Weer zo'n heerlijk deel (nummer 5), waardoor ik steeds meer ga afvragen waarom deze serie niet verder is vertaald. Het leest heerlijk en er zit ook nog wat humor in. Damin is echt een schatje ( )

I definitely enjoyed the second better than the first. I found Adrina interesting and amusing at times. Damin was a likable and enjoyable character who brought a humorous approach to the story. Personally, I found the story telling aspect by Jennifer Fallon better in this as well, and found myself getting into it more. I'm now genuinely interested in pursuing the next book! ( )

ORIGINALLY POSTED AT Fantasy Literature.

Treason Keep, the sequel to Medalon, is more of the same: a fast pace and fun characters overshadow the not-so-tight plot.

Jennifer Fallon keeps things interesting by expertly developing a couple of characters who were briefly introduced in her first book: Damin Wolfblade, an intelligent barbarian warlord (always a good thing, in my opinion), and Adrina, a spoiled princess whose daddy wants to marry her off because he's tired of paying for her escapades -- she just demolished the city's wharf while trying to dock a nobleman's yacht while she was drunk (the yacht sank). I was impressed with how Ms Fallon gave us very short but meaningful glimpses of Damin and Adrina in the first novel -- their personalities in Treason Keep were completely consistent with what we had previously learned about them, and it was clear that Ms Fallon had consciously prepared that. I noticed this sort of preparation for the future in this novel, too. For example, at one point, Tarja tells Damin that he'll owe him a big favor, and I'm sure we'll be seeing a reminder of this in a later installment.

So Damin and Adrina join Tarja and R'shiel, the established main characters who we already know and love, and several other old and new characters, making this novel both familiar and fresh. Fallon effectively uses different characters' points of view to tell the story (Adrina's point of view is particularly entertaining) and there is enough humor and romance to counterbalance some of the disturbing and violent events.

There were a few things that just didn't make sense to me, however. For example, Joyhinia is now out of commission and a large group of the Defenders have broken off from the Sisterhood and gone north to defend Medalon from the Kariens without permission of the Sisters. There is a lot of fretting about how to trick the quorum into making Mahina First Sister so that she can sanction their plans and send more Defenders. An elaborate and unreliable scheme is contrived when it seems safer, and more likely to work, to just go to the quorum and tell them the truth: "Hey sisters, look at Joyhinia. She's lost her mind and there's a bunch of our enemies massed at the border. Could we appoint a new leader and send some troops to defend the country?"

Also, the religious and magical systems seem arbitrary and convenient. It's not quite clear what gods and demons can do (and when), why R'shiel can call them to help her sometimes but not other times, what kinds of powers she has, and how the magic works. And why does she wear Harshini dragon rider leathers but never rides a dragon?

The plot of Treason Keep is not drum-tight, but the characterization and pleasant writing style make this an enjoyable read nonetheless.
Read more Jennifer Fallon book reviews at Fantasy Literature . ( )

I like how we're told the story by seeing different characters points of view and not just the main character. I think we jumped around between people more in this book than the first book, but it's been awhile since I read the first one so I could be wrong. Even though I don't like Adrina, I really enjoyed reading from her perspective. It was fun being in her head. But by the end of the book I got sick of the Adrina/Damin pairing and all of their bickering. It was repetitive. Especially whenever they didn't want to admit that they love each other. I get it already! Unfortunately, I think this is going to continue on into the next book in the series. Even though the reason for R'shiel following them to Hytheria was explained to us, I think the reasoning was weak and that the real reason is just so we get to see more of the Adrina and Damin story and to witness their marriage. Which is something I don't want to read about. I'm hoping that part of the story will be over quickly and we could move on. That was the only thing I didn't like about it, so overall it was a good read. Like the first book, there were a lot of politics and religion that was really fleshed out and intriguing. I like when people made decisions based on their religious beliefs (or lack thereof). Especially when the bad guys do it. That way we know why they're doing what they're doing and not just because they're the "bad guys" and therefor are supposed to make life miserable for the main characters. ( )

This is the book two of the demon child trilogy.
An excelent book with a clear story line, unusually for fantacy novels of this world building time it actually managed to have a romance in it that was beleveable.