The Shining City by Kate Forsyth (5/5 stars)

This is the second book in the trilogy Rhiannon's Ride. This book was full of much more intrigue than the first book (it takes place at the Royal Court). There is not much action in the first half of the book; this change of pace does not make the series suffer though, I actually though this book was even better than the first one.

Rhiannon, Lewen and crew show up in Lucescere and things turn out as awful as Rhiannon thought they would. Rhiannon is thrown into prison while her friends try to comfort her and plead with the Righ for her to have a more lenient sentence. Meanwhile darker things are afoot than Rhiannon's trial. The kingdom is being thrown topsy turvy by dark magic and events are drawing together to create the most dire situation possible.

This book was much darker than the first. There was much more time spent with court intrigue than with adventure; yet the court intrigue was very well done. You can really feel the despair of the characters. At times I was angry that so many bad things were happening to the character; just the fact that the author makes you feel so upset for the characters is a testament to the quality of this book. It is an amazing book. It never once got boring and I was pulled through the book unable to put it down at the end.

Once again my only complaint would be that the book ends with a number of issues being resolved. Basically it ends mid-story and if I had not had the next book I would be grinding my teeth in frustration. My recommendation would be to make sure you have the third book before reading the second one. A great series, I will definitely take a look at the first series Kate Forsyth wrote.