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 Exile’s Honor (Valdemar: Exile Book 01) by Mercedes Lackey |
Description: Trained from childhood in the arts of war, Alberich strives to walk a careful path between obedience to the priests of Vkandis Sunlord and fairness to the soldiers under his command and the people of his native land of Karse. His attempts to hide his heretical gift of precognition, however, earn him a sentence of death by fire, thwarted by a bold rescue seemingly engineered by his faithful white battle steed-in actuality one of the Companions of the Heralds of Valdemar. Lackey continues her popular Valdemar series with the story of Alberich, Weaponsmaster and Queen’s Champion of a land he was taught to fear and hate, as he struggles to redefine the meaning of the honor he holds so dear while learning to accept the magic he once tried to conceal. Buy From: |
Rating: 
Review:Exile’s Honor is the story of weapons-master Alberich who was the first Karsite ever to become an Herald.
The book starts off with Alberich’s last mission in Karse where he uses his hidden gift for foresight to prevent a bandit raid. Unfortunately for him the Priests didn’t agree that the foresight was a gift and instead tried to burn him as a witch. Fortunately for Alberich the Companion Kantor rescued him from the fire and took him to Valdemar to be trained.
The book does a good job of showing Alberich’s emotional and mental uncertainty on finding out that pretty much everything he had been taught about the Heralds was untrue without getting too depressing or melodramatic. This was a good thing because if he had accepted the change without any problems then he wouldn’t have become one of the more beloved characters in the series. After all recovering from a complete shift of your world view does take time.
It was initially written as a stand-alone novel but it fits quite well with the other books in the series. Exile’s Valor continues the tale started in this book but even if you don’t read that one you can read and enjoy this one without any problems.
Final Recommendation: A great read.