Review: Traitor’s Moon by Lynn Flewelling

by Chriss Cornish published: January 2, 2008 No Comments

This Book Is About

Master spies Seregil and Alec are no strangers to peril, nightrunning for wizards and nobles. Wounded heroes of a cataclysmic battle, the two have spent the past two years in self-imposed exile, far from their adopted homeland, Skala. But as the war rages on, their time of peace is shattered by a desperate summons from Queen Idrilain, asking them to aid her daughter on a mission to Aurënen, the very homeland from which Seregil was exiled in his youth.

Here, in this fabled realm of magic and honor, he must at last confront the demons of his dark past, even as Alec discovers an unimagined heritage. And caught between Skala’s desperate need and the ancient intrigues of the Aurënfaie, they soon find themselves snared in a growing web of treachery and betrayal.

My Thoughts On This Book

Traitor’s Moon is one of my favorite books. It’s one of those ‘page-turners’ you seriously can’t put down. I first read it in college and it was so engrossing I actually consciously decided to finish the book instead of studying for one of my finals (relax, I passed).

If you’re tired of the save-the-magic-kingdom and a-young-boy-finds-his-destiny-in-a-magical-land-threatened-by-evil plots that dominate the fantasy genre, you’ll find this story refreshingly different. This book, and the others in the Nightrunner series, is a dark fantasy with political intrigue, a military war, clashing cultures, rich setting, engaging writing, good plot development, multi-level story, and enjoyable characters (even the people you can’t stand you still enjoy ‘watching’). Flewelling really did an excellent job world building.

Traitor’s Moon is the third book and finishes the three-book storyline that opens the series. I think this third book is the best, though I haven’t read the two newest yet. Probably because of my Cultural Anthropology background; this novel really lays out the world’s various culture’s the most. It’s the first book I read in the Nightrunner series (yeah, I tend to start in the middle when I read a series. it’s weird, I know). I enjoyed Traitor’s Moon so much I bought the first book and turned my roommate onto the author.

This is one of those books that grabs you from chapter one, the kind that are so good you can’t say much about them because they speak for themselves.