Valour is the kind of sequel that takes everything good about the first book and sharpens it. The world expands naturally, the stakes feel heavier and every storyline starts gaining real momentum. There’s a constant sense of looming war and emotional weight behind every choice the characters make, but beneath all the battles, politics, betrayals and chaos, this book is really about loyalty, family, grief and the bonds people are willing to fight for. John Gwynne writes action incredibly well, but the characters are the soul of it all. Every victory feels earned, every loss hurts. The only issue was the pacing. The short chapters and constant POV switches occasionally made it hard to fully settle into a moment before moving somewhere else. Still, the overall experience was fantastic. I’m completely invested in this series now.

‘Angry mothers raise daughters fierce enough to fight wolves.’ I think this is a book of if you get it, you get it or if you don’t, you don’t. And I think I got it…? I actually did enjoy this quite a lot. The audiobook was so soothing to listen to. The relationship between Rabbit and In-yo was deeply interesting and almost infectious in a way. You could understand a deep platonic love between them but there was so many barriers between them the majority of the time.

‘You bear it, or you end it. So far, we have proved equal to bearing it.’ At every step we see the struggle of these women at the cause of men and each in their own way, take a chunk out of the empire as compensation. I found this deeply gratifying to listen to.

The Empress of Salt and Fortune is an experience you kind of just have to let happen to you. It’s also short enough that the writing style isn’t an issue for me personally. If it was any longer it probably would have been.

I will continue the series as my library seems to have quite a few of them but they will be something I think I’ll listen to over the course of the year instead of back to back.

3.75. while watching murderbot’s emotional/personal development is always satisfying, the plot in this one left me kind of flat. the crew was forgettable, sans miki, and the arc of the novella was very similar to books 1 & 2. I am very attached to MB though & want to see where his path leads, especially after the conclusion of this book.

[i also don’t know of this is kind of a silly point to bring up in sci-fi but I didn’t feel this way before, but felt that almost every sentence was so heavy with space jargon (I decompressed the geo dome hatch pod with my auxiliary capacitor while my hacked drone bots pinged the shuttle feed to access its core processors type shit) that I had a hard time actually picturing & getting settled into the story.]

I am coming up on 1 year since my own ADHD diagnosis, so Matilda’s experiences felt very reminiscent of my own. That kind of shared experience has honestly been one of the most healing things for me on my ADHD journey, knowing that it’s not just me. I highly recommend this to both ADHDers and to those who want to understand a bit more what living life is like for us. Also very well researched, her journalistic prowess really shows.