Review: Daughter of the Wolves by K. S. Villoso

 

Daughter of the Wolves, by K. S. Villoso is a fast-paced adventure-filled sword and sorcery book filled with magic and battles and shifting loyalties, and amazing complex characters. It's kind of a follow-up, chronologically, to Blackwood Marauders and features some returning characters, as well as featuring some characters from Villoso's Agartes Epilogues and Wolf of Oren-Yaro. I love each dive I take into this fantasy world. Agos-agan feels real and each glimpse I get into it just makes me want to re-read all the other books and trace character paths and look at the maps of the world. But what I love most about Villoso's writing is those gut-wrenchingly accurate portrayals of how it feels to be an outsider, how it feels to try and communicate with people who don't understand you, etc.

Daughter of the Wolves focuses on Anira, a relative of the Warlord of Oren-Yaro, who finds herself caught up in this crazy adventure when her brother, the soldier, makes a stupid mistake that could put the whole family in danger. She leaves her home to try and find a solution to the problem, only to find herself stuck in even bigger intrigues and problems than she could have imagined.

Anira's path crosses that of Luc and the rest of the Blackwood Marauders when they're all sent after a magical beast that is more dangerous than any of them could have ever imagined. 

Just like the author's other books this one has quite a bit of violence, living up the sword and sorcery title for sure, and it can get quite dark and gruesome. But at the same time there's character development and deep explorations of power and its effects on people and fleshed out relationships and friendships and complex family and found-family dynamics. This is why I keep coming back for Kay's books and I keep reading page after page even if some scenes are a bit tough to handle. To be honest, sometimes the characters' deep realizations and dialogue strike a lot deeper than the actual violence!

There's romance - and very pretty intimate scene or two - as well, and even Roena (the character from Blackwood Marauders that I really despised) makes an appearance, but I was satisfied with the way Luc and Roena's relationship developed/was explored and it made up for the difficult to get through scenes in Blackwood Marauders. 

Also, and without spoiling, a few key characters from the Agartes Epilogues/Legacy of the Lost Mage reappear for a short while and I absolutely loved it. Everything fits in and is tied up well enough at the end, with this story being a standalone that can absolutely be read on its own, but once you're read a few of Villoso's books you start to see little connections between them - just appearances from one story to another, that make the whole experience so much more awesome. 

I highly recommend checking out K. S. Villoso's works in general, and Daughter of the Wolves in particular might be a good place to start if you like sword and sorcery and just want to dip your feet into the world - in an explosive fashion...