The second book of the Vellhor Saga benefits in plot clarity from the characters converging in two plot lines, and continues nicely, but still has many issues with the writing itself. Despite that, I was drawn enough into the story.

The first book introduced a world with quite a wide cast of characters, but the length and the set-up of each of them made the story feel a bit scattered. The end of book one had many of those characters converge in some way, and for book two, they pretty much merge into two plot lines.

The first major plot line deals with the human assassin Ruiha, the former chieftain Dakarai with the remains of his clan, and Magnus with a small group of dwarves as the remainder of an elite unit. These characters ended up captured and fighting in an area for the amusement of a sadistic chieftain. This plot is a mix of simple struggle for survival with a bit of escape planning and, eventually, execution that has its fair share of perils. It shows a cooperation between races that are usually at odds with each other, born of necessity. This then focuses on the dwarven side of the plot and dealing with the usurper.

The second plot line follows the elf Anwyn, the dwarves Karl and Gunnar, and the human mage Kemp as they undergo training that is supposed to magnify their strengths through rigorous trials to emerge stronger and become stalwart protectors of their world. This happens in a strange realm out of their world. During one of their challenges, they’re interrupted by a shaman serving the abovementioned sadist, trying to gain relics to bring back a violent god.

And while the threat is thwarted – for now, I guess – they need to escape back to Vellhor to avoid being crushed by the collapse of the tower where the last fight was fought, thus bringing all the characters to one place.

The story itself managed to draw me in and while there aren’t nearly as many formatting issues or typos as in the first book, the writing is still in a shape that could use further revisions. The worst part is way too frequent repeating of the same terms or phrases, sometimes even in back-to-back paragraphs.

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Read date: 3.-15.3.2025
Published: 28.7.2024
Goodreads/Amazon rating: 4,25/4,3
My rating: 70%
Length: 440 pages
My highlights

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Similar to the first book, I’m a bit conflicted about continuing the series. The plot has potential, but the repetitions in the writing are getting a bit too obvious and distracting and, it seems, by a quick glance on the reviews of book three, that it’s an ongoing issue.