Summary
Torrential did the storms become. Torrential shall be the days to come.
Exiled in disgrace and defeat after a vicious coup, Tez seeks an alliance with the militant Lake Tribe. Retaking the Stone Tribe is the key to a unified north in the face of the Invaders’ impending offensive…if she can only stop her allies from warring amongst themselves.
After finally successfully breaching the dense forest barrier dividing north and south, Aritz a Mata wants more. Seeing opportunity and resources in those untouched lands, he is eager to show the Tribes the full might of his forces…and the fear he wields as the Sword of the Savior.
Stripped of everything she held dear, Sen is given the opportunity to start anew among a group of fellow Eclipseborn. But quickly are her loyalties tested as she must choose between those who provided her a home and Tribe yet rejected her all the same, and her newfound kin who would see fit to destroy the Tribes entirely…something they have sought for almost four centuries.
The flames of war approach, and they seek to reduce all memory of the Tribes to nothing more than ash.
Review
The Children of the Black Moon is a brilliant sequel that continues the pattern of emotional devastation set by the first book. In my opinion it improves on everything that made The Bleeding Stone enjoyable, and provides greater depth to the themes, characters, and world. If you are looking for a happy ending, this isn’t the book for you. But if you are prepared to intimately explore characters dealing with a variety of traumas in a fascinating world, then buckle up for a wild ride.
The book picks up immediately following the brutally heart-wrenching conclusion of The Bleeding Stone. Sen is now with a group of fellow eclipse-born, as the name implies they were all born during a lunar eclipse. Because of this they were all shunned and exiled from their respective tribes. I found this group dynamic to be among the most interesting parts of the book. The author uses the eclipseborn to explore oppression in a more nuanced way than in the first book. The colonizers are clearly oppressing the indigenous people, but the different tribes are not immune from similar treatment to each other for a variety of reasons, which they all justify in a myriad of ways. In addition, not everyone responds to oppression in the same way, and even the same outside forces can exert pressure on people in different ways and magnitudes depending on their circumstances. Sen is understandably angry because of the treatment she received from her own tribe members. However, she received a great deal of protection because her father was the chief of her tribe. After first meeting the eclipseborn, she feels like she has finally found her people, those with a shared experience who will accept her for who she is. They also give her more power than she has had and teach her new magic. However, she quickly realizes that they are far more extreme in their views, and she has to decide where to put her loyalty.
Lee also spends a lot of time fleshing out the world in this second novel. In The Bleeding Stone, it largely felt like a copy and paste of the indigenous Americas during colonial times, with the focus largely on just a couple of characters. Here we get much more exploration of the different tribes with their conflicts and customs, as well as the eclipseborn, and even a bit of the colonizers of Ferranda. The time the author spends expanding our understanding of the world is very well spent, it makes the actions of the characters more relatable and I was more heavily invested in the plot because of my understanding of the background and history of the players.
On a related note, the author jumps around timelines in a skillful manner, similar to the first book, with a very cool addition. Two of our new characters are eclipseborn that were born during the previous eclipse, around 400 years prior to the one of Sen’s birth. We have several chapters from their POV as the centuries pass by and they work to undermine the tribes that had rejected and exiled them. I loved these chapters for a variety of reasons, but like most everything that happens in this book, they serve to further develop the characters and justify their actions.
For me this is Lee’s greatest strength. He has a talent not only for writing deeply flawed characters, but in immersing us in their stories so that even when they are doing reprehensible things, we understand why they are behaving this way, and we empathize with them even though we can’t condone their actions. Don’t get me wrong, there are characters that we can hate easily because they are simply jerks. But virtually all of the major players are seriously flawed and make terrible choices, and you can’t help but have some pity or understanding for what led them to make these choices. And of course, in his typical fashion, the author rips your heart out time and time again as you watch events unfold, often as a consequence of the actions of the characters we follow.
The Children of the Black Moon is a truly stunning follow up to a superb debut. It maintains the key elements and feelings that made the first novel so gripping, while improving on them in every way. If you are in the mood for an emotional gut punch, you can’t go wrong with this amazing series.