jacey | Booklog 3/2023: Sebastien de Castell: Knights' Shadow - Greatcoats #2

This is a re-read because I got it on special offer on Audible. It’s the second in the series, but since I’ve read all four books previously, I was able to pick up the story quickly. Falcio Valmond, along with his two Greatcoat friends, Kest (now Saint of Swords) and Brasti, a brilliant archer, are working to put Aline on the throne. She’s the late king’s bastard daughter and only thirteen, but our three main characters, plus ‘The Tailor’ who is both the late king’s mother and the woman who makes the actual great coats themselves are all working together, or are they? Falcio is dying from a poison administered in the last book, but it’s slow and he hopes he can keep going for long enough to succeed in their efforts… And then someone starts killing the powerful Dukes and their families. Much as he hates the dukes and their bully-boy knights, Falcio knows they are essential if the balance of power is going to remain. Getting deeper and deeper into a web of trouble with unblooded Dashini assassins, culminating is a stand off against the ducal knights. This is a complex, multi-layered book, especially standing as it does as the second in a four-book sequence telling one story. I recommend the whole sequence. Joe Jameson does a great job of reading, especially differentiating the voices.