Title: The Mortal Tally
Author: Sam Sykes
Date Finished: 11/19/2017
Notes/Opinion:
This is the sequel to The City Stained Red by Sam Sykes and the second in the Bring Down Heaven Trilogy. The City Stained Red was a relatively fun book to read. The characters were interesting and it had a good amount of action that kept it from being bogged down with the characters’ drama. The Mortal Tally takes a much darker and serious tone from its prequel. The characters are dealing with the consequences from the first book. Lenk is on the run/on a quest to prevent Koth-Kapira from rising again. Kataria is traveling with him but trying to figure out her feelings toward him and another shict named Kwar. Asper somehow became the leader of the middle group which is trying to bring peace back to Cier’Djaal and prevent as many deaths as possible while doing so. And while trying to ignore the demon in her arm who has pretty good ideas (mainly “let me eat them”) about how to deal with the warring factions. Dreadaeleon has been captured by the wizards and is let out on parole due to Asper’s intervention. His parole officer is a dog made out of wizard dicks, so that’s interesting. Denaos is back with the Jackals and trying to keep them in power/ from getting slaughtered. Gariath ran out into the desert and meets a town of tulwar and inspires them to go to war.
I did not like this book as much as City Stained Red mostly because a lot of the focus was on Lenk and his journey. I hate Lenk. I loathe him with my entire being because he is a needy idiot. Half of Lenk’s journey is him pining over Kataria because she wants some space to figure out her feelings and her place in life. I also hate love triangles because they usually end up so poorly written (a la teenage supernatural romance novels) though this one wasn’t so bad and I fully attribute that to Sam’s writing.
I did enjoy learning more about Koth-Kapira and what exactly he did to get thrown into hell (totally deserved it). Oeroboros was a fun character who I wish had more screen time. Asper is still my favorite character in the series with Denaos close behind. (And Denaos had better be alive in the next book or I am going to hunt Sam down and kill him with a rusty spoon.)
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