A review by wardenred
Reforged by Seth Haddon

adventurous mysterious medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.5

Don’t make promises you know you won’t keep.

I really expected to enjoy this book. I mean, a second chance royal bodyguard fantasy romance with political intrigue and magic? Sounds right up my alley! But alas, in practice... th book and I, we never really clicked. I continue to like the idea of it, but I was disappointed by the execution.

The worldbuilding is full of promise and interesting ideas, but it's hard to pull them together into a coherent picture because the author kept swinging between two extremes when delivering all those details. Either there were endless boring infodumps, or it was just, you know, pages of characters carrying on in their world without explaining anything. I vastly prefer the second approach when it's done right, but here, it just... wasn't. Like, I still have no idea what a Prime Paladin even is. Is it the King's special personal bodyguard who's supposed to be at the King's side at all times? But Balen wasn't that. Is it someone who has some sort of special authority over other Paladins? Balen wasn't that either. He often deferred to Lestr and whatever authority he sometimes displayed when interacting with his brethren seemed to come more from his personality, skills, and pre-established relationships with them.

The prose felt as uneven and swingy as the worldbuilding: too sparse sometimes, then too convoluted. The characters were rather flat. At the beginning, I was intrigued by Zavrius and by his relationship with Balen, but then for the longest time, these two were just stuck in some kind of limbo, never making any progress. I wish I knew more about their backstories, like the details of their past relationship and also just the details of their individual pasts. A few flashback chapters/scenes would have gone a long way. Oh, and while I'm on the subject of characters: there are LOTS of named characters in the book, but we only really get to know 4-5 of them, including the main duo. And with the somewhat rocky pacing, it wasn't always clear which characters meant something and would have at least some shining moments down the line and which characters were basically decorations. Come to think of it, the same issue is present with the worldbuilding: with the way it was delivered, it was often hard to tell what was meaningful and what was flavor (a lot of it was flavor), so that made it hard to keep my focus.

As for the plot, most of the stars I'm giving this book have been earned by the political intrigues and mysteries that held a lot of promise. I just, once again, wish they were executed better. And I also wish the characters made smarter choices in relation to them, or suffered harder consequences for some of the... not-so-smart things they did.
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