The Shadow Casket (again)

Last year, I picked up the first book of the Darkwater Saga by Chris Wooding and enjoyed it to the point that I finished the sizable book in about two weeks. And while I had enjoyed it, I didn't think the world of it as it, like a lot of dark fantasy nowadays focuses too heavily on court politics and the erasure of magic and things that well, kind of take the fantasy out of the fantasy genre.

But despite my grievances, I still picked up the second book in Kindle form for my birthday on deep discount for $2. Since my goal this year was to read fewer books after the huge surge of reading I had last year, I wanted my focus to be on fewer, but longer books in general. Short by my personal standards is 300 pages or less. The longer end is 600 and up.  The Shadow Casket is on the upper end of the ladder threshold at 800-something pages.

Now at just over more than halfway done, my thoughts on the book are: I am so very glad I picked this up! The fantasy elements, which had for so long been considered folklore are now returning to the land. The antagonistic country are dabbling with sorcery, human experimentation that has resulted in demonic abominations. The veil between their world and abyss is thinning, allowing Lovecraftian horrors to bleed into Ossia. Politics are falling apart as the word of what the Krodans are doing begins to tickle the ears of the lords across the land.

But my favorite side story so far has been the romance between Arin and Fen, which has ticked off neatly every box on what I like in a good budding romance story. And absolute shocker left hook they threw in the chapter I read just now was very surprising.