March of the Witch Hunters from Wicked

Wolf's Head, Wolf's Heart
Firekeeper Saga, Book 2

Author: Jane Lindskold
Pages: 754
Publisher: TOR

Brief Summary:
With Bright Bay and Hawk Haven now allies, the danger lies in external forces, namely Queen Valora's Isles and New Kelvin. Queen Valora stole three magical relics from Bright Bay's coffers when she left, sending them with Waln Endbrook, who is to take Malina to New Kelvin where she will unravel the secrets of these items. Firekeeper's mission, revealed after an arduous trek followin a summons by the Royal Beasts, is to find these items and bring them back, as the Royal Beasts fear their magic.

Review:
Like the first in the series, Wolf's Head, Wolf's Heart is pretty well-written and has some really neat worldbuilding. Nonetheless, I did not love it, nor did I hate it. They fall in the realm of just above meh. For one thing, they could be shorter; there are some repetitions, often in relation to Firekeeper and Blind Seer, which I could do without.

The larger problem though is what I pointed out in my review of the first: action is minimal and so is romance. Pretty much all of the drama is political. That's done well, but just does not enthrall me. If some more of the others were woven within it, then perhaps I would find this series as delightful as I had hoped.

The characters, too, have yet to grow on me. They are consistent across the first two books, which is almost unfortunate, since none of them do I love. I like a couple okay, but I'm certainly not invested in their fates.

The meeting of the Royal Beasts was pretty laughable, so I have to mention it. This tribunal was supposed to be monumental and somber, but the way the animals interacted was absurd. To prevent one character monologuing for pages, she had them trade off telling the story in an awkward, arbitrary manner, reminding me of nothing so much as passing reading stories aloud in an elementary school classroom.

Since I have five of the six books in the series, I will be slogging forward, and I do have some hopes of improvement, but they are definitively not high hopes. If you like political machinations and epic fantasy, this is for you!

"Wickedness must be punished
Evil effectively eliminated
Wickedness must be punished
Kill the Witch!"