Windwitch: The Witchlands (The Witchlands, 2) Hardcover – January 10, 2017

I am such a huge fan of Susan Dennard and had this book preordered as soon as I possibly could! I fell in love with the first book in the series, Truthwitch, but this one was absolutely mind blowing! Susan Dennard deserves a huge round of applause for creating this book and giving all readers such an epic fantasy novel to enjoy! Windwitch is an emotional thrill ride that leaves you begging for more as the book draws to its close.“It is always easier to blame gods or legends than it is to face our own mistakes.”My one complaint about the last book was that the world building was a tiny bit confusing. However, that was very quickly remedied in this novel as everything becomes very clear early on. However, not only does Ms. Dennard clear some things up that we were confused about in the previous book, but she also expands upon the world she has established and built it up so much more. I honestly was blown away by the extent of the world building in this novel and how absolutely marvelous it was. Everything about this book is so well written and Ms. Dennard (who I have always found to be an excellent writer) has become an author that rivals some of the best out there! There is much more politics and intrigue incorporated into the story but it never becomes overwhelming. In fact, it adds that much more to the story and makes it exciting. You never know who will become your ally and who will wind up betraying you. There were many surprises that I never saw coming in this story, and it made for an exhilarating read.The writing flows effortlessly off the page, and you can tell how much blood, sweat, and tears Ms. Dennard put into creating this story. She incorporated more action, more character development, and more twists than before. While there are some things the reader is left questioning, it's entirely intentional as we aren't supposed to know yet. I know some people might not like the amount of action that was featured in this book, but I wholeheartedly enjoyed it! It was thrilling and no one can ever say that Ms. Dennard can't write an action scene. I was write there along with the characters, my heart pounding and my mind racing with who would win. There is a noticeable lack of romance in this story, but honestly that's never been the focus of the story anyway, and as such, I didn't mind.“I told you, Hell-Bard. Everyone lies. It's in the way we banter with our friends. It's in the mundane greetings we give passersby. It's in the most meaningless things we do every single moment of every single day. Hundreds upon thousands of tiny, inconsequential lies.”While this is Merik's book, all of the characters are back. Interestingly though, none of them really cross paths except for Iseult and Aeduan. When I realized that Iseult and Aeduan (who I was already shipping in the last book) were going to be together for the majority of this book, I was ecstatic! They are such an interesting couple and the growth each of the characters went through over the course of the story was utterly fantastic! While at first they were hesitant to trust each other and had their walls built high, over time, they came to let their guard down some and let the other in. You feel the chemistry between them with every fiber of your being, and you just want them to be together in the end. I have shipped very few people as hard as I am shipping Iseult and Aeduan. Little by little, they grow to trust each other and you only realize this through small things during their scenes together. For example, when Aeduan let's Iseult walk behind him after always having her in front of him because he never trusted her unless he could see her. We learn so much more about Aeduan and my heart broke for him multiple times. I honestly can't wait to see where their story progresses from here!Safi and Iseult, our Threadsisters, are never physically in a scene together but that doesn't mean they aren't thinking about each other. Their friendship is beautiful and so strong. To me, it really is the center of the story. They prove time and time again that true friendship knows no bounds. That despite miles and miles between them, they can still aid each other in times of need. They help each other stay strong and focused no matter the situation. They both struggled a lot during this book, but each has found a way to overcome and persevere.“If Iseult were here, then Safi could charge off into that jungle without a second thought. With Iseult, Safi was brave. She was strong. She was fearless.”Safi and Vaness are working together in this book and it was a surprising interaction to say the least. Their adventures were very much action-packed and quite hilarious. You never knew who was going to turn out to be an ally in their scenes.“Oh, I know!" Safi clapped her hands, delighted by her own genius. "I shall call you Un-empressed.""Please," Vaness said coldly, "stop this immediately."Safi absolutely did not.”Merik, who was a favorite of mine in the previous book, was a bit irritating at first. He was much more arrogant and I felt like somebody or something needed to come along and whip him into shape. And that something did in the form of a brilliant twist, and everything started making sense. I loved Merik and Cam together...they certainly make a fun and interesting pair. Merik grows significantly in this story and I loved that he learned from and accepted his mistakes. He realized many of his presumptions were not correct, and he needed to correct his attitude and outlook. Vivia, Merik's sister, who was featured in the last book, was always a character that I never liked. However, she gets her own POV in this story and while at first I was internally groaning, I actually really loved her! She was very misunderstood from the first book, and I like that Ms. Dennard was able to change my mind about her. I was actually rooting for her, so you can see how I did a complete 360 there. Whereas before Vivia came across evil and harsh, in her chapters, she appeared more human, more vulnerable, and more relatable. It was very interesting to read.As I said, there was a lack of romance in this story, but I found that I didn't mind it one bit! Susan Dennard has delivered an amazing story that will please any fan of the series. She has opened so many new doors and revealed so many new things that I'm not sure where the story will go from here. But I am looking forward to the unpredictable nature of this story and seeing what Ms. Dennard has in store for us in the third novel! Read this one now!!Happy reading :)

