September 21, 2015

Brother Wind by Sue Harrison

Brother Wind is the third book in the Ivory Carver Trilogy by Sue Harrison.  As the third book, you certainly don't want to skip the first two before reading.  Especially since the 2nd book has the events immediately leading up the third book's story.

Brother Wind returns us to Kiin and her problems.  She has her twin boys who are both wanted and feared by many people.  And she herself is wanted for her ability to carve and produce sons.  But not all who want her are doing it for her best interests.  Again power plays a large role and Kiin doesn't know what the future will hold for her.  Meanwhile, Kukutux has to decide how she will face the future with her family gone.  Left on the outskirts of her tribe, survival is tough and she has to make many sacrifices.  But opportunities are presented to her that many not be the best, but would ensure her survival.

I'm still trying to figure out if I like Kukutux.  I certainly don't think her story added much aside from showing different ways of life that happened.  She actually seemed to serve as a distraction from the main storyline and could have been edited out easily.  Kiin wasn't as engaging this time around either, although she's still a strong character and a central part of the story.  And as with the other two books, I still think the bad guys are really really bad without any redeeming qualities.

I'm not saying this book was bad.  When compared to a lot out there it's pretty good.  I just think that after the stronger start of the first two, this one just didn't finish the series as strongly.  It still showed a lot of history and was informative, you can tell the author did her research.  And it's still brutal with violence, rape, and other hard topics.  The pace was fast, I felt like we were bouncing around quite a bit with what was happening, but it was still easy to keep track of what was going on.

Not as good as the first two, but still not bad.  If you like historical fiction (and want to know how Kiin's story ends), this will be a good book for you.

Brother Wind
Copyright 1994
463 pages

No comments:

Post a Comment