She proves herself to be incredibly competent in battle, a person who can fend for herself and who doesn't want to put anyone else in danger. While there's still not a whole ton of assassin action, Sybella instead finds herself having to apply her convent-learned skills on the battlefield, so never fear. A lot of readers, myself included, felt that Grave Mercy dragged too much, with too little assassinating for these ninja assassin nuns. She has a pretty tragic past, and while the whole trope of 'very damaged young lady learns to be a stone cold bad-ass and also later finds love' is kind of annoying and repetitive in fiction, it's one we're still drawn to as readers, because who doesn't love a good triumph-over-adversity-and-evil story? The more you learn about Sybella's past and the people who hurt her so badly when she was young, the more you're rooting for her to succeed and for justice to be served.ĭark Triumph felt much more action-packed than the previous book. So it was a little weird at first to be reading a story with a main character that we know, but still know little about.įortunately, Sybella's comes out in bits and pieces, as key parts of her past are actually major plot points that are revealed as appropriate. That said, since the story picks up in the middle of the plot action, we don't initially get much backstory on Sybella. The beginning of Dark Triumph overlaps with the end of Grave Mercy, and while I remembered the gist of what happened, I'd forgotten many of the details, major players, etc., so I had to play a bit of catch-up at the beginning. This second installment in the trilogy focuses on Sybella, though Ismae makes a few appearances.įirst off, to anyone picking up this book, I'd highly recommend taking the time to re-read Grave Mercy first, or at least skim the last several chapters of it. While I had somewhat mixed feelings about that book, I still enjoyed it overall and wanted to read more set in that universe, particularly about Sybella and Annith, the other two girls who befriend Ismae when she arrives at the convent. So Dark Triumph was definitely one of my most anticipated books of 2013, and it didn't disappoint! Dark Triumph is the follow-up to Grave Mercy, which was one of the first books that I read and blogged about here.

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