Serena’s Review: “The Liar’s Knot”

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Book: “The Liar’s Knot” by M. A. Carrick

Publishing Info: Orbit, Dec. 2021

Where Did I Get this Book: from the publisher!

Where Can You Get this Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon | IndieBound

Book Description: In Nadezra, peace is as tenuous as a single thread. The ruthless House Indestor has been destroyed, but darkness still weaves through the city’s filthy back alleys and jewel-bright gardens, seen by those who know where to look.

Derossi Vargo has always known. He has sacrificed more than anyone imagines to carve himself a position of power among the nobility, hiding a will of steel behind a velvet smile. He’ll be damned if he lets anyone threaten what he’s built.

Grey Serrado knows all too well. Bent under the yoke of too many burdens, he fights to protect the city’s most vulnerable. Sooner or later, that fight will demand more than he can give.

And Ren, daughter of no clan, knows best of all. Caught in a knot of lies, torn between her heritage and her aristocratic masquerade, she relies on her gift for reading pattern to survive. And it shows her the web of corruption that traps her city.

But all three have yet to discover just how far that web stretches. And in the end, it will take more than knives to cut themselves free…

Previously Reviewed: “The Mask of Mirrors”

Review: It’s been a hot minute since I read the first book in this trilogy, and I have no excuse! I really enjoyed the first book and some of the late reveals were truly excellent at setting up exciting stuff for the books to come! The best I can say is that, at 600+ pages, each book in this trilogy is quite the commitment. But one of the book boxes I subscribe to is currently doing this trilogy, so it was the perfect excuse to jump back into things!

As this is the second in the trilogy (and the middle of a trilogy that has been complete for a few years now) there will be some spoilers for the first book included in this review. Beware if you haven’t read the first one! These reveals are really better appreciated when discovered on your own read-through!

This book picks up pretty much immediately after the events of the first. I did have to go back and do a decent amount of re-reading to re-familiarize myself, as the story doesn’t waste time recounting too many details from the previous story. But after I settled in, this one was truly a joy to experience. Ren and Grey were excellent in the first book, but each was even better here. The titular “Liar’s Knot” easily applies to Ren and the numerous secret identities that she is attempting to balance. Through these identities, she has her fingers in numerous pies, with information flowing in from many sources. The challenge, of course, is believably transferring and using this information from one version of herself to another. How would a noble woman be aware of the secrets discovered my a masked vigilante? This all serves to highlight the strengths of not only Ren as a character, but the meticulous plotting done by the authors, to piece together all of these storylines and weave them together so intricately.

Grey, of course, is now particularly interesting after the reveal at the end of the last book that he was the Rook. In the first book, with this knowledge not revealed to the reader, Grey seemed to exist more on the periphery of the story. Here he comes fully into his own, with the readers now given a clear look into the magic and mystery behind the Rook. I really enjoyed the history behind the vigilante and the magic involved in it. Rook is very much a character of his own, and the Grey’s management of his identities is both similar to Ren’s (in that he has to manage who knows what about himself) but is also more magically complex: he must not lose himself to the magic of the hood.

I also really loved the romance that developed between these two. The first book briefly hinted at this as a possibility, but it came more through the Rook than through Grey himself. Instead, Vargo and the late Leato both had more romantic groundwork laid in the first book. But between Vargo’s lies and Leato’s, well, death, Grey/Rook easily stepped into the romantic lead role. And, honestly, I preferred him best in this role anyways, so I was excited to see it play out here! It’s probably no surprise that I loved this part of the story so much. I love one and ONLY ONE version of love triangles and it is the classic “secret identity” Superman/Lois/Clark version. And here we had excellent example of this sort of love story at its best, with Ren falling for both Grey and the Rook at the same time. But, importantly, while the authors took full advantage of this set up, they also knew when to give up the ghost and allow secrets to be revealed.

I also really enjoyed that we got to see more from Vargo. He becomes almost a third main character in this book, with a lot more POV chapters devoted to his perspective. He’s an interesting counterbalance to Ren and Grey and it was great learning more about his history (and that of Peabody!). That said, my one quibble with the story came down to a few character motivation moments, and one of the most stark was with Vargo. While I really like the direction this character took, I’m not sure I saw enough in the first book or this one to make sense of Vargo’s decisions? While he and Ren got along well enough, the rather extreme levels of devotion he takes for her, even while their relationship is really poor here due to his lies in the previous book, is a bit hard to buy.

In a similar vein, in the first book I really appreciated the morally grey motivations behind Ren’s con. It made sense for a character with a background like hers. However, this book introduces a magical elements that, while great on its own, seems to muddy the waters with regards to the grey aspects of Ren’s character. Like I said, I enjoy the direction the story is going with the greater conflict here, but I think Ren was a more interesting character when her motivations and decision making were more questionable. She’s already near perfect in many ways, so making her too much of your typical perfectly-motivated heroine can only be a loss.

That said, I loved this book! These last bits about characterization were truly minor quibbles and even often ended up leading into or introducing aspects of the ongoing story that I’m incredibly excited for. I’ll definitely be checking out the next book soon! You know, in the next few months, not years like last time…

Rating 9: Full of twisting secrets and layered lore, this book is even bigger and better than the first!

Reader’s Advisory:

“The Liar’s Knot” can be found on these Goodreads lists: High Fantasy Written by Women and Renaissance and Tudor Fantasy.