Book Review: The Spirit War

Publication Date: June 2012
by Orbit
Genre: Fantasy
Source: library

All Eli Monpress wanted was the biggest bounty in the world. He never meant to have obligations, or friends, but master swordsman Josef Leichten and Nico, the daughter of the dead mountain, have saved Eli's life too many times to be called anything else. But, when a friend upsets your plans and ruins all your hard work, what's a thief to do?
After years of running from his birthright, Josef is forced to return home and take up his title as prince. War is coming for humans and spirits between the Immortal Empress and the Council of Thrones, and Josef's little island is right in the middle. But conquest isn't the Empress's only goal, she has a personal vendetta against a certain thief.
What started as a simple side trip to help a friend is rapidly turning into the most dangerous job of Eli's career, but he can't back out now, not when Josef needs him. But when you're under attack from all sides, even the world's greatest thief can find himself cornered, and it's going to take all the fast talking Eli can muster to survive the next few days.

I feel like this was maybe a little uneven in the pacing. Like it started off a little slow, but the last part of the book was a little too much at once. It was still good, in any case.

We get a lot of backstory on Josef, which I've been wanting for a long time, since the beginning of the series, basically. After reading this one, I found that the characters I already liked, I grew to like even more, and the annoying characters continued to annoy me. I wouldn't mind if they went away.

The setting is very good, and I think I will be remembering the Immortal Empresses war ships for a long time. There are some crazy things happening in the world of Eli Monpress, and I'm very interested to see how it all plays out.

As a side note, the words smug, smirk, and sneer are some of my least favorite in the English language, and Rachel Aaron loves to use all three. It probably wouldn't bother most readers in the least, but I have a somewhat odd aversion to these words (I don't really know why), and I really notice them.

One big bonus is that the cover of this one is a whole lot better than the previous three. I really disliked those, and this one, while not anything fantastic is loads better.

I still would definitely recommend this series for fun fantasy adventure.