I read and reviewed the first part of this duology by Patricia Briggs here:

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The Premise:  Aralorn has been called home after ten years away as a spy for the mercenary city-state of Sianim – her father, the Lion of Lambshold has died. Aralorn returns to the family she left behind and to the reasons why she left. She also discovers that her father is actually alive but kept in a death-like state through some malicious black magic spell which neither she nor Wolf can easily break. The question becomes – how can they free Aralorn’s father before his life leaves him for real, and who is responsible for his “death”, and why?

My Thoughts: This book starts off not too long after the events of the last book – just enough time for people to settle down again after what happened at the ae’Magi’s castle. The principle characters of the first book have gone back to their regular roles, and Aralorn and Wolf have gone back to the spying game. Apparently the world has accepted happened at the ae’Magi’s castle with minimal repercussions, and if there are to be significant world changing events because of it, they aren’t happening right away.

Almost no one knows or suspects that Aralorn and Wolf were ever involved with what happened, but when Aralorn’s father is targeted, the first thought to come to mind is that their fight is not over.  It’s natural to wonder if such a evil villain, whose body is never found, is really still alive. When people begin to have strange dreams that feel like they are memories rather than dreams, it suggests a perpetrator with magical power, again pointing at the ae’Magi, but there are a few magic users in the vicinity of Lambshold, including Aralorn’s brother-in-law as well as her shapeshifter relatives. And then, there’s the new ae’Magi. Thus, Wolfsbane is a sort of a magical whodunit to find out who is behind the Lion of Lambshold’s “death”,with the side effect that we get to delve into Aralorn’s beginnings and explore her relationship with Wolf.

I love Patricia Briggs’ current urban fantasy series, but when I read Wolfsbane and compare it to her newer work, it lacks finesse. I can see the foundation in Wolfsbane for the writer Briggs is now. It has the ideas and a relationship between two unique characters which I love in Briggs’ recent work, but the execution here is a little clunky. Aralorn and Wolf have only two weeks to lift the spell on her father but there’s little sense of urgency or pressure from Aralorn’s family about how little time they have and how little they know. Compared with Masques, which had quite a bit of action, Wolfsbane less physical, more verbal. It mostly deals with Aralorn and Wolf asking the opinions of the nearby experts, deciding what to do next, and contemplating their relationship with each other.

In both the mystery and the relationship I found things a little too scripted. Aralorn would tell stories or make decisions that seem out of the blue, but they had a direct bearing on the story later on. Similarly she knows Wolf’s state of mind before he does, and while he’s being the self-hating hero, she’s cheerfully understanding. I enjoyed Aralorn and Wolf’s relationship in Masques, because I felt that Wolf’s prickliness was well balanced with Aralorn’s ability to see what he was really feeling. Unfortunately, in Wolfsbane, this same relationship didn’t work for me, probably because Wolf’s role as a tortured hero was revisited constantly. After a while I began to find his angst and Aralorn’s response tedious. That’s not to say that there were not one or two sweet moments between Aralorn and Wolf that I liked reading, but I felt that some of the space used to repeat what we know about their relationship could have been used to deepen the plot and flesh out the secondary characters. Instead, the relationship took precedence over the plot, and the cheerful demeanor Aralorn uses with Wolf jarred in the face of her father’s near-death state.

Overall: Many aspects of this story were fit together in a way that lacks the polish I expect of Briggs today. It feels like an early work, and one that doesn’t quite have the same charm that I found in Masques. For die-hard fans of Patricia Briggs, this is a must read, but as a fantasy novel, it’s mildly entertaining, but did not stand out. The story may work better for readers who are more interested in the wounded-man-and-his-savior relationship between the two main characters and are not as invested in the fantasy aspects.

Buy: Amazon | Powell’s | The Book Depository

Other reviews:
One Good Book Deserves Another – 4/5
Fantasy Literature – 3/5 (“lacks thrills, but romance is sweet”)

Patricia Briggs’ Mercy Thompson series is one of my favorite urban fantasy series out today. When I started getting into them I naturally looked into her backlist, which is in the fantasy genre. I’ve read both Hob’s Bargain and the Hurog duology, and the Raven duology is in my TBR pile, but the one book I could not get my hands on was Masques, her first book. In a post I wrote in 2007, I noted that I wanted it, but “This book goes for at least $60 on eBay, $120 to over $600 elsewhere. Which I think is CRAZY.” I didn’t think it was worth paying so much for a book which the author herself admitted was her first effort and thus had a lot of weaknesses! Thankfully, Masques was re-released after a rewrite by Briggs. Even better: its sequel, Wolfsbane, is now available.
 
