Home > Categories > Books > Fantasy > Darkglass Mountain : 2 : The Twisted Citadel review
Glass turns to flesh as DarkGlass Mountain rouses from its restless sleep to walk the land and plot the downfall of the Lord of Elcho Falling. Ishbel and Maximilian, now utterly estranged, ride for Serpent's Nest, not realising that at their backs a cadre of traitors plot their death.
Axis once more takes command of the Strike Force, but it is not enough to save him from the gallows of Isaiah's generals, nor from the lover who betrays him.
In Isembaard the Skraelings run amok, but they will not touch the sole survivor from the slaughter of Aqhat, who walks north with a mysterious relic of Ashdod's past.
Over all hover the Lealfast, ancient creatures who hide many secrets and possess a sorcery so ancient and malignant that it threatens to curse Elcho Falling as soon as the twisted citadel rises.
Product reviews...
I should mention to begin with that I have not yet read the first book in the Darkglass Mountain Series (The Serpent Bride) so things were a little chaotic jumping straight into book two. Having said that, the beginning was definitely interesting enough to keep me going. I enjoyed the character Ishbel and liked watching her grow from a needy and suddenly discarded wife into a very powerful woman who won her husband back without even meaning to.
Being a middle book, the Twisted Citadel didn't really go anywhere for a very long time (that's 500 pages of things being 'developed'). But when it did (page 560 to be exact) it REALLY did! I was so impressed that the final pages of the book flew past in a blur (all thirteen of them).
I think that if I had known more about these characters from the first book, this one might have been a little easier going... then again, the characters seemed to have improved immeasurably from where they had once been, so it's equally possible that reading the first book would just have been annoying.
From a purely technical point of view, Sara Douglass is an excellent writer and skillfully juggles a great many character's points of view throughout the story. It was actually a lot easier to read than I had expected when I first saw the size of the beast.
Very good, solid fantasy. I strongly recommend you read book one first though.
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