DNF @ 23%I hated The Oathbound with a fiery passion. I was going to skip this one but several reviewers said it's better than the first one, so I decided to give this book two or three chapters to see what happens.What happened was I just can't stand Tarma or Kethry. Every second they're on page is like nails on chalkboard, and since they're the POV characters, that became a problem real quick. What kills me is it would be simple to write these characters as both entrepreneurial, and compassiona...

Immediate reaction: oh thank god, I remembered correctly.Oathbreakers was always my favorite of the duology, and now I remember why. It's far less episodic than Oathbound, with a coherent plot for all but the first few chapters of the book, and of course there is much, much less rape, all of which is offscreen and specifically noted as a power crime over everything else. It's actually really interesting how it's treated in Oathbreakers as opposed to Oathbound: Oathbound it's treated as kind of i...

I wouldn’t recommend this book.Update: The author recently made some horrifically ignorant and anti-trans comments on her blog. See my review about the first book in the series The Oathbound.While you don't need to read the first book in order to enjoy this one, if you love this one I highly recommend going back and reading the first one. This story revolves around the disappearance of Idra, commander of the Sunhawks mercenaries. Tarma and Kethry are the members of the mercenary company who lead...

While I can't help that I love these characters and world......again with the raping! In Oathbreakers, the two main characters are not raped (this time). I appreciate that. All in all, there's very little violence against women in this one. The rape and violence against women with this one is the plotline. (view spoiler)[The MCs are trying to discover the whereabouts of their Mercenary Captain, the Princess Idra - or what happened to her. The details of what happened to her are...the typical thi...

Wow. I actually gave a Mercedes Lackey book two stars? How odd. The thing is, I actually finished this over a week ago, and yet I felt no need to review it, think about it and almost no desire to start another book. I have been busy in RL, but I felt like this story had left me drained; it was just so, so boring. I think I realized as well that BOTH the main characters are what we would term 'Mary Sues' in modern writing, even if they weren't considered as such when this book was written. They c...

It may interest those who have read this book to know that Mercedes Lackey also put out a cassette/CD of the same name. You can sample some of the songs on YouTube, although the only place to buy it is from the Firebird Arts and Music website.1)The Leslac Version2) Contemplations3) There’s Always a Reason (A Curse Upon All Bards)4) Surprised by Joy5) (Love) Found6) Need7) Oathbreakers8) The Sunhawks9) Suffer the Children10) Swordlady, or “That Song”11)Mirror Spell (Shield Spell)(It may also incl...

2018 - This is probably the least episodic of the three books. It's pretty much two stories, one mercenary small-war story which then leads into the larger story of how Tarma and Kethry bring stability to the Rethwellan ruling dynasty, by way of a palace coup. And affect Valdemar's history many years later (yeah, read more of these books). Plus - it has fewer totally annoying typographical-or-grammatical or spelling/word-choice errors. See comments on Book #1 of this series. ETA: I've just been

After the first disappointing volume of this series I was expecting more of the same so it was a pleasant surprise to find that this volume mostly reached the workmanlike level of a good read achieved by the sequel 'By the Sword' which I happened to read first. Unlike the first volume which is basically a series of short stories put together - as I've now realised is actually the case since some of them are reprinted in original form in another volume - this is a proper novel. It deals with the

I like it. I like Tamra and Keth investigating what happened to Idra and finding new friends along the way. I love that one of this friends is a Herald but am glad that the Herald didn't take over the story.I really like Jadrek and I like that he makes both of them happy.I love how the Goddess makes it clear that Tamra is supposed to feel and not cut herself off of feeling and loving her friends and sister. <3Keths power display? Awesome!What happened to Idra? *sobs*

3 1/2 Stars The second book of my adventure into Lackey's world and I finally got a whiff of what a Herald of Valdemar is. This was a fun easy read, that continues the adventures of Kethry and Tarma. I love that Lackey has the sense not to make her readers travel 3 months with nothing happening. Her characters say they are going, and if nothing worthwhile is going to happen between here and there, well then *poof* we are just there. More authors should take the hint!Looking forward to the fina

Oathbreakers is the only proper novel in the Tarma-and-Kethry sequence, and it's good. It's a little more of a proper Valdemar novel, despite only barely touching on Valdemar itself, and much less a sword-and-sorcery pastiche.It's still very much pulp - the language, while competent and noticeably smoother than its immediate predecessor, is still rather faux-medieval and occasionally overwrought, the plot is a little too pat to be totally believable, and it's yet another rape-revenge story at th...

Reading 100 books in 2010; reviews will be short for a while 'til I catch up blogging with what I've already read this year.This book made a Mercedes Lackey fan out of me; I was lukewarm about the first one in the series and it had many of the flaws a first novel might. It's amazing how much Lackey grows as an artist between the first novel in the series and the second; better writing, even at the sentence level, better plotting, and more polish in general to go with her two wonderful characters...

Second in the Vows & Honor fantasy subseries of the Valdemar universe in 1270 AF and revolving around the kingdom of Valdemar and its bordering countries. The focus is on Rethwellan and Tarma and Kethry. If you're interested, there is a chronological listing of the Valdemar books on my website.My TakeIt was a treat to read how Idra runs her troops so well. It's a philosophy in line with Kethry's noting that low-magic is just as good, if not better, than high-magic.It's a mystery when Idra disapp...