This review is for the rewritten Masques.
 
The Premise: Aralorn is a mercenary who “doesn’t take orders” and “will occasionally listen to suggestions” which makes her ideal as a spy for the city of Sianim. Her latest assignment is to check out rumors of an assassination attempt on the ae’Magi, the much beloved Archmage of the land. It isn’t until she is at his castle does she realize that the ae’Magi is not the good, kind man the world thinks he is. He’s pure evil, but his influence over people’s hearts makes any opposition near impossible. The only people who realize the true nature of the ae’Magi are persecuted by him.  These include Wolf, a grey beast with yellow eyes who can speak, the young King Myr of Reth, and a small but growing group of rebels hiding in the Northern Woods.
 
My Thoughts: This book begins with an introduction by the author which explains that Masques was a book she started in college when she knew nothing about writing. This means that in looking at it again as a more experienced writer, there was a lot of “squirming uncomfortably” and the first attempt at a rewrite was so extensive that it changed the story completely. So this edition of Masques is a compromise: it keeps the original story but makes things fit better, leaving the “cliches and oddities” intact.
 
I kept Briggs’ introduction in the back of my mind while reading the book, and I can see what she alludes to as the “cliches and oddities” in her story. Yes, there are a lot of things in Masques that feel very familiar. Aralorn’s background alone made me wonder if I’d read Masques before: the plain-looking lord’s daughter, more interested in swordplay than etiquette, runs away from home with her warhorse and joins a mercenary guild. Her shapeshifter bloodline and quick wits keep her alive, and along the way she gains a wolf companion.  Add to this the evil sorcerer in his castle, a scarred hero, an army of mindless minions, a spymaster, a dragon, and magic items, and you have a rather common set of tropes. Yet I never felt that these things were trite. Instead I felt like I was reading a story where the plot had a charming enthusiasm, while the writing itself was polished by experience.
 
I didn’t think the polish covered all flaws, but there were qualities in this story that reminded me of what lured me into the fantasy genre during the nineties, and that was worlds I wanted to visit. I really enjoyed the settings, particularly the fantastic rooms described in the story. I loved imagining the secret places these characters went and the grand palace that the ae’Magi lived in. I also liked the idea of the green versus human magics, and how shapeshifters and magical creatures fit into this. The explanation of how the magic works could have been better, but there was still a sense of wonder while reading about magical creatures and old stories that I enjoyed.
 
There’s a lot thrown into the 294 pages that was this book, but story is essentially a good versus evil tale. After Aralorn discovers the true nature of the ae’Magi, King Myr of Reth has to flee his palace, leaving his throne open for the ae’Magi to usurp. Aralorn and Wolf join him in the Northlands. Here, the power of human magics like the ae’Magi’s are not as affective, but green magic, the magic of Aralorn’s shapeshifter people, have no problems. A ragtag band of people impervious to the ae’Magi’s magical influence trickle into the hidden camp, called my some unknown power. Together they begin to work out how to overthrow the ae’Magi.
 
There are a few secondary characters within this rebel camp, but besides King Myr and the ae’Magi (who were very good and very evil respectively), no one really made much of an impact on me. The focus is primarily on the two heroes (Wolf and Aralorn) and they stood out while others faded into the background. I found myself uninterested in the camp’s day-to-day life and more drawn in by Aralorn and her relationship with the the enigmatic Wolf.
 
Although I feel like Aralorn is the main character, Wolf steals the show. Aralorn rescued him from a pit trap, and over the years he’s slowly revealed more about himself, including the fact that he’s not just a wolf. He’s your basic scarred hero, but he and Aralorn have developed a bond which has become something more for them both. I loved reading about his past and their conversations while they researched spells in Wolf’s private library (I wish this library was real). Aralorn is a good match for his prickliness because she can cheerfully ignore it, and she uses her humor to chip away at his shell. As you can imagine, this is the set up for a romance. I was expecting something slow moving from the way the book began, but the complications I thought I’d see were superficial ones. It was sweet but not intense. I am looking forward to reading the second book to see how their romance continues and I hope to see better developed secondary characters that play a larger role in the plot.
 
Overall: Masques is a little bit dated because it’s a book originally written in the nineties, but it has a lot of charm. It reminds me of books about female heroines having adventures written by Robin McKinley and Mercedes Lackey that I read in my teens and still hold a fondness for today. It has its flaws but it also has charisma, and it kept me pleasantly entertained for the few hours it took me to read it. I think would do well with YA readers interested fantasy, particularly girls.
 
Buy: Amazon | Powell’s | The Book Depository
 
Other reviews:
Dear Author – C
 
(This review was cross-posted to the paperbackswap blog)