A worthy companion to Crown Duel, in which Meliara breezes into court and turns everyone on their heads in unexpected ways. I thought the end of Crown Duel was pretty complete, but this sequel definitely brought Mel's story full circle. Also, the edition I read included a sort of epilogue, and several scenes re-told from Shevraeth's perspective.

This series was the first of Smith's that I've read, and I'm excited to find more. ( )

Still don't get it. ( )

Court Duel is the sequel to Crown Duel. The two books were originally written as the same story but split in two by the publisher. That being so, you really should read Crown Duel before picking up a copy of Court Duel.

In Court Duel, Mel stays at court, which she has always disdained and hated due to the things her mother said about it. However, now she has to learn to function within court society. She also wants to discover who would be the best king, and she soon finds that she has a secret admirer.

As you can probably tell from that brief description, Court Duel has a very different feel from it’s predecessor. It’s slower paced, more focused on court intrigue than the frantic escape attempts. I’d hoped that the change in tone would get me to like this book more than Crown Duel. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. I didn’t dislike Court Duel, but I remain apathetic towards this duology.

I didn’t find the story line of Court Duel interesting at all. It’s abundantly obvious that Shevraeth will be a good king, and there’s never any real conflict on that front. When things finally do happen, it feels like everything’s crammed in at the end.

It was also very obvious who Mel’s secret admirer is, although she’s clueless of course. Still, I’m wondering if this book’s appeal was supposed to lie in the romance? I’m rarely interested in that sort of story, so it’d be no surprise that this wasn’t the book for me. At least the romance wasn’t angsty or annoying. I just didn’t care much about it.

On the bright side, I do think the world got a bit more fleshed out. There were little cultural details like how kneeling at low tables was more common than sitting in chairs at high ones. I’ve also noticed that the culture seems pretty gender egalitarian, with women being able to serve in the army or rule without any questions being asked.

Court Duel was also very readable, which is the main thing it has going for it. Still, I don’t think this is a series I’ll ever be recommending or planning on coming back to.

Originally posted on The Illustrated Page. ( )

Could have been a little bit more tightly written plot-wise but again, I quite enjoyed it. ( )

Court Duel is better than its predecessor, [b:Crown Duel|596307|Crown Duel (Crown & Court, #1)|Sherwood Smith|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1328047915s/596307.jpg|16196263], though it shares some of the same flaws. The story is a harmless young adult adventure, though it focuses more on court politics than I might have wished. On the pedantic front: the language is sometimes careless - several times, there are variants of "he had bade her to ...", where "bidden" would have been correct. But generally, it's a readable light fantasy.

More of a concern, even in a YA novel, are substantial flaws in court behaviour. For example, the kingdom lacks a ruler throughout virtually the entire book, yet no one seems very concerned. The book makes the occasional stab at depicting budding democracy, but it's essentially a hereditary, feudalistic system through and through. In a fantasy, that would be no problem if the author embraced it. Here, Sherwood seems to want to pretend everyone's happy with the arrangement. Yet our protagonist, Mel, who we understand to be at one with the common people despite her formal rank, shows no compunction about spending what must be vast amounts of money to have artisans brought from other countries, all to throw a party. Money originally deprived from brutal repression and excess, but ... that was before.

The plot itself is fairly straightforward - court politics, unexpected romance - and no great surprise to anyone but Mel. I'm not certain it was mean to be, but watching her not know what's what over the course of two books did get a bit tedious.

Overall, a decent read, but not one to go out of your way for, and possibly not meaningful to anyone who hasn't read the first book, which I can't recommend. ( )