A lost girl and a blind boy discover their greatest strength is their bond with each other in a beguiling fantasy by the New York Times bestselling author of The First Girl Child.
THE SECOND BLIND SON by AMY HARMON
Series: The Chronicles of Saylok #2
Publication date: July 20, 2021
Published by: 47 North
Genre: fantasy
SYNOPSIS
An insidious curse is weakening the Norse kingdom of Saylok, where no daughters have been born in years. Washing up on these plagued shores is Ghisla, an orphaned stowaway nursed back to health by a blind cave dweller. Named for a mysterious god, the boy, Hod, is surrounded by prophecy. To Ghisla, he’s a cherished new friend. To Hod, the girl is even more so. For when Ghisla sings, Hod can see.
Unable to offer safe shelter, Hod urges Ghisla onward to become a daughter of the temple, where all the kingdom’s girl children have been gathered. But because of a magical rune, the two cannot be separated, no matter the time or the distance.
Now, subject to a ruthless king, Ghisla enters a desperate world of warring clan chieftains and catastrophic power struggles. Who among them can be trusted is unknowable. So are the sacrifices Ghisla and Hod must make to defeat the cursed forces that could destroy a kingdom and the fated bond between two souls.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Amy Harmon is a Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and New York Times Bestselling author. Amy knew at an early age that writing was something she wanted to do, and she divided her time between writing songs and stories as she grew. Having grown up in the middle of wheat fields without a television, with only her books and her siblings to entertain her, she developed a strong sense of what made a good story. Her books are now being published in two dozen languages, truly a dream come true for a little country girl.
Amy Harmon has written eighteen novels including the USA Today Bestsellers, Making Faces and Running Barefoot, as well as The Law of Moses, Infinity + One and the New York Times Bestseller, A Different Blue. Her fantasy novel, The Bird and the Sword, was a Goodreads Book of the Year finalist.
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The Second Blind Son by Amy HarmonMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
"You are color. You are sound.You are the song on the wind and the hope in my heart."
The Second Blind Son's predecessor, The First Girl Child, is one of my favorite Amy Harmon books to date. So to say that I was excited to read another book in the same world is a huge understatement. I couldn't download it fast enough when I spotted it on Netgalley. It saddens me to say that the follow up didn't quite meet my high expectations. I wanted to love this one so bad but the honest truth is that I became bored about halfway in. It felt like I was endlessly waiting for something to happen that would trigger me to get fully immersed in what was going on.
This book is told on the same timeline as TFGC, and focuses heavily on the main female protagonist Ghisla's experiences getting acclimated to life inside the temple. We learn more about the Daughters of Freya: how they meet, their relationships with one another, and how they grow and mature together. While this does delve much deeper into these things than book one, strangely I never felt a close attachment to any of these characters. There was no urgency or emotion over the friendships, and perhaps an even deeper detachment for the couple in the book, Ghisla and Hod. I remember feeling such an overwhelming rush of tenderness while watching Bayr and Dragmar's relationship unfold in TFGC. I teared up at Ghost and Dragmar's forbidden love. And I yearned so acutely for Bayr and Alba to be together, feeling the love that they had for one another down to my bones. I wanted that back. Instead, I left the book feeling somewhat indifferent and moderately relieved.
Ghisla washes up on Hod's shoreline broken in spirit and body. She has traveled far after a devastating plague destroyed everyone and everything she once knew. Bitter over being the sole surviver and left to fend for herself, she seems almost indifferent over where her life will take her next. Then she meets a blind boy who nurses her back to health and shows her the care and compassion she desperately needs. Hod is an orphan who is being raised in a cave by a keeper named Arwin. Unlike the touching relationship between Dragmar and Bayr, Arwin and Hod's felt irritating. Arwin treats Hod horribly, especially when it came to his instant attachment to Ghisla. He's insensitive, harsh, and shrewish towards Ghisla when he discovered what her singing did to Hod. I honestly didn't understand Hod's loyalty to him all those years, and it annoyed me a little that he didn't rebel and find a way to seek freedom from his situation sooner.
I guess you could say that this book verged on depressing a lot of the time as well as very slow moving-which is not the best combination. Both Ghisla and Hod spend years upon years (over a decade) feeling lonely, unhappy, and completely powerless over their own lives.
It was better not to let them—any of them—see her react at all.Her feelings were the only thing that were hers,and she vowed that she would not share them with strangers.And everyone present was a stranger.
I still loved seeing my favorite characters from TFGC from a different perspective, and spending a little more time with them could never be wasted time. So in the end, I'm glad that I finished the book. The writing is as lyrical and exquisite as I've come to expect from this author as a long time reader of her work, so for that alone this is worth the read.
“I have thought many times that the gods had forsaken me . . .or never cared to begin with.But I cannot think thus when I am with you.”
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