Soul of the Sword by Julie Kagawa (Shadow of Fox #2)

About the Book- Soul of the Sword

One thousand years ago, a wish was made to the Harbinger of Change and a sword of rage and lightning was forged. Kamigoroshi. The Godslayer. It had one task: to seal away the powerful demon Hakaimono.

Now he has broken free.

Kitsune shapeshifter Yumeko has one task: to take her piece of the ancient and powerful scroll to the Steel Feather temple in order to prevent the summoning of the Harbinger of Change, the great Kami Dragon who will grant one wish to whomever holds the Scroll of a Thousand Prayers. But she has a new enemy now. The demon Hakaimono, who for centuries was trapped in a cursed sword, has escaped and possessed the boy she thought would protect her, Kage Tatsumi of the Shadow Clan.

Hakaimono has done the unthinkable and joined forces with the Master of Demons in order to break the curse of the sword and set himself free. To overthrow the empire and cover the land in darkness, they need one thing: the Scroll of a Thousand Prayers. As the paths of Yumeko and the possessed Tatsumi cross once again, the entire empire will be thrown into chaos.

Our Review of Soul of the Sword

Maybe it was the timing, maybe it was a bad case of a reading slump, Maybe the book was way too heavy for me or maybe it was the combination of all of these that didn’t make me a fan of this book. Even in the case of the first book, it had taken me a while to settle down with the book. Although once I had got into the crux of it, I was able to enjoy the book and in fact, had looked forward to continuing the series. Somehow, this time even after spending quite a while with the book, it just wasn’t working for me. Soul of the sword quite didn’t work out for me.

When I had picked up the book, Shadow of the fox, the first book in the series, despite countering some issues, the second half was magical and amazing. So I did expect the book to pick up gradually and it did, but it still couldn’t grab my attention. One of the issues with the book that I faced was the obvious lack of knowledge of the culture. As in the terminologies especially of the various supernatural forces and their basic nature and folklores. The book uses them quite a lot and without much context sometimes it is a jigsaw puzzle. This was an issue that I found in the first book too. Then again the story was on a different level that it didn’t matter much at that time. There was so much happening in the first book that nothing mattered.

In the second book, I think, that is the issue. There isn’t much happening except for the inner monologues and struggles. I think it dominated a lot of the volume of the book that I missed any action towards the major plot. So because there were so many monologues and references to folklore without explanation or hint to their basic context, the struggle became real. (Can I please say it was boring 😰) There was so much text but no exciting event developments except for here and there but then that too comes and goes like a little wave. Comes in quick and goes away washing everything in the blink of an eye.

Maybe you need a different approach for the book or maybe I shouldn’t have picked the book when I was already suffering from a reading slump with chaos over the pandemic surrounding all around. I wish I could say that the book ended with a little spark for the sequel but it is not the case as I am not very excited to continue the series 😢

Conclusion

So in conclusion, I would say that the book is voluminous without much excitement. I felt that the second book may be acting the part of filler or perhaps just focusing on the multitude of the characters. Because it felt like each character had got a lot of space to deal with their inner monologues. Since I couldn’t see a worthwhile story progression except for the tiny bit towards the end which too hadn’t fully shaped to kickstart, this book wasn’t the one for me. 

 Well now that I think about it 🤔, maybe that’s why the book is called the soul of the sword, as practically everyone was baring their soul in this book.

Squirrel Rating