The Crown and the Sword

Expecting a rather good book, I was doomed to disappointment. It's not that the book isn't good, on the contrary, it is quite fine, I Just didnt like what happened. Every good charachter either dies or turns bad. Jaymes became a cruel cold man with hardly any feelings, Selinda appears four times and in two of those she's lovesick for Jaymes by a magic potion. Coryn is great, but is so sad, because she loves Jaymes and has to make him marry Selinda for the good of Solmannia. ******BIG SPOILER AHEAD****** Sulfie and Pete both die in explosions of the new weapon. Dram has married the daughter of Swig (There is a mistake here as before she was called Pilsy and now her name is Sally) but something is wrong with their marriage, and we dont know what!!! Selinda still doesn't know that her father murdered Lorimar. The two bright spots were the Duchess Brianna, wife of the late Lord Rathskell, who was brave and beautiful and wise, unlike her portrayal in the first book, but even she got killed when they broke the siege on Solanthus!!!!! The other bright spot was a kender (finally Niles remembers to put one in!!!) the same kender that brought Coryn from icewall to palanthas, Moptop Bristlebrow who gave many points of joy to the book. To my mind, there were also too many battles. Not only that but each battle has at least 10,000 men on either side! It was a bit too much for me. The good part was the new Kingfishers, knights who know clerical magic and a bit of white magic. ##***(BIG SPOILER AHEAD)***## The book ended with Selinda discovering that she had been tricked into marrying Jaymes by a magic potion Coryn made for that purpose. Selinda confronts him but we never get his answer and the end is Selinda's question: "What treachery, what trick did you play? What did you do to me?