When I started Oathbreakers, I expected a format similar to Oathbound and what we will see in Oathblood, the final book in this trilogy -- a collection of loosely tied short stories. I was quite excited when I discovered that Oathbreakers is actually a complete novel!The best part of Oathbreakers are the character relationships. I fell in love with the deeper partnership between Keth and Tarma. In Oathbound, it was obviously this duo was still learning to work together. Now they have an amazing,...

I waited in the second part for things to fit in a row until the end of the story but this is not exactly what happens. As in the first part, so here, there is essentially a series of connected episodes, rather than a novel but this connection is not enough to be coherent. Of course, although they do not add anything special, these episodes are quite interesting and further advance our understanding of the character of our two heroines and their relationship and offer moving female moments (and

I enjoyed this entry significantly more than the previous book in the trilogy. The plot, though it does take a couple of chapters to get started, is much more cohesive with the two central heroines having somewhat out of necessity become mercenaries and venturing off to discover the fate of their company‘s commander only to become embroiled in a succession fight and meet an archivist Who proves to be much more important than he may seem at first. I got a lot of the fierce female warriors that I

3.5 stars, a serious improvement over the previous bookI wonder if this should be four stars but I'm still a bit bitter about Oathbound which was so bad it stopped by Valdemar reading dead in its tracks for *months* because I was dreading going back to Tarma and Kethry. Fortunately, this is much tighter story without any of the pacing or structure issues that plagued the previous book. Tarma and Kethry feel more fully developed and their relationship is explored with greater nuance and depth. Ev...

The writing is much better in Oathbreakers than in the previous novel, Oathbound. The novel has a definite arc and real stakes, plenty of battles and courtly intrigue, while keeping the solid details of magic, animal-wrangling, and combat that Lackey brought to the previous book (and to all her writing). For those who like super-immersive worldbuilding, there's also plenty of maps, dictionaries, and an appendix of in-world ballads about the main characters (Lackey is a filker who writes her own

(3.5-ish? Clearly the 5 star system is not precise enough for me!)A solid fantasy adventure with excellent main characters. I have a few quibbles with the style and the pacing (too much internal dialogue, a few aspects of plot that could have been expanded upon), but on the whole it's enjoyable. And it's a relief to me, to find a childhood favorite that stands the test of time!

I've read this series so many time since the titles first became available. The titles are all mass market paperbacks that were purchased way before GR and ebooks. It's only now that they make it onto my list but the titles are amongst my forever favorites.

Review to come!

Reread 2021: I had forgotten that so much of this book revolves around Idra's Sunhawks and Rethwellen. I love seeing Rethwellen from outsiders perspectives, since we know what will happen with Selenay and Valdemar down the road. It's also great to see Idra again. I wish there were more books with proper merc companies, there's this one, Kerowyn's By the Sword, and then a slew of grimdark. This reread was great. I had forgotten a lot of the minor details, but I was so happy to rediscover them. Al...

This is so much better than The Oathbound (it helps that it's a "real" novel versus a fixup of episodic short stories). We get to see Tarma and Kethry at their best: more mature, more skilled, and on a mission. It acts as a great sequel and finale to their aims since the beginning of The Oathbound, and as part of the larger Valdemar universe, it does have some great clues to other elements of the setting (I'm always amazed at Lackey's seeding of various ideas throughout the series). I was also s...

Man, I don't know what it is about me and revenge stories! Well, to be fair, in this case it's less "revenge" and more "vengence"... which, in my mind, is not quite the same.Another one of Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar books, this one deals with two women (Tarma and Kethry) who are sworn in an oathbound sisterhood. I won't get in to the vengeance here, that's up to you to discover!An interesting note here (to me anyway..) is that Tarma is the only literary character that I find "attractive". While

I liked the events of this one much better than the events of The Oathbound. Spying and intrigue are much more to my taste than demon rapists. There was rape in this one, too, which was disappointing, but it wasn't anywhere near as bad as the first book.Jadrek is a great character, Kethry's magical development is awesome, Tarma continues to be the best. I like travel stories, especially ones that involve surviving the elements. Also, there were Heralds! Well, one Herald.

Kethry and Tarma join a mercenary company, go to Valdemar, summon Goddesses, and work a whole lot of magic. They also manage to discuss magic with a Herald well after Vanyel's time and well before Selenay's reign, but I think I can justify the inconsistency in the series by imagining there were no air sprites that close to the Rethwellian border on that particular day. Just go with it. While having read the first Vows and Honor book is a definite prerequisite, this trilogy is shaping up to be fi...

Another comfort reread, another Velgarth novel. Lackey's adventurer turned mercenary duo, Kethry the mage and Tarma the Warrior, take on a corrupt and murderous king who has violated his oaths to his country, his people, his gods and his kin. Lots of action, and one of the sweetest romances Lackey's written.

The second in the Vows & Honor trilogy, to continue fleshing out my #readinghistory. This one really deepened the story of Tarma and Kethry - and led us more into Tarma's fraught history. I love the friendship between these two heroines, which set many of my ideas about the kinds of female relationships I wanted to write someday.

Well, I appear to be rereading all the Valdemar books I own. Okay then.

In this sequel to The Oathbound, of the Vows and Honor omnibus, Mercedes Lackey focuses on the politics of the lands they are in as much as the characters and this includes raising armies, building loyalties, and seeing the bigger picture of their battle against evil. The enemies weren’t mages or criminals; they were kings. The corrupt deeds of those in power was highlighted. The stakes are as high as ever, when leader of the Sunhawks mercenary tribe Idra goes missing. Idra went to see which of