(2007 | 656 p)
The ruling family of Southmarch has been scattered. King Olin Eddon remains a prisoner of the traitorous Lord Protector of Hierosol while his daughter, the Princess Briony, is chased from her childhood home by the family's power hungry cousins. All the while Briony's beloved twin, Prince Barrick, follows an ill-fated compulsion that's been laid on him by a powerful Qar warrioress. As Barrick blindly and eagerly does her bidding this fierce mistress sits at the front gate of his castle home with an army of blood thirsty fairy folk, her eagerness pulled taut as a bow string. Twilight, it seems, has finally descended on the Eddons.
Shadowplay is the second book in the most recent tetralogy from Master Williams. His intense and (what I consider) highly skilled world building offers plenty of substance for even the most die-hard fantasy reader. The story is told from many perspectives in alternating chapters so that what might otherwise be an overwhelming tome is very readable. I've read Williams' Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn trilogy and his Otherland sci-fi tetralogy and can't help but notice that recognizable themes and characters are being rewoven in Shadowmarch to create a different but familiar tale. While this should seem repetitious there are enough new ideas to make the well known bits very comfortable and enjoyable. I can't wait to get my hands on book three!
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