Intrigues review

[alobear]

It was back to Mercedes Lackey for my audio entertainment this week, with Intrigues, Book Two in the Collegium series.  This series has all the appeal of myriad other school-based series (though the central trio of two boys and one girl, and the introduction of a weird sport the hero excels at reminded me a little too much of Harry Potter in places), with the added bonus of being set in one of my favourite fantasy worlds - Valdemar.  The plot was a bit scattershot, with too many strands that dropped in and out and didn't hang together very well.  It also had a Lackey trademark - ridiculously over the top adolescent melodrama - for a spell towards the end, which I'm less enamoured of now that I'm well into my thirties.  Still, a really good narrator made up for that, along with mostly likeable characters and enough of the title's intrigue to keep me guessing.  There are still several mysteries left unsolved for the third in the series, and I shall certainly be purchasing it in one format or another when it eventually appears.