March Books 26) Best Served Cold, by Joe Abercrombie
Second paragraph of third chapter: He remembered sitting warm by the fire, up in the North in a good house in Uffrith, with a belly full of meat and a head full of dreams, talking to Vossula about the wondrous city of Talins. He remembered it with some bitterness, because it was that bloody merchant, with his dewy eyes and his honey tales of home, who'd talked him into this nightmare jaunt to Styria.
I rather bounced off the previous Abercrombie book that I tried, but enjoyed this much more - the tale of a mercenary who decides to take revenge on the local ruler who killed her brother and left her for dead, and gathers a motley gang of killers to implement her vengeance. There's a particularly effective chapter towards the end where it first appears that we are getting a bedroom scene told from both participants' viewpoints, but in fact they are in different bedrooms with different partners. It's still really too long, but didn't drag.
I rather bounced off the previous Abercrombie book that I tried, but enjoyed this much more - the tale of a mercenary who decides to take revenge on the local ruler who killed her brother and left her for dead, and gathers a motley gang of killers to implement her vengeance. There's a particularly effective chapter towards the end where it first appears that we are getting a bedroom scene told from both participants' viewpoints, but in fact they are in different bedrooms with different partners. It's still really too long, but didn't drag.