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BooksScifi

Traitor’s Moon (Night Runners Series book 3) by Lynn Flewelling (book review).

‘Traitor’s Moon’ is book three in the ‘Night Runners Series’ by Lynn Flewelling.

As you will know if you read ‘Stalking Darkness’, book two in the series, we start this book missing quite a few of the main characters from the first two books. We see those that are left trying to come to terms with their loss in their various different ways. Seregil and Alec in particular have decided to spend some time away from almost all of humanity as Seregil especially feels a lot of grief and guilt for those they lost.

Unfortunately, things carry on without them to the extent that Queen Idrilain demands they return and help her by travelling to Aurenen as ambassadors to talk to the Aurenfai. Without the help of Seregil’s native people and the very people who had exiled him in his youth, the Skalans will have no hope in their on-going war against the Plenimarans.

This is our first real look at the Aurenfae and their lands and I loved reading about everything. There is so much information about their religious and social structures that I found fascinating. I loved reading all the stories, myths and legends that the Aurenfae have and how they all relate to their religious festivals or the way they punish their people.

I realise that this book has almost no action and focuses almost entirely on the Skalans and how they interacted with the Aurenfae, who very rarely step out of Aurenen. There were lots of obvious blunders and embarrassing situations on the part of both the Skalans and the Aurenfae but they were mostly glossed over. The main concern was the political intrigue between all the different clans and whether they were or were not going to help the Skalans. There’s also a good amount of good old-fashioned murder mystery as well.

I started this book fully anticipating that we would lose more familiar characters as Flewelling is not afraid to kill off characters if the need arises. I won’t tell you if my fears were well founded or not, you’ll have to read the book to find out. I will tell you that there was the addition of some fabulous magical creatures not seen in the first couple of books which I fully approve of.

Overall, again I loved this book even though nothing that much happened in terms of action. This definitely has the feel of a transitional book, just filling in lots of details that we’ll probably need in later books. It really was mostly about Seregil and his need to get back on track after the deaths of book two and also the much older hurt of being exiled.

But the way Flewelling writes and her obvious love for the characters in her books just makes this series a fantastic read even without much action. For reference, this book is technically book three in the first section of this series so it finished rather neatly, but I do encourage you to carry on with the rest of the books in the larger series.

Sarah Bruch

May 2019

(pub: Bantam Spectra, 1999. 540 page paperback. Price: $ 8.87 (US), £ 5.99 (UK). ISBN: 0-55357-725-5)

check out websites: www.bantamdell.com and www.sff.net/people/lynn.flewelling

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