Of Darkness and Light (The Bound and The Broken Book 2)

What a ride! After the end of book 1, I was kind of on the fence about diving into book 2, but man am I glad I did.The story was pretty fast paced especially starting around 40% of the book. What I particularly enjoyed with the world Ryan Cahill created is that while the world building is intricate and extensive, it's not overly complex, which makes it easy to read and accessible for a vast majority of readers. If ever I read a few pages while tired, I didn't have to backtrack to analyze and understand the story structure, which made for a smooth read. The politics, on the other hand, were wonderfully layered. Also the story itself while broad was pretty straight forward. You don't have to mind the twists, turns, and complications that you'll find in books such as Malazan Book of the Fallen or The Licanius Trilogy. It made this 800 page beaut go by effortlessly. Honestly, I had a little bit of a book hangover after this one, and if my TBR wasn't planned out, I would have picked up the montrosity that is the size of book 3 up right away.I do feel like the characters were better written in this book than book 1, more defined, more realistic, more depth. Women also took up secondary roles, compared to book 1, and weren't labeled solely as beautiful. The plot was interesting and far-reaching, though I will say I felt it to be a tad predictable at times such as with Rist's arc and Arden's. I, of course, had my preferences with the pov characters (my least favorites being Rist and Dayne). The only sour note that I felt while reading was with the confusion I felt everytime the pov switched between one of the 4 characters with names starting with Da-. That drove me a little nuts for the first page of each of those chapters until I remembered which Da- name was in which situation.

I think I enjoyed this one even more than the first one and am eager to continue reading the next book. I enjoyed all the POVs.

Enjoyable read. The characters are well developed without overkill. The action is fast paced and keeps you on edge. Definitely recommend.

5/5 for Book 2! This one was amazing and I enjoyed it so much more than book 1. So much happened in this book and it felt like something was happening constantly.This book starts immediately with a fast paced action scene with the defense of Belduar. Calen is bringing hope of a free empire everywhere he goes, but this also means war/fights everywhere he goes.This book changes point of view between more characters than the last book. In this one some of the point of views include: Calen, Dann, Dahlen, Rist, Kallinvar, Ella, Dayne and many others. While there are a ton of point of views, I enjoyed every single one. There was never a time where I was bored with someone’s story, each one was interesting, engaging and vital to the overall world. The character development is spot on, the interactions between characters are never boring or awkward and each character is unique in their actions and thoughts. Cahill does an amazing job with all the characters in this story. You even get some point of views from the Empire enemies and even that is done perfectly.I am so glad these books appear to be getting longer with each installment as I am loving this world and the characters. Pretty much every fantasy element you love, it will be there. For some reason as I read this series, I strangely got readdicted to playing Skyrim as well.. and this series has a lot of similarities to the feeling of Skyrim except for the whole killing dragons part.Calen and Valerys are amazing in this book. I love the dragon and dragonrider interactions and bonds. I cannot think of another story that has grasped so well the bond between Calen and Valerys. Even Valerys dragon scales will form to shape Calen as a rider so he will never fall off.It is hard to talk about all the areas of this book I loved in a review since so much happened in this book. You have so many action scenes, planning and plotting, and traveling throughout the land. The movement of the book is nonstop. The world is complex in its types of characters and the good/bad characters. There are elves, mages, dwarves, druids, shapeshifters, dragons, wyverns, giants and the amazing Knights of Achyron. Then for the enemy you have the Uraks, Fades and blood shamans. Both sides appear to be fighting the Urak, as they are a universally bad character.This book flowed so well and I absolutely loved it. I cannot wait to see where this series goes and I am already picking up the novella “The Exile.” If you haven’t already, put this series on your TBR!

This second book was full of additional world building and reveals a few character progressions hinted at in book 1. I can't wait for book 3 to learn more. Loving the series!

Such an amazing story. Wording building, magic systems and character development is up there with the best I have read. By the end of this book you are craving more! Cant wait to continue with the next novella and book 3!

I’ll be honest and say that I didn’t enjoy the first novel in the series, Of Fire and Blood. I thought it was rather derivative and I could tell exactly where it was heading before it got here. I only picked this up because of the effusive praise given to it by the likes of Petrik Leo and others.High praise and well earned. If the rest of the series continues to improve as this has over the first book the we ire is going to be a powerhouse.

I'm 47 and I've read a lot of fantasy books in my lifetime... well the Bound and the Broken is at the time of this writing a sure top 3 on my reading experience.It's epic fantasy at it's best. It's a mashup of all that's good in the genre by a talented author that clearly is putting his heart in these books. A love song to the genre.I laughed out loud, been moved to tears and often I smiled at the quotes dropped here and there like little Easter eggs for fantasy lovers.In a month I've read all the books + the novellas.. I don't know how it will develop in the next books, but so far the series has been excellent.I'm in love with the characters. Not only the main characters, but also the minor ones are well developed and deep. The novellas are a brilliant idea to add even further details.Worldbuilding is excellent. It's so good that I hope Rayan could use it again in the future.Magic system is solid and combat scenes are vivid and detailed with the right dose of grim and grit for an epic fantasy novel.What I'm really enjoying sofar is that it's not a "black and white" story but it's full of different shades of gray. Who is a hero for someone is the villain for others. You can never truly judge the actions of the characters as completely good or bad. There is always a lot of context to consider and this adds depth both to characters and to the story-line.There are, in my opinion, a few small flaws here and there. I found some parts redundant at times, especially in Of War and Ruin. But are very few parts of the story that could just be edited better or shortened a little bit.At the end of "Of War and Ruin", I asked myself: "Is Sanderson's Stormilght better than this?".Well, IMHO, it's not an easy answer... Yes, sofar, for me, the Bound and the Broken has been THAT good.

I loved the first book and this one knocks it out of the park in comparison. Many more POV chapters from varied characters and new plots introduced in different parts of the continent.

I read the book in the space of 3 days. Compared to the first book, this has a much darker tone to it and we get to learn a lot more about the different character including some great developement.You still don't know who the real evil is and that is a good thing.Really looking forward to part 3