Proud Pada

I have just finished the third installment of the Last Lumenian series. The Proud Pada is such an amazing continuation of this series. We spend most of our story on yet another planet and that forces our cast of characters to develop even further. I love this story because we go back to a more politically driven story and it is perfectly balanced with magic and fantasy. Something that S.G. manages to do really well is make each story stand alone. Now obviously these books are meant to be read in order, in the series. But her ability to weave recaps into her narrative makes it easy to pick up the series at any point. As always we will be doing this with and without spoilers.

WITHOUT SPOILERS

This book takes a completely different angle, instead of trials and tribulations this book is more of a mystery. It focuses on our crew trying to find a killer and a kidnapper. This immediately ties into both the last book and the overarching plot of the series.

The nature of this story also brings in new characters that help shape the depth of this world. We get a better idea of the inner workings of how this planet and its government works. Rhona gets a lot of character development and I think that she might end up being an antagonist for Lilla, or at the very least an obstacle.

The other thing that I love about how S.G. writes the development of these characters is that she uses the setting and story to grow Lilla’s magic in a completely natural way.

SPOILERS

Callum’s brothers are attacked and killed by some Acerbus infused technology. Caderyn is kidnapped and the team has to find him before the brainiacs and other citizens find out. A civil war is bubbling and the guardian goddess Laoise is amassing great power in an attempt to usurp the Arch Goddess of Light and Order.

I do still think that Lilla and Callum’s relationship feels a little thin but it's such a small part of the actual story that it doesn’t throw things off that much. I would like to eventually explore the idea of her and Arrov, I think it would be interesting. There seems to be some kind of slow burn romance happening with Belthair and Ivy, which is a weird pairing in my opinion but they are both kind of arrogant and irritating so I guess it works.

Glenna seems to be closer and closer to being turned and Ragnald is doing his best to keep her corruption at bay. Glenna and Lilla are now separated and I am feeling some romantic vibes between those two as well. Hopefully she will find some healing with the Academia of Mages. That would mean that she has to get over some pretty extreme childhood trauma in order to heal herself.

Overall I think the books are brilliant, I can’t wait to dive into the fourth one and see what S.G. Blaise is cooking up next. There is going to be a huge announcement at comic con and I am ready to see what she has in store for this world and her characters. These books were all cranked out in a very short period of time so I am hoping for the next installment of the series soon as well. Proud Pada was a great addition to an already established world. The epilogue did a great job of setting up the next book and they are so well pieced together. I don’t believe that we have covered a lot of time, it seems that these first three books have taken place over the span of a couple of months.