The Gordian Knot (Schooled in Magic, #13) by Christopher Nuttall
My rating: ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ out of 5 stars
The post of Head Girl of Whitehall looks fantastic on anyone’s resume. It places the lucky winner on equal terms to the staff, granting them authority, power and responsibility that no other student can even dream of possessing. A student lucky enough to win the coveted post is destined for greatness. Everyone will want to know their name.
Naturally, Emily doesn’t want it.
But when she returns to Whitehall for her sixth and final year, she discovers that the staff has elected her to the post – and refusal isn’t an option. Worse, the Grandmaster wants her to run his pet project – a formal dueling club – even though it’s the last thing she wants to do. Reluctantly, she starts to carry out her new duties, unaware that deadly enemies are waiting in the shadows, preparing themselves to strike at her when her back is turned. Someone is spreading rumors about her, someone is sabotaging her projects, someone is weakening the ties that bind her to Whitehall …
And, as matters start to spin out of control, as the life and soul of one of her closest friends is thrown into terrifying danger, Emily must decide between carrying out her duties or walking away, knowing that either choice will cost her dearly …
… And leave her alone at the center of a deadly storm
Well, I have said before that I do prefer the books where Emily is back at Whitehall and that is exactly what I got in this book. But…I got it in the form of a soap-opera-at-Whitehall kind of story which was a bit of a bummer for me.
I am afraid that I have to agree with a number of other reviewers in that this book is quite slow and not much interesting really happens. The story slowly drags on depicting Emily’s and Frida’s misfortunes at Whitehall. Misfortunes that, not very surprisingly, are engineered by Emily’s enemies.
There is really no action, no suspense and no thrill in this installment. At least not for me. It did not take very long for me to get into a sigh-get-it-over-with-and-get-on-with-the-good-stuff mode when reading.
I am also a bit surprised that Emily despite now having much more life experience under her belt than most of her age as well as having bested three necromancers and good knows how many other beasts and vilains, still never seems to mature in any higher degree in terms of social skills or self confidence. There is a particular passage where Emily is confronted with a furious Frida and her handling of the psychological/social aspect is downright frustrating. I considered Emily smarter than that. By now she has the intelligence as well as skills to become much more of a kick-ass-chick than she is in this book.
When I am in my whining mode anyway, let’s talk about the ending. Eh, on second thought, let’s not because there is not much to say, or at least not much that I want to say. It is a cliffhanger as far as I am concerned. It also gives me very bad vibes about the next book in the series by re-introducing an old adversary that I really, Really, REALLY feel would be best left forgotten.
If this is the kind of story you like the book is great. As usual it is technically very well written. For me it was really a bit of torture getting through it though. If I should rate it only based on what I felt about the story then my rating would be quite low but given how well written it is the would be unfair. Three out of five stars is as high as I can go though.
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