Book Review: The Bitter Twins by Jen Williams

Title: The Bitter Twins (The Winnowing Flame Trilogy #2)
Author: Jen Willimas
Publisher: Headline
Release Date: 08 March 2018

Synopsis: The Ninth Rain has fallen, the Jure'lia have returned, and with Ebora a shadow of its former self, the old enemy are closer to conquering Sarn than ever.

Tormalin the Oathless and the Fell-Witch Noon have their hands full dealing with the first war-beasts to be born in Ebora for nearly three hundred years. But these are not the great mythological warriors of old; hatched too early and with no link to their past lives, the war-beasts have no memory of the many battles they have fought and won, and no concept of how they can possibly do it again. The key to uniting them, according to the scholar Vintage, may lie in a part of Sarn no one really believes exists, but finding it will mean a dangerous journey at a time of war...

Meanwhile, Hestillion is trapped on board the corpse moon, forced into a strange and uneasy alliance with the Jure'lia queen. Something terrifying is growing up there, in the heart of the Behemoth, and the people of Sarn will have no defence against these new monsters.

Review: This review started one way, initially written when I had only read half of the book. I thought I'd come far enough in the book that I couldn't be shook by the second half. Well that was quickly shot to pieces. So here is my rewritten extended review of The Bitter Twins! 

I went straight from reading The Ninth Rain into this book, literally finishing one and pulling the other out of my bag, and so it feels like I have been on one long journey that I'm itching to continue. The Ninth Rain was very much a journey book and here we are immediately in the aftermath of the not so ideal situation that went down at the end of book one. This second instalment however is in many ways a history book, both in the sense of trying to connect to our past and of our present forming its own history constantly in every action our characters make. 

Having journeyed so long with these characters I feel a part of them, and have that itch that you get in multiple perspective books to find out whats happening to one set of characters when you're in the perspective of another. This set a great pace for the book which only elevated the further you got into it, where I'm constantly being given just enough that I need to keep reading on even if its suddenly 1 am and I need to be up for an early morning meeting... I was flying through parts, sadly not literally, absorbing it like a sponge the more invested and angry I became. 

Sarn feels larger and larger the more I read it, which probably sounds very stupid, but with each new chapter you get these small pockets of information constantly helping to layer up the different and individual personalities the cities have. This is a real strength in the writing, helping not only the construction of the book in my mind but my investment in it. Though we journeyed across Sarn in The Ninth Rain the multiple perspectives here allowed us to travel even more and I loved this exploration of new territories and how you got to understand the characters better through their presence in their place. I'd quite like a trip to Finneral now...though without any Behemoth remains please.

The characterisation is what really made the book. There were so many personalities and emotions here but that wove so well together. Each person had their time and their place so that no one felt sidelined and yet everyone was spotlighted because as in life everyone was affected by everyone else around them whether they liked it or not. The depth to this book! We have our main protagonists that we fell in love with; Noon, Tor, Vintage who you have deeper connections to and you feel like you know ( who wouldn't want to hang out with Vintage and go exploring!) who are now joined centre stage by newer members Aldasair, Bern, Eri and we get to prod into the dark hive-mind of the Jure'lia. You really wanted to slap the queen, but your hand would probably squelch into a pile of goo and no one is here for that. These characters who were starting to come into play in The Ninth Rain really come int force here, I love the soft temperament of Bern and his connection to Aldasair and I keep internally shouting at them to do something about it. Bern had this presence and this force and there was a beautiful passage where he spoke about his feelings and how love is just love and I was cheering. It made me love his character more. And can we just talk about Eri and Helcate. You need a lovable character, one who you want to hug and protect and here you got two! I loved their scenes, there was such a vulnerability to them and this constant question of what's going to happen..don't you dare let anything bad happen to them! They also really grew within book, especially when you;re faced with a situation like Helcate where you;re not what is expected of you and this was a powerful theme that ran through the book. 

History in an interesting subject because it is seen and carried and effected by each concerned party in a completely different way. People say history is written by the victors, but it is felt by everyone and letting go of a past when its thrust into your present is not easy, but trying to cling to one that you don't understand or remember is almost harder. I loved, or maybe cared about is a better term to use for the plight of the War-beasts having been born early and out of need, but having no connection to their past (except in the case of Vostok) and the effect this had on them. I felt so bad for them, trying to find an identity and a shared one at that is such a complex issue, especially when someone is there trying to force it down on you, and it made me so irritated by Vostok, even though I could see each animals perspective. Their pairing with their companions and how they reflected their personalities was such a beautiful link, I love anything like this, it gives me the tingles and I wonder what manifestation my war-beast would take. There was a beautiful resolution to this in the book and i'm interested to see what they take from how and how this changes, in what I'm going to call The Final Battle, which I am eager to get into.

This is, as is stated in the book, a time for change, a time where the old laws don't hold up anymore and a new dawn is rising, just hopefully not in a corpse moon. All the roles here have been fliped and this is a great platform for whats to come. What will happen and what will the effect of CrystalGate be? I'm excited to find out. 

Check out the rest of the stops on the blog tour, grab your copy get reading and let me know what you think..as I will do as I keep reading!