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Title: Sasha
Series: A Trial of Blood and Steel
Author: Joel Shepherd
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: SFF
Pages: 426
Format: Kindle digital edition
| Synopsis: |
Sasha is a princess. A princess who gave up her family rights to become the apprentice of the greatest swordsman and tactician of the country. Now her country is being torn apart by politics and religion and Sasha must decide what course to take.
Seeing ancient accords broken, Sasha must defy her family and the most powerful houses of the nation but in doing so she will unleash civil war and tear apart what she is trying to preserve. But when your own brother is trying to kill you to further his own power, does national unity matter?
| My Thoughts: |
I was expecting something a bit more from Shepherd. After reading his Drysine Legacy series I was prepared for full frontal fantasy awesomeness.
What I got was a spoiled woman, a self-centered and self-absorbed king/father, siblings who were friends, enemies and allies, sometimes all at the same time. Political powers that were willing to kill off their own heirs, religious leaders willing to lend credence to any act if it furthered their power. In fact, everything in this book seemed to be about power. It wasn’t that pleasant really. The only good thing was the big battle at the end.
I’ll be trying the next book but if it flows in the same vein as this one, I won’t be going farther. It is just odd because I liked his scifi series SO much. Oh well, you can’t win them all.
Bookstooge's Reviews on the Road 
There are indeed authors that are comfortable with any genre they choose to write in, and there are some whose “voice” is stronger in one genre only. This seems to be the case – pity indeed, since the premise sounds intriguing…
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I suspect it had as much to do with my likes and dislikes as anything though. He’s got an SF series with a main female protagonist so once I try that out I’ll see if it is the male/female thing or really a F/SF thing.
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After all we can’t ignore our own preferences – they are what makes us…us 🙂 And there are some buttons that, when pushed, can only lead in one direction…
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I’ve really enjoyed the first two Spiral Wars books as well. I’m waiting for the third one to come out as an audiobook.
I’ll probably wait to see what you have to see about the second one in this series before taking a look at it.
I’ve stayed away from his Kresnov books for now because of some things I read in Audible reviews. If you like the first one, I’ll probably give it a try.
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Depending on how the next Blood and Steel book goes, I’ll either continue with the series, or sack it and add a couple of the Kresnov books to my rotation. Either way, it’ll be close to the middle or end of January before I come around to this again.
This is why I write reviews. So I can remember 🙂
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I think the worst book letdown is when you try another series by a favorite author and it sucks beyond belief. I mean, if series A is completely awesome, how come series B is so terrible? Unacceptable #BookPeeves
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It is really weird, isn’t it?
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