I started reading the Witcher books in 2017 and 2018 after playing the wonderful video games that take place after the franchise. This is the fourth book in the Witcher franchise, but is the second novel that picks up from the Blood of Eleves. The first two books consist of short stories which build up the world of the Witcher. Compared the previous Witcher books, there’s a lot more political turmoil and plotting, and much less monster hunting.

It was really cool to see many new characters who are familiar in the video games being introduced in this book, but I think if I hadn’t played the games and been familiar with the world, it would have been difficult to know who rules what kingdom and why each kingdom hates one another. This book wasn’t as good as Blood of Elves (Book 1) or Baptism of Fire (Book 3), but it still builds a great world with lots of political scheming.