Forged in Blood by K. F. Breene

Forged in Fire by K. F. Breene is a short story prequel to the Warrior Chronicles series.

I recommend you skip this prequel, but then pick it up after you've read Invasion. It was Okay. I'm not sure I would have benefited from it much if I read it as a prequel. Perhaps that is a memory issue with me. Most of the characters in the prequel except Shanti aren't significant at least until Hunted.

The Goodreads blurb says:

Before Shanti was the most wanted woman in the land, she had yet to master her sword and the potent Gift with which she was both blessed and cursed. But the threat won't rest, and her people may pay the price.

The short story takes place when Shanti was still a child. A time after a Graygaul attack which devastated their village but before the time Shanti and her people are entirely decimated by the Graygual.

I think the joy of this book isn't as a prequel. It is actually kind of a dud as prequel. But it is a jewel if you've read Chosen and Hunted, and perhaps even after Shadow Lands and Invasion.

I think if you wait and read it after Invasion, it serves better as a flashback that gives some insight into why Shanti's childhood peers were so precious to her. I suspect I would have forgotten anything significant in the prequel by the time the characters are mentioned in the prequel show up in the series.

Read on Friday, September 13, 2019.

See my Goodreads reviews here.