A Review of The Merchant's Son by C. F. Barrows

Today I'm going to review 'The Merchant's Son' by C. F. Barrows, which is the prequel to 'The Follower'.

Storyworld.

I liked this area of Sehret a bit better than inside the mountains, like in 'The Follower'. This is probably just personal preference, though. Like the first book, the world building is wonderful.

Characters.

Poor Siran. I will always say this. I constantly wanted to hunt the author down for being so mean to Siran. And Tal ... For reasons I will not reveal because of spoilers, I wanted very, very much to hunt the author down. (Still do, actually.)

Just like in the first book, the characters were well-developed and enough to make you squirm with their realism. This time, though, there were fewer, and you got plenty of time to bond with them all.

Plot.

Nice and smooth, steadily progressing, and never going slack, the plot was well done in this one. I will admit that this feels like a prequel, but not in the way you might think. There's plenty of action and a perfectly good story here; it just feels like there's more for the characters after "the end."

Overall.

C. F. Barrows has improved in this book. I can't fault it. I loved it. I will recommend it, and I give it 4.5 stars.

This book is an emotional meatgrinder. You start it with your sanity and feelings intact. Once you get to the end, you have a bloody, mangled pile of hamburger.

Go read it.