly cheat sheet from Rhen over a few drinks. I touched on this before, either Grey should have abdicated, or he should have made a more respectful show of inviting Rhen, officially, into his inner circle. If this series was a bromance between these two boys, then it wasn't enough to end - Sopranos style - in a tavern cracking jokes about the barmaid's boobies -___-. Because eventually... that lunch break ends... And Rhen is still depressed, and Grey is still a reluctant ruler.
- Lia Mara - Soft-spoken and shrewd, Lia Mara's greatest strengths have always been her intelligence and diplomacy. Unfortunately, she was born to a kingdom which values brute strength and ruthlessness. Time and again Lia Mara is told she is too meek to rule. Eventually, Lia Mara learns to stand up for herself, and to publicly stick by her convictions... But, learning to shout orders at people who disagree with you is not the same as learning how to move the pieces of your court so that they best /serve/ you. Nor is it learning when to listen to and when to lecture to your advisors. And what good does Lia Mara's new loud voice do her? She flees her castle because it's riddled with assassins, and she follows a path Grey has already cleared, so she doesn't have to rally anyone to battle. Her cleverness could have been extremely helpful in tracking down the hive of assassins, but she outsourced that job to her sister. And the book threatens a major battle in the passage Lia Mara takes, but it never occurs, so her ability to rule is never /really/ seen... And THEN (ugh, because we can't have a YA Fantasy without someone getting knocked up) Lia Mara learns she's pregnant, and will probably have a magical baby, and afterwards her ENTIRE character is wrapped up in worrying about how to keep magic-baby a secret. For starters, she doesn't plan on going back to Sylh Shallow. You know, where the PLOT is. An intelligent, brave, untested young ruler... side-lined with a stay-at-home mommy story. Lame!
I hate to say it... But the worst thing about this book is that it's not creative enough :/. That's not a review you want to give a FANTASY finale. But it's not, it's not creative. Characters stagnate, setups fizzle out or come to nothing, no big moves are made to change the structure of the world to /avoid/ friend-versus-friend again in the future (or to avoid genocide of magical beings in the future), and after Xhundred pages it just... ends. Complain about something fixable, complain about something fixable, fix it in a bandaid way, grab a beer, fade to black, ignore the ladies in the background it's their collective time of the month or something I don't know this is a book about manships now.
So sad to see the wasted potential :'(.