"The Invasion of the Tearling" by Erika Johansen

This was probably the most surprising read of the year so far. The Invasion of the Tearling is the second book in a trilogy (or maybe series). The first one was The Queen of the Tearling. It is a fantasy series with a very unique world. The events of the book take place far in the future but the setting is very medieval. The first book did not elaborate much on the history of the Tearling, how it came to be and why the society regressed so much.  This was partially the reason why I was not impressed with the first book and even had doubts about continuing with the series. You can see my lukewarm review of book 1 here.

The second book exceeded all of my expectations and I am now officially a huge fan of the series. Book 2 continues to follow Queen Kelsea as she deals with the Mort invasion of her kingdom and struggles to find a way to keep her people safe. She also starts developing the magic powers we initially got a glimpse of in the first book. She begins having flashbacks to the distant past (which for us is set in the earth's dystopian future). We learn much more about the history of what happened in North America before people fled to the Tearling. I actually found those flashbacks even more interesting than the Tearling's present.

Overall, the story got much more complex in book 2. The world and the characters are much more fleshed out and the history of the world and background of the characters brought much needed depth to the narrative. I also really enjoyed Johansen's writing. It is nuanced without being boring and engaging enough to move the story along at a nice pace. I ranked this installment at 5 out of 5 stars and will definitely be reading book 3.