Firstborn – Michelle West

“Firstborn” was worth reading. That’s true of most of Michelle West’s (or Michelle Sagara’s) writing. But it wasn’t necessary to the story. At the end of book 5, Jewel has taken the Oracle’s test and is ready to seek the Winter Queen. At the end of book 6, Jewel is almost ready to seek the Winter Queen. The intervening 600 pages consist mostly of character studies. We learn a good deal about the characters through their interactions and discussions. (More of the latter, unfortunately.) But after three thousand pages of this story, we know the characters we care about fairly well - and don’t really welcome the opportunity to learn more about hitherto-peripheral characters.

If you’re still reading this series after this many volumes, you’ll welcome the appearance of this book and you’ll likely enjoy it. I did. But I’d rather have seen the end of this story edited down to one book’s length - with the considerable talent that went into the extra book going into the next story.