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A review by writings_of_a_reader
Broken Veil by Jeff Wheeler
4.0
Rescued from a world of poverty, Cettie Pratt has avoided a bleak destiny—until now. Deceived and manipulated, she has been groomed for the ultimate betrayal: to destroy her best friend and stop peace from uniting two war-torn worlds. Her path leads her to a mysterious underworld where appearances can be deceiving.
Sera Fitzempress knows the value she has to her enemies. As heir to the empire, she must keep her foes at bay and prevent them from unleashing a being of unspeakable evil upon the world while fighting a brutal war. But her enemies are more cunning than Sera expects, and the key to their plans is none other than her best friend.
Neither woman knows what to believe. Neither one knows if she can trust the other. Both Cettie and Sera have made decisions that have irrevocably changed them. But the decisions they have yet to make will determine the fate of their world…
I really enjoyed reading this series. I'm not going to write reviews for each book because I read them one right after the other and the lines of where one stopped and the next began have become rather fuzzy in my mind. I also feel like I would just be repeating myself a lot. If you read my review of the first book in the series, Storm Glass, then you know I was fairly new to Jeff Wheeler's books, having only previously read The King's Poisoner. Little did I know at the time how much I would be pulled into both series, plus the Muirwood series, or how interconnected they all were. For the most part, it's been a fun ride, with some minor gripes on my part, especially concerning Muirwood. I still think after finishing this series that the author laid the religious aspects on too thick. It got slightly annoying to me in this series, but not nearly as bad as Muirwood.
There were some heartbreaking things that happened in this series, and also some really great things. Book 4, Prism Cloud was particularly heartbreaking and a bit of a downer compared to the other books. I knew things would somehow end up being set straight in this one, and I'm mostly happy with the way things ended. I was also pleasantly surprised that a couple of my favorite characters from Kingfountain appear in this book.
It's funny how initially I liked reading about Cettie more than Sera, but by the end of the series it had switched. I still liked Cettie as well, but I think with the path she went down for a while, her chapters got a little depressing compared to Sera's. I think the way the author handled the choices Cettie made was really well done. While I was disappointed in the way her story ended up going for a while, it also felt necessary, and gave some insight into the other side of things. I did feel like the bad guys were a little bit over the top a few times though, but that may have had a lot to do with the way the narrator was narrating those parts.
One thing I really enjoyed about this series is the world building. The floating estates, the air ships, the gates to the other world...it had a bit of a steampunkish feeling to it. It's my second favorite series that Wheeler has written, right behind Kingfountain, which had a more medieval/Authurian feel to it. The Legends of Muirwood would be a distant third in my opinion. It felt rather bland compared to the other two, and then there were my other complaints that I won't rehash here.
Now that I've read these books and the other series as well I would recommend to anyone wanting to read Wheeler's books, to start with either The Legends of Muirwood or the first three Kingfountain books and switch over to Legends of Muirwood before reading the last three Kingfountain books. I'm saying that as a person who didn't like Legends of Muirwood very much, and I think if I had started there I wouldn't have continued to any of the other series. Anyway here is how I would recommend reading them:
Kingfountain books 1-3
Legends of Muirwood trilogy
Kingfountain books 4-6
Covenant of Muirwood trilogy
Harbinger series
Although I haven't read it yet, I'm placing Covenant of Muirwood in there ahead of Harbinger, because things in that trilogy take place before Harbinger, and there are people and events referenced in the Harbinger series that take place in that series. Had I known, I probably would have read it first.
Review also posted at Writings of a Reader.
Sera Fitzempress knows the value she has to her enemies. As heir to the empire, she must keep her foes at bay and prevent them from unleashing a being of unspeakable evil upon the world while fighting a brutal war. But her enemies are more cunning than Sera expects, and the key to their plans is none other than her best friend.
Neither woman knows what to believe. Neither one knows if she can trust the other. Both Cettie and Sera have made decisions that have irrevocably changed them. But the decisions they have yet to make will determine the fate of their world…
I really enjoyed reading this series. I'm not going to write reviews for each book because I read them one right after the other and the lines of where one stopped and the next began have become rather fuzzy in my mind. I also feel like I would just be repeating myself a lot. If you read my review of the first book in the series, Storm Glass, then you know I was fairly new to Jeff Wheeler's books, having only previously read The King's Poisoner. Little did I know at the time how much I would be pulled into both series, plus the Muirwood series, or how interconnected they all were. For the most part, it's been a fun ride, with some minor gripes on my part, especially concerning Muirwood. I still think after finishing this series that the author laid the religious aspects on too thick. It got slightly annoying to me in this series, but not nearly as bad as Muirwood.
There were some heartbreaking things that happened in this series, and also some really great things. Book 4, Prism Cloud was particularly heartbreaking and a bit of a downer compared to the other books. I knew things would somehow end up being set straight in this one, and I'm mostly happy with the way things ended. I was also pleasantly surprised that a couple of my favorite characters from Kingfountain appear in this book.
It's funny how initially I liked reading about Cettie more than Sera, but by the end of the series it had switched. I still liked Cettie as well, but I think with the path she went down for a while, her chapters got a little depressing compared to Sera's. I think the way the author handled the choices Cettie made was really well done. While I was disappointed in the way her story ended up going for a while, it also felt necessary, and gave some insight into the other side of things. I did feel like the bad guys were a little bit over the top a few times though, but that may have had a lot to do with the way the narrator was narrating those parts.
One thing I really enjoyed about this series is the world building. The floating estates, the air ships, the gates to the other world...it had a bit of a steampunkish feeling to it. It's my second favorite series that Wheeler has written, right behind Kingfountain, which had a more medieval/Authurian feel to it. The Legends of Muirwood would be a distant third in my opinion. It felt rather bland compared to the other two, and then there were my other complaints that I won't rehash here.
Now that I've read these books and the other series as well I would recommend to anyone wanting to read Wheeler's books, to start with either The Legends of Muirwood or the first three Kingfountain books and switch over to Legends of Muirwood before reading the last three Kingfountain books. I'm saying that as a person who didn't like Legends of Muirwood very much, and I think if I had started there I wouldn't have continued to any of the other series. Anyway here is how I would recommend reading them:
Kingfountain books 1-3
Legends of Muirwood trilogy
Kingfountain books 4-6
Covenant of Muirwood trilogy
Harbinger series
Although I haven't read it yet, I'm placing Covenant of Muirwood in there ahead of Harbinger, because things in that trilogy take place before Harbinger, and there are people and events referenced in the Harbinger series that take place in that series. Had I known, I probably would have read it first.
Review also posted at Writings of a Reader.