The Blinding Knife is Book #2 of The Lightbringer series
Introduction
Gavin Guile is the Prism, the leader of the Seven Satrapies. Prisms only live for seven years before the build-up of drafting luxin by the magic of chromaturgy forces them to die. Gavin has seven great purposes that he wants to complete before he dies. His problem is that he is losing the ability to draft colors, starting with blue, and he only has about one year left to live. In addition, the Color Prince has raised an army in Tyrea and is threatening to invade Atash. He must complete his seven great purposes and defeat the Color Prince or the whole foundation of the Seven Satrapies will fall.
Summary
The main characters are back from the first book of the series which was called the Black Prism. Gavin has taken the refugees from Garriston to an island. He leaves Corvan Danavis to lead them. Kip is Gavin’s bastard son, who becomes a Blackguard trainee. Gavin’s former fiancé Karris White Oak protects Gavin as a member of the Blackguards. Liv Davavis, Corvan’s daughter, is a member of the Color Prince’s army. Gavin’s prisoner has broken out of one cell only to be trapped in another cell. Gunner, a pirate captain, is added to the view point character list.
Gavin is the main character. He faces many trials. Prisms can draft all colors, but he is losing his ability to draft colors starting with blue. One of the Prism’s jobs is to keep the colors in balance. Keeping the colors in balance eliminates the appearance of colored banes. Gavin has lost blue and must defeat a blue bane, which can cause destruction if not stopped. Gavin’s father Andross is a member of the Prism’s advisory group. Andross is the Red member of the group and he tries to undermine Gavin’s position and get him to marry a woman Gavin does not love for political gain. Kip is almost as important to the plot as Gavin. Andross does not like having a bastard grandson and seeks to cause Kip to fail at his training in the Blackguards. Gavin, Kip, Karris, Andross, Liv, and the Color Prince are at odds in the climactic battle at the end of this novel.
Recommendation
I enjoyed this novel almost as much as the Black Prism. It does not suffer the issues of most middle books in a series, because it reads like a section of the greater work called the Lightbringer. Story lines are concluded and spun off into greater story lines. I only have a couple of nits to pick. It feels like the chapters with Gunner as the viewpoint character were tacked on. The author had a plot point at the end of this novel involving Gunner and he dropped Gunner’s chapters along the way. It should have felt more part of the narrative to be more believable. The other thing that I did not find believable was the resolution of the prisoner’s plot. I think there is something more here and it was resolved too quickly in this novel. I did like Gavin’s transformation, Kip growing character, the reveal of the Color Prince’s true identity, the addition of Kip’s buddy Teia who is another Blackguard trainee, and the use of the Blinding Knife as an important instrument of concluding this novel.