The Ikessar Falcon is the highly anticipated sequel to one of my favourite books, The Wolf of Oren-Yaro. So you can understand I went into this book with pretty high expectations. I can gladly say that this book surpassed my expectations completely. With this sequel The Chronicles of the Bitch Queen solidifies its place as one of my favourite series of all time.

// light spoilers for the first book //
This is a very character-driven series, however, I think this sequel did a better job of balancing plot and character. I’ve realized that some of the events in this series are fairly formulaic but what makes it stand out are its character, namely Talyien, and its world. Talyien has one of the most distinct voices I’ve ever read and even in the books slower moments Talyien’s narration keeps me engaged. The growth Talyien goes through is incredible and interesting to read about. She is no longer the same person that left to find her husband. She is self conscious of her mistakes and shortcomings as a ruler and this book really shows her deal. Another surprise thing I enjoyed in this sequel is Rayyel’s character. We get to see another side of Rayyel and some of his more redeeming qualities. I think Rayyel might be one of my favourite characters because the serious no-nonsense guy that is “softened” after meeting a woman is a pretty common trope and it’s something that Talyien desperately wishes she could have done. In a way, Chronicles of the Bitch Queen is a subtle deconstruction of various fantasy tropes.

Furthmore, The Ikessar Falcon starts off with a recap of the previous book which was extremely helpful and I hope that more sequels include something like this. Although, I think this series could really benefit from some sort of glossary or character directory because the lore of the world is extremely vast and there are many little details that can be hard to keep track of. On that note, the world is greatly expanded on in this sequel. While the first book was mostly set in Zarojo Empire, in this book Talyien is making her journey home to Jin-Sayeng. I really enjoyed seeing Talyien in her home country and navigating the politics as queen. K. S. Villoso excels at building worlds and setting up a scene. The descriptions of all the places Talyien went to are great and immersive without being to wordy.

Overall, The Ikessar Falcon not only improves, but it exceeds its predecessor.

I've been a fan of K. S. Villoso since the days of "Jaeth's Eye", so when I saw this pop up on NetGalley, I just clicked "Request"... and then realised that I had already read this book back in 2018 - my apologies to K. S. Villoso, Orbit, and NetGalley for my over-eager clicking!
The review I wrote just over 2 years ago still stands, so I will let it do my work for me!
"I've loved K.S. Villoso's work since I read "Jaeth's Eye"... and with every subsequent book, the writing gets better and better. BUT: "The Ikessar Falcon" is a step beyond anything I've read before from this author. I usually find the second book in a trilogy a little dull, a little plodding, a little "less" than what has come before or what comes after. Not so with this second instalment of "Chronicles of the Bitch Queen". If this story had been a blanket, you may have just seen my nose peeking out! I was engrossed from the start and had the full spectrum of emotions while reading. Absolutely superb!"

My thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for an advance copy to review. This review is entirely my own, unbiased, opinion.

WHAT JUST HAPPENED. This book is full of pain and I'm just jotting down all my thoughts immediately after finishing so prepare for a review which is basically just me screaming OH MY GOD the whole time. I love adult fantasy for many reasons, but there's a few authors who I adore for one very simple reason: when you think everything is absolutely rock bottom for the characters you love, shit gets even worse. K. Villoso is one of those authors who does so exceptionally well that almost constantly throughout this book I was like okay this is it, we're on the up, come on Talyien, I'm rooting for you! And a page later shit goes to absolute fuck. And I fucking love it.

The Ikessar Falcon is book 2 in the series that started with the incredible The Wolf of Oren-Yaro, which follows the Bitch Queen Talyien as she hunts down her husband who walked out of her life 5 years ago. We left Talyien in Zirano, where her husband Raayel had vowed to kill her son if he proved he wasn't his. He has gone off to hunt down mages to assist him and Talyien is hot on his trail.

