THE HEART FORGER – Rin Chupeco | Looking For a Good Book

Author Rin Chupeco’s The Bone Witch was a much-anticipated novel and received mostly positive reviews and so the second volume in The Bone Witch series is also a very much anticipated book. Fans of the first should appreciate this second, but for different reasons.

In the first book, Chupeco gives us tremendous mood while laying the ground work for this new world. In this volume, we get more action taking place in the world, with the assumption that most of us are already familiar with the world. We also get the development of more romance between our Bone Witch, Tea, and Kalen – the man set to become a ruler.

The action here mainly follows Tea as she is set on vengeance … er, revenge … against those who had tried to stop her before. And when you piss off someone who can raise the dead to become their own, personal army, you should know you are in trouble.

War is coming between the different clans and Tea has chosen a side, which means there are plenty of people looking to stop her. But Tea will find challenges in unexpected places.

I personally did not enjoy this book as much as the first. I liked getting to know the world and the characters in the first book and here I felt that at least one character, Tea, was changed – and not for the better – from how she had first been established. Her entire focus of revenge seemed out of place for someone trained the way she was (even if that training had been accelerated). The entire purpose of the first volume was rather lofty … understanding and acceptance and control of phenomenal power. Here the purpose is nothing more than petty revenge.

The ‘romance’ here is well done and plays an important role, which I found rather interesting. However, it also feels a little purposeful, with the intention of creating a mystique to get the reader to buy the next volume to find out what happens next. I tend not to go in for this kind of sucker story-telling. I’ll buy the next book if I’m drawn to the character(s) and story. In this case I’m not really that interested, and even though I’ve read two volumes, I can’t see myself continuing with the series.

Looking for a good book? Rin Chupeco’s The Heart Forger follows up the popular The Bone Witch, and fans of the first will likely enjoy this. For those who were more ambivalent, this definitely adds more action, but sacrifices some character to do so.