Soul of the Sword
Julie Kagawa
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One thousand years ago, a wish was made to the Harbinger of Change and a sword of rage and lightning was forged. Kamigoroshi. The Godslayer. It had one task: to seal away the powerful demon Hakaimono.
Now he has broken free.Kitsune shapeshifter Yumeko has one task: to take her piece of the ancient and powerful scroll to the Steel Feather temple in order to prevent the summoning of the Harbinger of Change, the great Kami Dragon who will grant one wish to whomever holds the Scroll of a Thousand Prayers. But she has a new enemy now. The demon Hakaimono, who for centuries was trapped in a cursed sword, has escaped and possessed the boy she thought would protect her, Kage Tatsumi of the Shadow Clan.
Hakaimono has done the unthinkable and joined forces with the Master of Demons in order to break the curse of the sword and set himself free. To overthrow the empire and cover the land in darkness, they need one thing: the Scroll of a Thousand Prayers. As the paths of Yumeko and the possessed Tatsumi cross once again, the entire empire will be thrown into chaos.
One of the key things that stood out to be about Soul of the Sword is that it’s not as gripping as Julie Kagawa’s other books. I’ve read the Iron Fey series and the Talon series… and for some reason Soul of the Sword just wasn’t pulling me along the story in the same way. But, I will of course read Night of the Dragon to finish the series and see whether this was a second book syndrome issue.
Soul of the Sword includes a lot of world building, and expands this world from what we knew in Shadow of the Fox. However, a lot of this seemed to be dropped in randomly as whole paragraphs of text. These paragraphs included history of the world and the clans but also things like geography of this place. All of this is stuff I love to know about in fantasy, but it just wasn’t reading right. For example, we learn all about the Water Clan in a Hakaimono chapter where he’s travelling across country and “thinking” this… which felt out of place!
Despite the poor way of including world building – I did enjoy that we got to know these things! I’m the kind of reader that loves to know all the little things about a world, that sometimes aren’t talked about much. So this was good for me, although may not be for all readers.
What I enjoyed most about the book was that Yumeko grew as a character as she’s starting leaning into her powers. In the first book she was constantly hiding her true self, whereas she’s more confident that she must be herself in order to get the job done. Because of this I found Soul of the Sword to be a bit more magical than Shadow of the Fox.
On the other hand, our other main character Tatsumi didn’t really do anything this time round. Unfortunately his body has been taken over, so understandable! But we did get a little bit of thought process and mental growth as he realises what he really wants. Which was really well written, as these POVs often weren’t moving the story forward, but was still interesting.
There was a bit of a gay sub-plot although it really wasn’t focused on a lot. I found this both good and bad. Good because I firmly believe romantic sub-plots that add nothing to the story should be thrown in the bin (I have been vocal about this before!). Bad because it was there but for most of the book I was very much in a “I’m guessing this is gay??” mindset about it, as it’s not overly explicit.
Overall I really enjoyed the book, although it did have a bit of second book syndrome. But I’m excited to see how the series is rounded up in the final book, and how Yumeko develops even more into her powers.
Positives of Soul of the Sword
- Character depth
- More magical
Negatives of Soul of the Sword
- World building writing
- Second book syndrome
I received Soul of the Sword by Julie Kagawa from the publisher. This is an unbiased and honest review
