In the third book in the Demon Cycle series, interspersed with flashbacks of Inavera’s life which let us see what’s already happened from a perspective that I couldn’t care less about, The Daylight War sees us treading water a little in the run-up to the eventual face off between humanity and the demons that stalk the land.
Ahmann Jardir is partway through his conquest of the west and still has Leesha and Rojer as his ‘guests’ at Everam’s Bounty. While Jardir tries to convince Leesha to become his millionth wife, he also takes the opportunity to get Rojer matrimonied up to a couple of his daughters, an arrangement Rojer is slightly more happy about due to their lovely singing voices matching his violin so well when it comes to spellbinding demons.
Meanwhile, Arlen has gotten hitched to the now completely feral Renna, who’s feeling left out now that Arlen can disintegrate and so sets about eating as many demons as she can in order to power up.
Facing the Waning, a thirty day period before the war is truly supposed to start, Deliverer’s Hollow is setting about training as many people as they can in the art of demon killing. But all that could be for nought, as the two people capable of leading humanity to victory – the now nigh invincible Arlen and Jardir – are intent on completing a fatal pissing contest over who is the most special boy in all the land.
While I still enjoyed this entry in the series, all of the political machinations and manoeuvring of characters to get them into the right place for the final smackdown started to wear a little thin. And the literal cliffhanger that this book finished with just made me weary of our two special soldiers, who both need their heads kicked in if you ask me.
Familiarity seems to be breeding a little too much contempt in me at this point in the series, so I’ll be taking a break to make me more eager for the final stretch.