The Blight of Muirwood Review

Title: The Blight of Muirwood
Author: Jeff Wheeler
Date Purchased: 3/7/2015
Price Paid: $1.99
Date Finished: 2/5/2021
Rating: 3/5

There’s always a good deal of pressure on the second work of a trilogy, especially if the first was of a decent quality. Not only are there (usually) plot lines to carry forth with, but many of the characters we’ve gotten to know return for a second appearance.

If you read my review, you can see that I enjoyed The Wretched of Muirwood. I was pretty excited to dive into the second book to see if the quality held up and if the things I enjoyed carried forward, and maybe expanded, in this offering.

So did this happen? Well, it was a mixed bag and I will list things off …and I guess I should give a spoiler warning here, because some of these plot points are large in the context of the story.

First, a couple of the “meh” things.

We get introduced to some new characters, but a lot of them are window dressing. Most of them are relatively flat, and the ones that have some depth still act in entirely predictable ways. I wouldn’t have a problem with this if they were minor characters, but a couple of them are driving much of the story so they should be a little more developed.

Another mildly annoying thing was the growth of the world…at least the world that’s shown to the reader. Not that I expect every fantasy novel to come with a map in the front cover……but…..well, I guess I expect a map if you’re going to drag me through a bunch of different areas. It just helps provided reference.

Minor quibbles for the most part, so we’ll move onto the good stuff.

Lia’s character develops in really interesting ways. At the start of the book she’s training to become a hunter for the abbey, and thriving in her new role. Then, as things continue to progress, she takes the test to become a maston, which creates an entirely different dynamic between her and some of the other characters.

While neither of these were surprising developments, or even ones that change her character a ton, they added some extra layers. Now, you could make the argument that this came close to making Lia a “Mary Sue”, and you wouldn’t be wrong. But I’ve seen much worse in some books, so it didn’t bother me a ton.

We also learn a pretty huge secret about Lia’s origin story right at the end of the book. I’m not going to get too involved with the full details of this, but it was a fairly decent plot twist. And I like a good plot twist.

Let’s move on to the things I could have done without.

Throughout the first half of the book, Lia pines after Colvin. This one really pissed me off. She was a very strong, independent character in the first book, and this was about as close as you come to a 180° change. Chapter after chapter was devoted to her consumed with thinking about Colvin.

Finally, let’s talk about the Medium. I still enjoy the system, but it is very clear that this is more religion than magic. I did a little digging and learned that Wheeler is a member of LDS church, and there are MANY parallels between the Medium in the book and Mormon beliefs. While this doesn’t bother me as much in this book, the third book has been a bit…too much in some ways.

But that’s another review for another day.

Final Thoughts: Not as enjoyable as the first book, but still decent.