Review: The Mage's Daughter (Nine Kingdoms, #2)

The Mage's Daughter: A Novel of the Nine Kingdoms by Lynn Kurland
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

What started out as a fluffy fantasy romance with a fierce, stubborn, sword-wielding heroine turned into a soggy romance with a blubbering, weak-kneed heroine. I lost count of the number of times that Morgan blinked away hot tears or realized her cheeks were wet, or dissolved into uncontrollable weeping, or felt like weeping but managed not to. She was a completely different person from the first book. I can understand that she had some difficult changes to become used to, but I would have expected her toughness in everything else to carry over into how she handled her more emotional crises.

It's unfortunate that the copious amount of tears got in the way of the rest of the story, because it was actually better than the first book in many ways. The world is more detailed, we learn more about the Nine Kingdoms, who populates it, and how the magic works.

I especially enjoyed learning more about the earning of Weger's mark and the way that Miach pursues Morgan. Miach becomes an even more interesting and humbly impressive hero now that we are able to get to know him more. Unfortunately the romance does stall the action for quite a while, though (coinciding with a lot of the weeping and talking and running away from issues). It took over too much for my liking, but once it came back to the actual plot I enjoyed it again.

Just like with the first book, this is merely an installment that does not stand on its own at all. It's a meandering building towards... something. Something that we've known was happening since the first page but have been blindly trying to understand. By the end of this book, we finally know what that is. And - that's where this ends, with the confrontation postponed until the next book.

I'm looking forward to reading more of Miach, but I hope Morgan gives me a reason to like her more in the last book. Hopefully, she will pull herself back together and become a worthy heroine who saves the world without drowning it in tears. She needs to toughen back up to take care of the evil she faces and not just hide her face in Miach's shoulder all the time.

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