Gavril gets back his drakhaoul, Eugene finds the gate and gets a drakhaoul of his own and another kingdom, the Francians, challanges Eugenes empire. ( )

Reviewing "Prisoner of the Iron Tower" and "Children of the Serpent Gate" together.
These are #2 and #3 in the trilogy, and I feel much the same way about them as I did about the first book: I really liked them.

Thee aren't books I would recommend to a non-fantasy fan in order to win them over to fantasy - but if you're a fan of long, complex fantasies with lots of plotting and politics as well as action and magic and just a little romance - well, these deliver.

The ante is upped here, as more of the drakhaoul are released, and enter humans - giving their hosts the ability to shapeshift into a dragon of terrifying power. But such power comes with a price - and the dragons may have their own motivations and agenda.

I felt that both books maintained the pacing set by the first in the series, and that the story was drawn to a satisfying conclusion. Enjoyable light reading - I'll be reading more from Ash in the future. ( )

In this enthralling second part of the Tears of Artamon series, we get a little more insight in the actual Tears of Artamon, the rubies that the Great Artamon left behind, and the legend that goes with it. As I said before: I’m a big, big fan of legends, history and voices from the past. I’m thrilled that the story revolves around this fascinating history of the Rossiyan Empire.

And once again, there’s this wonderful building of characters. I’ve said it in the review about the first book and I’ll say it again about this one: some people just keep on surprising you.
For instance: we get to follow Eugene and his life as the newly crowned Emperor of New Rossiya. I have to be honest, I didn’t like Eugene at all in the first book. I just can’t understand what gives certain people the right to say “Oh, won’t you look at that, that piece of land over there, I want it and I’ll take it. Because I can.” But now I’ve seen another side to Eugene. He’s actually quite nice. If he hadn’t had that unbearable urge to power, he would have been a monarch loved by everyone. Throughout the book I always wanted to give Eugene the benefit of the doubt, but he kept on pushing the good man in him aside, ‘because an Emperor has no such feelings’. That’s a shame, really, I think he’ll regret that.
Also, Eugene’s first reaction to Kiukiu’s name made me laugh out loud, because that’s exactly what I thought the first time I heard the name, which I mentioned in my earlier review!

There were some really cruel scenes in this book and I was waiting for someone to rescue the person who was suffering all these horrible things. But there was no rescue and I was positively surprised. In about all the books I’ve read and movies I’ve seen, there’s always something that’s about to happen to the main character and they always get saved at the last moment and they get away with just some cuts and bruises. In reality, there’s no such thing. It’s not likely you’ll get saved at the last minute. That fact gives this book so much more credibility than all the others. A big thumbs up.

Another thing I’d really like to mention is how much I was invested in this story. I really felt like I belonged to the world Ms Ash created, that I was part of this incredible cast of people. When she described the Smarnan revolution, the adrenaline coursed through my body. I was ready to jump up and wave the Smarnan flag while chanting along with the other revolutionaries. I felt for the cause, I wanted them to succeed. I wanted them to be free.
And that’s exactly one of the main things that makes a good book: you have to be sucked into the story and feel like you’re living alongside the characters. These are the stories that stick with you and ten years from now, you’ll still remember that one tale about Gavril, Kiukiu, Eugene and Astasia. About the deamons and the Tears of Artamon. About the gate and the little Karila with the mysterious disease.

I’m completely in love with this series by now. I’d recommend it to everyone who’s into a darker side of fantasy and quality writing.

Visit my Fantasy bookblog http://draumrkpa.blogspot.be/ for more reviews, new releases,... ( )

It's a long book and was a bit of a slog to get through, the multi-various strands of the story are starting to come together.

Gavril Nagarian has cast out the demon that was sharing his body. His powers are gone and he has surrendered to the Emperor. Who promptly throws him in an asylum for the insane where they do corrective psychology and surgery.

Meanwhile life goes on, people try to work out what they're going to do without him and how to keep alive long enough to possibly get revenge.

It's a sprawling book and while the various threads are interesting things did get bogged down occasionally in detail. Still it was an interesting story overall and I look forward to finishing the trilogy. ( )

Better than the last book. One of the few book series that the sequel is better than the first book. Good for any fan of the Fantasy Genre. ( )