A review by vinayvasan
Swords and Scoundrels by Julia Knight

4.0

One of the light read banter filled pacy racy books that tries to pack in a convoluted plot with non-linear storytelling with all threads converging at the end. The highlight of the book is the chemistry between the brother-sister pair and the characters are remarkably well etched with all the sibling love, hate and competitiveness one can think of it (even its a bit hairy given both are expert sword wielders). One would think that the focus would only be on the lead pair but Julia Knight also devotes enough time on a secondary character who is quite wonderfully conflicted and a mess to put it mildly. Overall for a pacy book, the plot is bit on the convoluted side with the betrayals coming fast, naturally or forced through magic. The book does not really have a resolution with events to continue in the next book which usually would be a bummer but with books 2 and 3 coming out back to back over a fortnight, one just has to consider this series as an extended book