Into the West

 Into the West (Founding of Valdemar #2) - Mercedes Lackey

Rating: 📚📚📚

Release Date: December 13, 2022

Synopsis: Baron Valdemar and his people have found a temporary haven, but it cannot hold all of them, or for long. Trouble could follow on their heels at any moment, and there are too many people for Crescent Lake to support. Those who are willing to make a further trek by barge on into the West will follow him into a wilderness depopulated by war and scarred by the terrible magics of a thousand years ago and the Mage Wars. But the wilderness is not as empty as it seems. There are potential friends and rapacious foes....

....and someone is watching them.

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In the sequel to BEYOND, Mercedes Lackey picks up pretty much where Book 1 left off. Baron Kordas and his people have fled the Empire and are now looking for a new home where they aren't going to dispossess anyone already living there. Most of the book felt very much like a 'bridge' book, that awkward book between where things start and how things end that doesn't quite know how to keep up the pace. It is character driven, alternating between Kordas and Delia as each of them becomes used to their new lives on the move, how best to do what needs to be done in order to survive, and what their new role really is in everything. I liked seeing behind Kordas' facade: seeing his concerns and flaws and how very human he is, how unsure he is of what he's doing and how much trouble he has delegating things to others because of how much responsibility he feels. If you've read other trilogies in the Valdermar cannon you know that the myth of the first King is him being pretty much perfect, so it's good to see the human truth behind that myth. Delia was a bit more annoying for me. Her crush on Kordas felt forced, especially since he's married to her sister. But I liked seeing her growing up and coming into her own with her Gift.

The pace was really slow for about 3/4s of the book, with little side quests and plenty of repetitious speeches about who they should strive to be as a people along the way. Then, right when I didn't think I could handle anymore, BANG!, everything changed and I couldn't put the book down.

*Warning: Mild spoilers ahead*

A touch of 'deus ex machina' suddenly makes anyone familiar with the cannon reevaluate everything they've been reading when the HawkBrothers arrive with the perfect place for our refugees to live. If you haven't read the others, that's ok, you're mostly just missing 'Easter eggs'. Now things go from plodding to the more interesting how-to-turn-a-Vale-into-a-city, meeting people who use amazing amounts of magic, different sentient species, and you see how Valdemar is going to start coming together. 

I admit, I am still not a fan of Lackey's 'newer' style of writing, which uses a more relaxed writing style, more rambling and tangents, plenty of 'now's and 'well's, as if we are listening to someone talking or thinking out loud even when we aren't. But it has been her style for long enough now that I've learned to deal with it, even though I prefer her older writing style better. The basic plot is still interesting enough that I want to find out what happens and how it will happen.

I definitely recommend reading BEYOND first, as Book 1 in the series will help you get invested in the characters and their journey beforehand.

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review