Overall, perhaps this suffers from middle book syndrome, but Raine has definitely stepped into her powers and I can’t wait till the epicness of the next book! Thank you to NetGalley and Tor Books for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

There were some pacing issues especially in the middle of the book when I began to get a bit bored. Sadly, the e book of the ARC is badly formatted with random numbers inserted into the text as well as a lot of very random line breaks which broke up the sense of the writing and made it hard to focus on what was happening. I've finished reading an arc of Traitor of Redwinter some time ago and I've been struggling to gather my thoughts honestly. It's been a wild read and I'm not sure how I feel about it. Second book syndrome Traitor of Redwinter does not suffer from. It does have shady politics and dirty bastards to throw a spanner in the works. I love that Raine is still utterly flawed character. Yes, she's the main character, but being the star of the show hasn't made her 'one that cannot do wrong' .. in fact, she does a lot wrong. Like, everything?! Ha... Disclaimer: The publisher provided a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Any and all opinions that follow are mine alone. I ignored Castus and laboured hard enough to roll one of them over. My suspicion was confirmed, and it didn’t sit easy.

Daughter of Redwinter has it all: enigmatic characters, shady politics, secret cults, ancient evils, and a young woman grappling with her own shattered identity while navigating a world in which no one is quite what they seem.”—Nicholas Eames, author of Kings of the Wyld

Suffice to say the worldbuilding continues to be second to none here and TRAITOR OF REDWINTER dives even deeper into the history and tumultuous past events that have shaped the present. There's also a deeply hidden mystery that cannot be denied and I found myself wanting to know more with each enticing (although infrequent) revelation. Hey, we can't give everything away in the second book am I right? So as it happens that excellent worldbuilding and an interesting history are my two favorite elements in a fantasy book, I'd say yeah this one hit all of the right notes for me. Where the first book was a journey, this was about the politics of the world. I enjoyed this aspect greatly and as written the worldbuilding made sense and was nicely detailed. Instead of introducing new characters and making them the plot (aka 'monster of the week'), we have the side characters from the first book doing most of the work of the storyline. It made the book much more grounded and solid as a result. Damn, is this book GOOD. The first book in the series was good, and so I expected more of the same in book 2 - but I walked away much more impressed than I thought I would be with this one. It is GOOD. Her indecision towards Sanvaunt is a little annoying in my opinion. I think she dithers too much in letting herself have those emotions. McDonald pushes it, but Sanvaunt’s reaction saves it for me. Also, she has the same indecision towards Esher. I’m not sure who I want her to end up with. I think, in fact, I want her to end up with both. So go away. It’s a private thing. You’re too full of yourself to take it seriously. You make everything seem … juvenile.’

The first half of Traitor of Redwinter largely focused on character development and a bit of world-building. The narrative explored Raine's response to the horrors she experienced in the first book, and the impact of PTSD on her relationships. She understandably regressed as a character now that she felt the emotional weight of everything for the first time. She had nightmares and became addicted to drugs to numb herself, while also engaging in rash behavior. All of her new friendships fell apart, as she isolated herself from those she loved the most to avoid them seeing the parts of her that she considered rotten.

Grandmaster Robilar was an interesting character in the first book. McDonald gave a good teaser about her, and in this book, readers get to know more about her. I loved it. She is, of course, powerful, knowledgeable, and cunning. When reading, I did the feeling that she was so much more capable than Raine. There is definitely a reason she’s the grandmaster. Her addition to the book was great. This was an engaging and often emotionally moving book 2. McDonald covered a lot of narrative ground here on both a sweeping plot front and character arc front and has me itching to continue the tale to see where things go from here in the finale. And this is where I have to talk about Raine. She is a challenging, flawed character, one who goes the route of rash decisions and auto-destructive behavior as we follow her journey. And I understand not everyone enjoys reading that, but McDonald managed to make me invested in her story quite successfully. She's complicated, she's messy and all that fits her age without making it her singular characteristic. Her romance drama got in front of more serious things several times in the book and I caught myself shaking my head because she can't deal with it at all which is funny considering she is ready to do more dangerous things, like assassinating or using Sarathi magic. But her instincts are on point and you actually can believe what drives her to help Ulovar because author made an effort to show us that her Redwinter family are worth fighting for: her friends are great, Sanvaunt is just dreamy, Erish is lovely, Castus is the best and all I can say is that I get her. I totally get her. :)I was a bit nervous that I might not like Traitor of Redwinter as much, but I needn't have worried. I loved it. I literally could not put this book down. One of the big assets of this series is that the side characters are just as nuanced and interesting as our main character. Ulovar (who reminds me greatly of Vesemir from the Witcher) plays less of a part in this book and instead we get the quirky and interesting friends of Raine - from two heirs to Lairdoms to eager recruits. Raine is still grappling with her attractions to two different people and we get to see them take a much more prominent place in the storyline. Thanks to Netgalley and Tor for the eARC. It's a little late because I just HAD to get the audiobook. I adore the narrator. This is an honest review.

Amidst threats old and new, Raine must find her path, weaving her way between a twisted friendship, a dangerous mentor, the dark secrets of the book, and the queen with a crown of feathers to whom Raine has already promised more than she can afford to give . . . I don’t know that I’ve thought about being happy in a long while. Like it’s something that skipped away from me and got forgotten.' It’s not that it’s a bad book per se, it’s just that I didn’t get along with it at all, and for the first two thirds of the book it felt like I was wading through treacle trying to read it. I just lost all interest in it and there were more than quite a few times that I was contemplating not actually finishing the book. I only got a few moments. A glimpse of the young man’s last few breaths. He’d struggled at the end. Shouted, just one shout among many. A distinctive accent. And then there was a face, stark and porcelain white in front of his, so thin she could have lived through famine. And then she opened her mouth, and her teeth were jagged yellow points. Most of his last moments were fear, and terrible pain, but he thought of a woman before he died. Resentment that he’d not get a chance to live out his life with her. And that was it. Done. It wasn’t war. Not yet, anyway, but it was the fronting of war, the way that two drunks square up to one another outside a bar that should have closed hours ago, that moment of posturing before the blows start to fall.

Customer reviews

Had we been able to trance beyond the Second Gate we could have turned the dead flesh to stone, or liquified it with a touch. With the Third, the Gate of Taine, we could have burned them. There was nothing that Fier, the Fourth Gate of the mind, could have done to pry into their thoughts now, and they were long past the point when the Fifth Gate of healing could have helped them. That just left Skal, the Gate of Death. The Sixth Gate. And I didn’t think they needed much help in that arena. They had been dead long enough to reek, not long enough to rot. I should have felt a little more—“poor bastards” wasn’t much to offer them. I suppose I didn’t think of these folk so much as people, as people-who-had-been. Since I’d been a small child, I’d seen the souls of the dead. I’d risen from a death of my own, then another, first throttled, then drowned. But there were no ghosts here. Only the insects, billowing clouds of flies, and the silent, graveless bodies. Without a ghost, without a soul, it’s all just so much spoiled meat. Uncommonly vivid and vigorous sword and sorcery… McDonald makes familiar story and character beats come alive with imagination and energy.”— Publishers Weekly, starred review