Review: Honor’s Knight by Rachel Bach

Hey guuuuuuyyyss? Remember a few weeks ago when I told you about this totally amazeballs SciFi book starring one of the BAMFiest BAMFs in BAMFland? I’m sure you all immediately ran out and grabbed a copy because I totally wouldn’t have used my super-special this-book-is-the-best-you-don’t-want-to-miss-it Sherlock gif on just any book.

If you didn’t, you should probably go and do it now because Honor’s Knight is coming out next week AND SERIOUSLY YOU GUYS YOU WANT TO BE READING THIS SERIES.

LISTEN TO SHERLOCK

Maybe you’re one of those people that doesn’t like to get into a series until it’s completed. I understand, I do. What if it doesn’t live up to it’s original glory? What if you fall in love and then there’s a terrible cliffhanger and you’re stuck in agony waiting AN ENTIRE YEAR (seriously, can we apply the Netflix method to everything) for the next book?

These are legitimate fears but let me put your minds at rest: the Paradox series is definitely not going downhill and while there is a biiiit of a wait for the trilogy’s conclusion, it comes out April 22nd and I am fully confident you guys can handle it. We can stick it out together, there will be hugs and cupcakes with cream cheese frosting.

Honor’s Knight picks up right where Fortune’s Pawn left off and oh, that’s right, I was wildly pissed off about the current state of plot and ship affairs. It could be said that the book takes a little while to take off, but if you’re caught up in the characters and possess a human heart (or maybe even a robot heart) you will be in a state of agony waiting for certain things to resolve themselves and questions to be answered. (TANTALIZING ENOUGH FOR YOU?)

One thing I love about Rachel Bach is that she doesn’t appear to believe in Second Book Syndrome. Why draw out your mysteries to build up tension for the third book when you could lull your audience into submission with answers and then toss a grenade right in the middle of the plot, blow everything to hell and rebuild into a whole new climactic outcome?

Basically everything goes bananas and there’s Devi (my hero, my role model, my star) plasma blasting her way through every shitty and hopeless situation that comes her way with a truly admirable level of bullheaded determination and fearlessness.

Much like the plot, Devi’s character also goes a little bananas. Up until this point, she’s pretty much always been a soldier. She keeps her head down, follows orders and makes her way through the ranks without asking too many questions. If it doesn’t help her meet her goals, it’s not her problem, end of story. Suddenly, she finds herself in a situation with no orders to follow, her goals and priorities constantly shifting and a whole new set of moral dilemmas on a scale she’s never really had to deal with before. I’m really enjoying Devi’s character arc as she discovers there are a few things she cares about more than her ambition and her weapons (well, maybe not her weapons).

Another thing I adore about Devi is how she navigates her romance. Pop quiz: your lover’s done you wrong, real wrong, what do you do? A) Hear him out, there are two sides to every story and if you love that person, you owe it to them to find out what their side is. B) Cut your losses and run. They had their shot and blew it. C) Kick their ass into next Tuesday before you GTFO. Devi’s a type C. It hurt my shippers heart to see my armada in ruins, but at the same time it’s so nice to see a girl not going over all stupid in the face of romance and remembering to look out for number one.

 
You tell ’em, Buff.

There are couple of things I’m not one hundred percent sold on (there’s this flashback-y sort of thing that happens at once point that seems a little convenient and some of the bananas plot twists regarding how all-the-things-happen-to-Devi-now are a little overly bananas) but, and I can’t stress this enough, I don’t care. The convenient nudge was a direction I wanted to go and I should hope all the things happen to Devi because she seems pretty damn capable of handling it and these are the kinds of things you want a capable person handling.

The moral of this story is this book is amazing, this series is amazing, Devi is amazing, it’s a bigass orgy of amazing over here and you guys need to get in on this (please take that as non-creepily as you can). I cannot wait to see what Bach has in store for Heaven’s Queen but I have high hopes and am feeling pretty confident I won’t be disappointed.