The Ruthless (Deathless Series, book 2)

By Peter Newman

Blurb: 
THE REBEL.

For years, Vasin Sapphire has been waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike. Now, as other Deathless families come under constant assault from the monsters that roam the Wild, that time has come.

THE RUTHLESS.
In the floating castle of Rochant Sapphire, loyal subjects await the ceremony to return their rule to his rightful place. But the child raised to give up his body to Lord Rochant is no ordinary servant. Strange ad savage, he will stop at nothing to escape his gilded prison.

AND THE RETURNED...
Far below, another child yearns to see the human world. Raised by a creature of the Wild, he knows its secrets better than any other. As he enters into the struggle between the Deathless houses, he may be the key to protecting their power or destroying it completely.

THE WILD HAS BEGUN TO RISE.

Review: 
This is the second book of the Deathless series. A series I thought was a duology but with the way the book ended it must be a trilogy. There is just nothing out there about the third book.

I will start this review by saying I liked this book better but I still feel like the series is being forcefully stretched and if done right, it could have been 2 books. I did find it better though and I’m hoping the final book also gets better. 

The begins with Pari’s rebirth. So a lot of time has moved on, about 17 years or so. This means Sa-at and Satyendra are now 17 years old, so I don’t hate their perspectives anymore. It makes sense for them to have one now. The spit Satyendra means the two are very different. Satyendra is living in the castle preparing to be Rochant’s vessel but he has a secret dark side. Whereas, Sa-at is living in the Wild and is very friendly. I like these characters.

Sticking with positives, I was glad to see more action in this book. Actual fighting took place, from fighting demons to fighting other deathless. 

Now for a negative. I’m not sure if I’ve overlooked stuff in the first book but I barely have any idea of what the characters look like. They rarely get described and I like having a full understanding on what the characters look like so I can visualise the book better. So this really disappoints me. 

Overall, like I said at the beginning I did like this book better than the first. However not by much. I decided this one is worth 3 stars because I just can’t seem to connect with the series and really get into it. There’s definitely scenes I’ve enjoyed which I’ll discuss below but the overall plot has potential to be good but for some reason it isn’t to me.

*SPOILERS*

A storyline I really liked and wished there was more of was Sa-at trying to save Rochant. Sa-at is unaware at the beginning that he is the actual vessel for Rochant, whereas it suggests Rochant knows all along and sort of reveals it at the end. I enjoyed seeing Rochant give Sa-at valuable lessons and telling stories. We didn’t see much of Rochant in the last book, just knew that he did something bad. But now we understand why he did the things he did and it’s made me appreciate his character.

Satyendra is the clear villain in this book. He portrays this smart thinking character who’d only aim is to live as he doesn’t want to die so Rochant can take his body. So you can see why he might be a bit mad. 

Satyendra tries to escape but because of his dark thoughts his urges take over and he attempts to kill Pik (a boy he doesn’t like). He ends up getting caught by his mother and she sends him to the rebirth chamber. However, since they’re unaware that Rochant is still alive the rebirth fails. Satyendra pretends to be Rochant. I enjoyed this part too.

We discover though that Satyendra isn’t as strong as he looks. He cries like a little baby when Vasin gets his hands on him, as he failed to fool all of the deathless. Vasin uses his pretending in order to become High Lord. 

A scene I didn’t enjoy was the joint suicie of Varg and Chandni. Chandni is told by Satyendra (while he is pretending to be Rochant) to sacrifice herself in the wild for her crimes committed. Varg finds out and knows he has no chance of persuading Chandni to not do it, so instead does it with her. To make matters worse, her real son Sa-at was there and saw it unaware of who she was. But he knew inside that he knew her. I think because of Chandni’s character development, it would make more sense for her to runaway with Varg instead. I’m normally a fan of main character deaths but I don’t like this one.

Overall, I’m glad I continued reading as the second book was better but this series is definitely not one of my favourites. I will continue to read it through, when we eventually hear about the third book. I refuse to accept this is a duology is the ending was so incomplete.

Rating: 3 runes out of 5

written by Lauren