Clare L. Deming

Siege and Storm is the second book in Leigh Bardugo’s Shadow and Bone Trilogy. I jumped right into this after finishing the first book and also listened to this in audiobook format (narrated by Lauren Fortgang). If you want to read my review of the first book, Shadow and Bone, you can find it here.

Here is the blurb:

Darkness never dies.

Hunted across the True Sea, haunted by the lives she took on the Fold, Alina must try to make a life with Mal in an unfamiliar land, all while keeping her identity as the Sun Summoner a secret. But she can’t outrun her past or her destiny for long.

The Darkling has emerged from the Shadow Fold with a terrifying new power and a dangerous plan that will test the very boundaries of the natural world. With the help of a notorious privateer, Alina returns to the country she abandoned, determined to fight the forces gathering against Ravka. But as her power grows, Alina slips deeper into the Darkling’s game of forbidden magic, and farther away from Mal. Somehow, she will have to choose between her country, her power, and the love she always thought would guide her—or risk losing everything to the oncoming storm.

This second book picks up with Alina and Mal trying to find a life together in a new land. But of course, they can’t live happily ever after when this is only book 2! Parts of this second book irritated me because at the beginning it felt like the author was reverting to the same forms as in book 1. I started to tire of having the Darkling threaten to hurt Mal in order to get Alina to cooperate.

But once a certain privateer arrives on scene, the events took a fresh turn. Now I did get tired of Mal being surly and Alina hiding secrets throughout the book, but at least the characters change as the story unfolds. I also figured out one character’s secret before it was revealed, but the clues had been there.

The mythology and the history of grisha magic begins to be more important in this book which leads into the resolution of the story in the last book.

Have you read any of the Shadow and Bone books or watched the Netflix show? Let me know in the comments.

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