Note:
The title of this book has been translated into English by me for the
reading comprehension of this blog's viewers as the book itself isn't
available in English (yet). The original title reads Oerbloed #2: De schaduwsluiper.
Book two is finally out! Spoilers ahead!
Obbe and Darja get separated while trying to keep the Seventh Book safe. Darja reunites with the forces of Prince Jurriaan and Big Moktar, while Obbe is captured by the queen's Swordsisters and forced to solve the Book's riddles, or else. Time is now running out as Obbe's death penalty is looming and the Book seemingly doesn't want to be solved.
I already liked the first book, and I think this second one is just as good. It's got a lot of good elements in it and I had a blast reading it.
The story consistently kept me engaged and I really appreciate how we kept jumping POVs between Darja and Obbe to show both sides of the story well. Both of their arcs in this story also make sense and they're overall well-written.
The characters in general really shine here. I love Obbe and Darja as protagonists, they both feel unique and rounded. Obbe is also really clever and I just like it when we get a really smart protagonist once every while. Darja meanwhile goes through her own arc of learning to become a Shadowsneaker and embracing her feelings for Obbe after she thinks he doesn't love her anymore. Big Moktar and the other characters were also pretty darn great.
The main villain, Bar Melo Bar, I think was handled rather well. When he first shows up in this book you kinda just don't know what he's all about. He's the advisor of the queen, but also seems to be somewhat on Obbe's side (at least, at first). But then throughout the story there slowly start to be hints that he's not all he's cracked up to be until the big reveal he's been poisoning the queen and is actually our main villain of the story. It was a good reveal and was built up rather well.
There is one point in the story where I was worried I wasn't gonna like how they handled the relationship between Darja and Obbe (when Darja thinks Obbe betrayed her by dating Rafenna), but thankfully this is over and resolved really quick. I was afraid it was gonna be some stupid forced misunderstanding and breaking up plot point, but thankfully this was well done.
If I do have a criticism, I think that the characters on the side of good were pretty stupid to allow Rafenna to guard Bar Melo Bar after his initial defeat. Like sure, it makes sense to punish Rafenna and demoting her being a prison guard isn't even a bad idea, but to have her explicitly guard Bar Melo Bar, our main villain whom she has shown interest in earlier in the story, just feels a bit like a silly course of action from our heroes. No shit she's going to betray them and free his ass to help him with his evil plans to steal the Book, she's just lost everything she's ever held onto except for her admiration for Bar Melo Bar. So while I get that somehow this plot point needed to happen in order for the story to progress, the way in which it was executed just makes our heroes look a bit incompetent.
To come back to my point of the first review where I talk about how the wolfdogs Bliksa and Dondar are handled, thankfully they're a bit more prominent in this book. At least, Bliksa is. Dondar is still just kinda there but Bliksa is more prominent this time and I like how she gets to be close to Obbe for a lot of the story. They still don't have a very deep relationship like I'd liked to have seen, but they do clearly care for one another a lot so that's nice. So I think the wolfdogs were handled better in this book than in book one (where Bliksa is on the cover but she does pretty much nothing in the story and is just there to be a pet).
So yeah, neat book. I do look forward to the third (possibly last?) book whenever that drops.
Rating: 4/5
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