The Ikessar Falcon is one of those absolute masterpieces of fantasy, where the ridiculously tense and fast paced plot is just as brilliant as the deeply flawed characters keeping you hooked to the book. The four key players rile me so passionately whether I hate them or love them.
- Talyien is just as powerful a character as we met in the first book, but in this sequel, she's getting desperate. She is such a driven character, who makes deeply hurtful and flawed decisions in the path to save her son. There are moments I wanted to scream at her, dark moments where her actions got so low it's so hard to stay on her side. But this is a desperate woman, one who will stop at anything to save her son who she loves more than anything in the world and even in her darkest hours, I still can't help but admire her and the strength she has to do what's needed, no matter the cost. (And fuck me, the cost is great).
- Khine continues to be the most refreshing beacon of light in this book. In the midst of so much pain and darkenss, Khine shines with such hope and joy and love and his relationship with Talyien continues to be one of my favourite parts of this series.
- Raayel continues to be on my list of most hated book characters, such is the fury he fills me with due to his hypocrisy. And I hated myself to see that I was growing to like him by the end of this book. We get to spend a lot more time with him in this book, and so we see more of his motivations as well as see Talyien deal with her feelings and their history.
- And Agos!! The new addition to my most hated book characters! I so adore books that can rile me up with such love and such hate towards the characters, because it shows me how exceptional that book truly is to cause such uncontrollable passion in me. Alongside Raayel, we also spent lot more time with Agos, we see the deep possessiveness he has of Talyien, the dark cloak of anger he wears and all of that dark violence and love comes to such an incredible climax at the end of the book.

Alongside the characters, we have a whole host of new elements to The Ikessar Falcon to intice us in. We spent a lot more time exploring the agan, with lots of new magical creature and creations for Talyien to run into. The highlight of these for me were the majestic, ferocious dragons who we meet. But I also loved just spending some more time around mages, finding out more about how the agan works. I really loved the blood magic element of this book, which we got more of at the start of the book. It was so dark and caused so much heartbreak. And it was so early in the book!! I was in awe at how Villoso has no fears about fucking up these characters, about putting them through hell and when they think they're finally free, shit gets even worse. I was so shocked at some of the events in the first section of the book because so rarely do you see events THIS traumatic so early in a book. And as much pain as this causes me, I just absolutely love when authors don't hold back and are willing to do the absolute worst to their characters.

Another, slightly more random thing I really noticed in this sequel was the fooooooood. I don't know if I just missed it all in the first book or if it was genuinely more prominent in this one, but oh my god?! All of the food descriptions were incredible?! I was salivating the whole way through. I could not stop imagining this food, it just sounded so unbelievably delicious.

As you can probably tell, I adored this sequel! I love Villoso's ability to completely destroy characters (and readers). I love that she isn't afraid to play with pain, to make her characters really suffer, to take us to that edge of wow actually maybe these people that I love aren't going to win. I love her way of writing such morally grey characters who fill you with either such love or hate (or both, hello Talyien from 80% through the book!!!) The Ikessar Falcon completely fulfilled all I hoped for and SO MUCH more. It also got me out of a reading slump so THANK YOU.

i really loved the setting and the world-building and the author's writing style. she has a way with words that made me couldn't stop reading.

but unfortunately, i'm a character-driven reader if i care about the character then i wouldn't mind if the plot is boring, heck i would enjoy a book even if the character only doing the most boring thing like grocery shopping and taking a walk in the morning. daily boring stuff as long as i like them.

but if not that's what happens with this book. i loathe tali. i couldn't stand her. every time she decides something she always baffled me. how could she repeat her old mistakes? again and again? tbh I'm easy to convince. but i just couldn't understand tali reasoning. therefore i couldn't sympathize with her. and that makes me super sad. i can't enjoy this book as much as i want to. tali annoyed me so much and this book only has one pov so i couldn't escape tali. and the way i feel like the two books focused more on tali's love affairs (?) than everything else made me went ????. especially when one of the characters said, rivers of blood, everywhere u go to tali i was super mad. i want her to grow up emotionally. so I can love her. but it didn't happen.

i read the first book in a day. but this one took me longer than i expected and it saddened me that i need to put this book down before i reached the last page.

Great story, a bit more cerebral than the usual plot-driven fantasy -- because it's character-driven instead! Unfortunately, the main character Tali is the type of character I don't get on with. She's reactive instead of proactive, she has got it tattooed in her mind that good ruling involves having masks and facades but she doesn't even have her house in order.

I need to be able to empathise with a character to find reason to root for them but Tali makes it very, very hard. Girl is a mess but is all about posturing first -- for the good of the nation, apparently.

However, this book is wonderfully written and even with that mess of a character I still somehow couldn't quit on reading. Testament to the author's skills.