"It is always easier to blame gods or legends than it is to face our own mistakes."4 STARSTW: gore, violence, death (including parental and animal), graphic injury, misgendering, suicide, self-harm, slavery, racismSo here's the really neat thing about the Witchlands series: each book is honestly better than the last. Which is a little weird for me to say since I've given all them four stars so far, BUT I really do mean it. Truthwitch was good, Windwitch was even better, and Sightwitch was excellent (check out my review from last March if you'd like to know why! turns out all my old opinions still stand, which is a nice feeling).Of course, my favorite part of Windwitch is Vivia.I know, shouldn't I talk about the plot? Shouldn't I get into detail about all the wrenches thrown in the plan, the way my favorite Threadsisters have been torn apart, the way Safi makes THE WORST PUNS, the way the character of the Witchlands is changing and war is coming?I should. But Vivia is pretty much the literary love of my life (second to Lila Bard, sorry, Viv).For starters, she is IN CANON pretty much a useless lesbian, but is also the most efficient, focused princess I have ever read about in my life. Is her love life successful? No, because she just CANNOT seem to summon the courage to talk to her crush about her feelings (to be fair, hard same). And is her political life successful? Okay, no, but not because she isn't trying. Vivia loves Nubrevna with everything she has. Even if it doesn't show because she thinks she has to keep up a focused, cold front, she loves her country with everything she has, and wants nothing more than to save them from the hunger and war that sits on their doorstep. Her people are everything to her, the reason behind everything she does.And best of all, it was amazing to get her POV after only seeing her through Merik's eyes in Truthwitch, because that proved just how good Sooz is with unreliable narrators. Merik absolutely hates his sister, thinks her power-hungry and dangerous, but he spends so much time on his high horse that he doesn't see the rest of what Vivia does or why. The absolute 180 in my feelings toward Vivia in this book compared to my feelings toward her in Truthwitch shows just what strong POVs can do. That's what fantastic characterization looks like.And speaking of characterization, I love Iseult more than anything STILL. She's alone and afraid for part of the book, and even once she has her alliance with Aeduan, she still has to grapple with so much. Her confidence takes so many hits, and the nature of her magic is like a weight over her head, held by a thread. It feels like it'll snap at any moment, that she'll be crushed by it.Still, she keeps going.She is, to me, one of the series' most resilient characters. No matter what's thrown at her, she manages to get back on her feet and try again, whether with help from others or all on her own. She's clever enough to lock Aeduan into an alliance to benefit them both, rather than making complete enemies of one another. She's desperate enough to throw herself into a river to escape danger, because her other options are slim. She's a survivor, through and through, and she has some incredibly heavy choices ahead of her, I can tell.While we're on the subject of Iseult, though, I'd like to get more into that good ol' unpopular shipping opinion I mentioned in my Truthwitch review: I don't ship Aeduan and Iseult. At this point, I do admit that I like Aeduan more as a character. What he did for Owl has warmed me to him where I didn't care for him very much before.HOWEVER.That doesn't change the fact that he and Iseult are by and large using one another. Their introduction to one another was one of hunter and hunted, and their first real contact involved Iseult breaking his spine to save her own life and Safi's. She chose not to kill him, but sparing someone's life isn't romance. In this series, it just creates life-debts.And I don't think for a second, not even a little, that a life-debt, a power imbalance, is romantic. So when we get to the point that Iseult tells Aeduan she owes him arguably three life-debts, and his internal response is to think "huh, two of those are paid, but I won't tell her that so I can take advantage of this in the future," I can feel my brain pumping out a thousand knife emojis at once. It isn't romantic to me! It isn't! It's a matter of survival, and of manipulation. Really, in Aeduan's words, it's a matter of who will betray who first.I just don't like it. Maybe that'll change in the future, but at the moment, I don't see their choices as being even a little bit romantic, and I just can't get on board the ship. There's work to be done to convince me it's shippable. Given what Sooz did with Vivia, it's possible, but also, I am pretty stubborn on this point. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯And the last thing I wanted to mention (with a quick shoutout to the plot, which is putting more puzzle pieces into place but also raising more questions, can I get a hell yeah from super intense theorizing land?), is that I didn't love how Cam being trans is handled. I think it could have been done a lot better, and while it makes some sense (without making it acceptable) that Merik misgenders Cam constantly, because Merik has the perception of a brick and an ego the size of the moon, Cam pretty clearly is trans from the start, and even confronts Merik about it pretty emotionally. Yet there's no proper use of he/him pronouns until the very end. Which is better than no proper pronoun use at all, but it was frustrating to read nonetheless, and I do think it could have been done better, resolved sooner, without changing too much of the character arcs at hand.On the whole, though, it's like I said: the series keeps improving with each book, getting more intricate and dangerous. I can't wait to start Bloodwitch, and I'm absolutely ready to get punted to the moon by all my INCREDIBLY STRONG FEELINGS ABOUT THIS SERIES. If you haven't picked it up yet, now is the perfect time to get extra invested in the cast, the world, the slowly unfurling plot that threatens THE BIGGEST SHAKE-UPS.Join me in Witchlands hell, folks. It's unbelievably worth it.