A Mostly Spoiler Free Review
Closer to the Heart was honestly a lot of fun. Most of the book was dedicated to Mags and Amily building up their spy network, which was pretty gratifying at times. The plot involving Menmellithians was semi-interesting and probably would have been more-so if the solution hadn't just been dropped into Mags and Amily's laps. More on that later. But yeah, overall, Closer to the Heart was fun.
I like the addition of Tuck and Linden to Mags' Haven group. Tuck was a nice way to get "traditional" spy gear into Mags and Amily's hands. It does sort of bring up my question about who's going to inherit this expanded Valdemaran CIA once Tuck, Mags, and Amily step down or die or whatever. I'm sure that'll be addressed in later books, but it is kind of lurking in the back of my mind. I'm sure this sort of thing is passed from King's Own to King's Own, but that's definitely complicated by the way things are usually passed down, what with the Herald in question having to die and all... and vague remembrances of Talia not having a network in The Heralds of Valdemar but, yeah... Anyway. We got a more expanded spy network through Lord Jorthun and Lady Dia as well, now taking on female spy recruits. I found this portion of the book quite fun.
The Attlebury section of the story seemed mostly to serve as a juxtaposition of Mags' time at Cole Pieter's mine vs a properly run mine. There was also that little bit of information they gleaned about "General Thallan," buried in there. That sort of thing also showed how much seemingly unrelated work spies have to do to actually get at the information they might need... and the Kirball match was fun. They usually are and this one served to get a bit of action into an otherwise mostly plodding plot.
That brings me to the final bit of the Closer to the Heart story in which Mercedes Lackey had Mags and Amily kidnapped again... and lamp-shades it. This seems to be a habit with the Mags books: story mostly goes along with no issues and then BAM wrap it up suddenly. This isn't exactly a bad thing, but it's getting really repetitive. Mags and Amily have things pretty easy this time around, especially due to their "traditional spy tools" all hidden in their clothing and the timely momentary return of Healer Coburn. This part also had me rolling my eyes at "General Thallan" through his whole monologue to Mags. I mean, really, the man went classic with the villain monologue and had clearly never actually given a thought to how mind-magic might fit into his plans involving the Heralds and Companions. Just... ugh.
But yeah, overall, I had fun with Closer to the Heart. Very glad that Mags and Amily are finally hitched, it was bleedingly obvious that was going to happen pretty early on in their relationship. Aaand yeah, next up's the conclusion to The Herald Spy series and I'm really hoping it's a good one.
Favorite Line
"...when you treat your workers well, they not only work well for you, but their children and children’s children will want to work for you." - Tiercel Rolmer
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