Blog Tour | The Ikessar Falcon by K.S. Villoso Review

Header (The Ikessar Falcon)

And it’s my stop for The Ikessar Falcon blog tour! A huge thank you to Caffeine Book Tours for including me and to the publishers for the gifted review copy. The Wolf of Oren-Yaro was one of my favorite reads this year and I was so excited to read the sequel. I have some thoughts on this amazing (yet painful?) read!

#DethroneTheDragonlord

The Ikessar Falcon

Author: K.S. Villoso / Publication date: September 24, 2020

★★★★

The Ikessar Falcon (2020)

The Bitch Queen returns in The Ikessar Falcon, the action-packed sequel to K. S. Villoso’s acclaimed fantasy debut, The Wolf of Oren-Yaro.

Abandoned by her people, Queen Talyien’s quest takes a turn for the worse as she stumbles upon a plot deeper and more sinister than she could have ever imagined, one that will displace her king and see her son dead. The road home beckons, strewn with a tangled web of deceit and unimaginable horrors – creatures from the dark, mad dragons and men with hearts hungry for power.

To save her land, Talyien must confront the myth others have built around her: Warlord Yeshin’s daughter, symbol of peace, warrior and queen and everything she could never be.

The price for failure is steep. Her friends are few. And a nation carved by a murderer can only be destined for war.

Publisher: Orbit Books / Genres: Adult, Fantasy

Amazon / B&N / Book Depository / IndieBound / Goodreads

Review

Where does one even begin with this review? The Wolf of Oren-Yaro was one of my favorite reads this year and ever since I finished it I’ve been thinking about what would happen next. The moment I started The Ikessar Falcon I was swept right into the story again. I’ve read only a few adult fantasy books but this one is one of my favorites. You feel hooked from the very start. I couldn’t put the book down at all, and next thing I knew I had read 300 pages in one day. This is how good K.S. Villoso is at writing.

I loved that there was action from the very beginning. Everything came at the right moment. I’ve never considered myself a fan of political intrigue until this year and this book does that so well. It’s easy to lose interest in these things or feel like you can’t understand them 100% but nothing in this book was like that. I enjoyed the political moments whenever they came. I felt like we were sampled whatever we needed to know at the right moments. I loved the characters here as much as I did in the first book. I thought they faced so much in book one but book two brought a whole new set of challenges.

Queen Talyien deals with so much more in this book. She has to face her fears and decide who she wants to be in the midst of everything that’s happening. There’s a lot of conflict and hurt. She went through so much development in this book and I just love how real she felt. K.S. Villoso also had so much going on for the characters. There were a lot of connections built but we also got to see how messy and conflicted everyone was. I also felt attached to each character in some way. It’s hard to read a book and to actually care about all of them but I did in this one.

Processed with VSCO with c1 preset

I just can’t seem to put into words exactly how I felt about this book because I’m still reeling from the events. I can’t wait for the next book. I’m so scared about what’s going to happen next and I don’t think I’ll have closure until it comes out. The events and the characters are still practically swimming in my head. I don’t think there has been a single moment today where I haven’t thought about them and started recapping.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, if you’re looking for am adult fantasy that will keep you hooked for hours on end then please pick this one up.

About the Author

Author photo (K.S. Villoso)

K.S. Villoso was born in a dank hospital on an afternoon in Albay, Philippines, and things have generally been okay since then. After spending most of her childhood in a slum area in Taguig (where she dodged death-defying traffic, ate questionable food, and fell into open-pit sewers more often than one ought to), she and her family immigrated to Vancouver, Canada, where they spent the better part of two decades trying to chase the North American Dream. She is now living amidst the forest and mountains with her family, children, and dogs in Anmore, BC.

Website / Facebook / Goodreads / Instagram / Twitter