Dark Moon Defender
17. Sharon Shinn, Dark Moon Defender
This third installment of the Twelve Houses series focuses on Justin, the hotheaded King's Rider who values his skill with a sword above everything else. As civil war looms in Gillengaria, the king sends Justin on a reconnaisance mission to Neft, a town right beside the treacherous Lumanen convent. There Justin will gather all the information he can on troop movements, guests who come and go, and other strategically valuable information. Justin has little patience for an assignment that will leave him with nothing active to do, and he is unhappy to be separated from his friends. But when he meets Ellynor, a novice from the convent who has strange powers, he slowly becomes more reconciled to his location. The two soon fall deeply in love, but Ellynor's dangerous situation at the convent - as well as a big secret about her family - may keep them apart.
I was excited to get to this book, because Justin is my favorite character in the series. He's gruff and stubborn and macho on the outside, but he has a hidden streak of kindness and vulnerability which Ellynor brings out. So I was a bit disappointed to find that Justin doesn't quite get his fair share of attention, in my opinion. The book spends a lot of time following Senneth, Tayse, and other characters from previous books in the series; while I enjoyed reading about their adventures too, I felt that Justin and Ellynor's story suffered as a result. For one thing, they seem to fall in love too quickly, and I felt that there was a lot of "telling" rather than "showing." Also, the writing is not first-rate, and it had me cringing in a few places. Nevertheless, I like the world of this series and have become invested in the characters, so I still enjoyed the novel. Maybe I'll get to the fourth (and final?) book later this year.