Part two of the series blog tour for A Pattern of Shadow and Light is currently live! Thank you again so much to Audiobookworm Promotions for hosting this tour and for having me on it. Click on the banner for the rest of the schedule.

At long last, the reason for the blessed Adept race’s decline has been discovered: powerful beings known as Malorin’athgul are disrupting the Balance and preventing Alorin’s Adepts from awakening to their gifts. Who are they? Where are they? And how can they be stopped when they wield a power meant to unmake the universe itself?

In T’khendar, Prince Ean val Lorian has forsaken his companions in blood and battle to join the traitorous Fifth Vestal in T’khendar in the hopes of gaining some insight into the tragedies that plagued his return. Now, he must confront the man he’s long thought of as his enemy and discover the role he is meant to play in the First Lord’s darkly magnificent game.

The Vestal Raine D’Lacourte has followed his traitorous oath-brother, Björn, through six kingdoms and into the distant realm of T’khendar seeking explanation and atonement. But the condemned realm harbors shocking secrets, and Raine soon realizes he’s facing his greatest enemy yet – not in Björn, but in the truth.

Elsewhere in Alorin, the young truthreader, Tanis, faces a new villain in the fiery-eyed man he followed from the café in Rethynnea; the soldier Trell struggles to reconcile his growing feelings for the girl he rescued from the river against the guilt of his unknown past; and in Tambarré, another truthreader named Kjieran van Stone treads the incense-filled hallways of the Prophet Bethamin’s temple, hoping to uncover a plot of treachery and betrayal before the Prophet demands his soul.

The time has come for each player to claim his role in the First Lord’s masterful game. All will be tested, but only time will tell how many can survive the dagger of Adendigaeth.

Disclaimer: I received this audiobook as part of my participation in a blog tour with Audiobookworm Promotions. The tour is being sponsored by Podium Publishing. The gifting of this audiobook did not affect my opinion of it.

Wow. Let me just breathe for a second because I knew that this was going to be intense but I didn’t know that it was going to be THAT intense, you know what I mean? McPhail seriously knows how to make you invested in a huge epic fantasy like this. I’m so wishing that this could be made into a movie like The Lord of the Rings. I think it would do such an amazing job in that kind of format, and gives us way more fantasy trilogies to watch and root for.

I also have to say that I am always so thankful that Podehl was able to stay on as the narrator for the entire trilogy. I don’t think anyone else would be able to give such life and imagery to McPhail’s words and story the way Podehl did, and he did such a great job in this novel as well!

I feel like this book really held its own from the first one, and that the continuation of the story matched very well from what we had in the first one. There wasn’t much of a disconnect between the two, and I feel like I was able to jump right into it. I’ll definitely say that this book was really emotionally hard for me to get through not only because of the length but also just because of the plot itself, but it really worked out for me. I think that this book did an amazing job of being a sequel in its own right. It didn’t fall for the whole sequel syndrome where it’s just the piece to connect the first and the third books, so I enjoyed that as well.

I’m excited to see how this ends, and I’m betting that by the time this is all over, I’ll be sighing not only in relief, but sad that this epic journey is over!