Glass Sword – Victoria Aveyard

Release date: 9 February 2016
Rating: ★★★★★★★★★ – 9/10
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Glass Sword (Red Queen #2) blurb:

Mare Barrow’s blood is red—the color of common folk—but her Silver ability, the power to control lightning, has turned her into a weapon that the royal court tries to control.

The crown calls her an impossibility, a fake, but as she makes her escape from Maven, the prince—the friend—who betrayed her, Mare uncovers something startling: she is not the only one of her kind.

Pursued by Maven, now a vindictive king, Mare sets out to find and recruit other Red-and-Silver fighters to join in the struggle against her oppressors. But Mare finds herself on a deadly path, at risk of becoming exactly the kind of monster she is trying to defeat.

Will she shatter under the weight of the lives that are the cost of rebellion? Or have treachery and betrayal hardened her forever?

The electrifying next installment in the Red Queen series escalates the struggle between the growing rebel army and the blood-segregated world they’ve always known—and pits Mare against the darkness that has grown in her soul.

Wow.  I was not expecting that ending.  Again with the twists! I generally rate a book based on the number of emotions it can pull me through, but this book made me laugh, smile, hope, worry, hate and cry.  Full gamut of emotions.

So, Glass Sword starts off literally minutes after Red Queen finishes. The story is strong, smooth, without any holes in the plot or strange niggles as you read.  The plot continues to twist and turn at every corner, and sometimes I loathe the road it takes you, but occasionally I love it.  I have one prediction for book 3 (maybe 4), but I will keep it to myself for now…

The characters deepen further as well.  Maven is crueller, outsmarting both Mare and Cal at times. Cal is harsh and sometimes unkind, but gentle – a loyal soldier with morals and a heart who is betrayed and abused.  They are both so similar, but so far apart as well.

Mare. What can you say about the lightning girl? She is broken, callous, defensive, righteous, hard. A monster born from the hatred of the Silvers and the fear of the Reds.  But she is strong too, and she just keeps fighting when other won’t and don’t.

You get more of an insight into the others as well. Kilorn becomes another suiter to take the place of Maven. The new love triangle is very similar to that of Katniss (Mare), Gale (Kilorn) and Peeta (Cal), as Cal understood what it was like in the Silver world, to be with abilities and power. Kilorn just can’t understand, and wears his hurt and rejection on his sleeve, using it against Mare when it suits him.

Shade and Farley introduce another dynamic to the small group (prediction!!), and the addition of Cameron, Ada, Nanny, Nix, Gareth, Ketha and Harrick (amongst others) is welcome as the number of newbloods continues to rise – filling the gap of the Silvers who filled book one.

As I mentioned earlier, the book showed dark twists as well, and not everyone made it out alive. I can see why their characters were sacrificed, but as all book-lovers know, the sacrifice is not without sorrow and anguish (still not over Sirius, Hedwig, Dobby and Fred).

I did find myself comparing this more to the Hunger Games than I did the first novel. Red Queen was mostly a passing comment, able to be looked over – this felt more than that, although I did not enjoy it any less.

In regards to this story, I don’t know that there is much more I can say without giving away spoilers, and I am loathe to do that (this has more spoilers than the Red Queen review, but you shouldn’t be reading the review for book two if you haven’t read book one!).

Aveyard is a strong writer. Her plot twists, as I have mentioned, are not so easy to see in the distance, and I would be supremely impressed if anyone had guessed how that ending would have happened.

Overall, colour me impressed – and again, I look forward to the next one.