First of all, I must say, I unabashedly love Robert Jackson Bennett’s writing. I have only read two other books by him (Vigilance and Foundryside), but those books were both five stars for me and they solidly placed him on my favorite authors list. Though Vigilance was definitely my favorite of the two previous books of his that I read, I also really, really loved Foundryside – the first book in the Founders trilogy. Foundryside reminded me how much I actually do like fantasy novels – a feat that no other adult fantasy novel I’ve attempted to read has been able to do since Lord of the Rings.
It has, admittedly, been a very long time since I read this sequel. I, like so much of the world, had a lot of stress happening in 2020 and gave my blog a bit of a rest. I was still reading, though, and I was fortunate to read a review copy of the Shorefall thanks to Netgalley. Given how much I loved Foundryside, I was thrilled to start the sequel early.
Unfortunately, Shorefall didn’t live up to my own expectations. That’s not at all to say that this is a bad book – far from it. It was still extremely interesting, had lots of action, and managed to surprise the heck out of me with its ending. In the end, though, it just wasn’t exactly what I was expecting and I left feeling a little let down.
I will still 10000% continue on in this series, probably reread this book before the final book in the series, and I’ll continue to pick up basically anything that Robert Jackson Bennett writes. Definitely pick up this series because it’s an amazing world and Bennett’s writing is fantastic – just maybe curb your expectations for this sequel.
Bottom line: 3/5 stars. Whomp whomp.
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