An Unexpected, Yet Wonderfully Heartbreaking, Sequel - A Review of City of Blades

City of Blades by Robert Jackson Bennett

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


In the normal course of things, I go into a book knowing whether or not it is part of a series. It’s rather like ensuring I know what I get into before I embark on a relationship (platonic or otherwise): I am, after all, about to invest a significant amount of time and emotion into something, and I want to make sure the investment is worth the trouble. And most of the time, this works: I know whether or not a book is part of a series, and I can prepare myself to either drop the whole thing if the first book does not satisfy me, or commit to the long haul if it does.

However, this does not always work. Sometimes a book will start out as a standalone, and then I find out later that the author, for some reason, has decided to expand it into a series. Decisions like these tend to unnerve me, especially if the original work ends tidily enough. I ask myself: how else is the author going to expand this story? What other threads were left untied? How could the author possibly improve on perfection?

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